Good Kids. Better World.

In the final episode of the season, Robin and Anna discuss the value Love Your Neighbor as Yourself (V’ahavta l’Reacha Kamocha). What sounds like a sweet and easy idea turns out to be a really complicated one. Anna shares a story about taking her family to a local Black Lives Matter march and seeing her neighbors in a new way.

Robin gets a turn to be the guest this episode. She talks about how difficult she found this concept, especially when facing possible threats to her queer family. Anna and Robin share about an especially heated conversation they had around this value, which resulted in yelling and banging on the table. Ultimately, they came to see each other’s perspectives. Robin talks about reframing the idea from the word “love,” which felt very weighted, to “compassion.”

With this new understanding of Love Your Neighbor, Robin and Anna challenge each other to learn more about what people in their own neighborhoods need. Robin commits to meeting her new neighbors and seeing how she can be helpful in welcoming them. Anna commits to talking with her kids about what they’d like to learn more about their neighbors to become more helpful.

In this episode, you will learn about:

how “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself” can be applied as a value

different understandings of the word “love”

Robin’s experience in a queer family that earned its legal status over time

how to find compassion for others

Anna and Robin discuss the value of remembering (zachor) especially when it comes to difficult histories. The episode begins with a story about Robin talking about the Holocaust with her son in preschool. To lighten the mood, Anna challenges Robin with a game of remembering milestones in history.

This episodes guests bring experience teaching difficult histories to to young children. Adina Baseman Sharfstein, a 5th grade public school teacher in Florida, is a Holocaust educator, curriculum writer, and teacher trainer. Heena Mcafferty is a 2nd grade public school teacher.

Guests Heena and Adina share about how they teach their students about the Holocaust and Native American history. They share the importance of balancing what to share with students as well as focusing on what not to teach.

Robin and Anna both make commitments to talk with their children about the Thanksgiving mythology and ensure they know a more accurate history.

In this episode, you will learn about:

how to think of “remembering” as a value

how to discuss difficult history with young children

techniques for teaching children

choosing what to discuss and even more so what not to discuss

books and resources to help talk to children about inclusivity and helping others

Robin and Anna explore the value chesed (loving kindness). Anna shares part of her grandmother’s eulogy, a person she says best embodied the idea of loving kindness. Robin brings a Family-Feud-style game about sweets — guess the top answer!

This episode’s guests are two representatives of Children and Adult Disability and Educational Services (CADES), a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities, and the lives of their families. Jessie Robinson is the Director of Development and Revell Martin is the parent of a CADES student. Jessie shares stories of the impact CADES has had on the individuals it serves, their families, the staff of the organization, and the larger community. Revell shares her experience raising a child with disabilities and feeling the warm loving-kindness of the CADES organization.

Anna and Robin commit to enacting true kindness with their children — not just simple niceness, but truly looking for the kind of care others need.

This episode’s theme is the value charity. Robin tells a story about leading a charity activity for students and realizing she needed to think deeply about the recipients of the charity, not just those doing the act of charity. Anna and Robin discuss the Hebrew word for charity, tzedakah, which shares its root with the word for justice (tzedek), and infer that the value we imbue to our children should be charity that leads to greater justice. Robin brings a game about celebrities known for their charity.

Our Guest, Michelle West, is small business owner and restauranteur. Along with her husband and children, Michelle leverages her restaurant Bittersweet Kitchen in Media, PA, to support her community through many acts of charity and activism. She talks about being careful to avoid white saviorism in her own acts of charity, but especially when engaging her children in those acts. She shares examples of how she has helped the community with her business by hosting political candidate meetings, community education sessions, and delivering more than 1,100 meals to frontline workers during the pandemic. Finally, Michelle talks with Anna and Robin about the humbling experience during the pandemic of becoming a person who was in need of help from her friends and community as her restaurant felt the economic strains of lockdown.

At the end of the episode, Robin commits to using the money she typically spends on Starbucks for one week and contributing to her son’s tzedakah box (charity savings). Anna commits to have an in depth conversation with her daughter about new ideas she has for helping schools with less resources than her own and how to ensure that her charity goes toward what the schools need most. Listeners are encouraged to share their commitments, too, through email, Facebook and Twitter.

Hosts, Robin and Anna, explore the value peace. Anna tells a story about a time she felt peaceful and how she understands from her own story that peace is a fleeting experience, not an achievement. Robin brings a game based on $20,000 Pyramid and they discuss the Hebrew word for peace, “shalom,” which comes from the root for “whole.”

This episode’s guest, Rachel North, is a licensed social worker, a certified yogi, and a mom of two small kids. She also happens to be Robin’s first babysitting charge when she was 2 years old! Rachel talks about mindfulness techniques that can be used with young children, older children, and adults. She also discusses adapting techniques for people with disabilities. During her interview, she affirms Anna and Robin’s earlier conversation about peace and mindfulness as momentary experiences that we seek rather than a singular achievement.

At the end of the episode, Robin reads a comment from a listener about her commitment from the Respect episode. Listeners can submit their comments and share their commitments on Facebook, Twitter, or email. They both commit to finding their own moments of peace — Robin at bedtime and Anna in the mornings before work.

In this bonus mini-episode, Robin and Anna are getting ready to go on vacation, so they decide to use the opportunity to pause and reflect. Instead of using one of the GKBW core values, they use empathy as a theme for the episode.

Anna tells the story of learning to see her son’s needs through his eyes and how that brought them closer together. Robin challenges Anna to a game of guessing some famous “broken” structures and icons.

They both commit to spending time during their vacations to noticing things and people around them, working toward strengthening their empathy muscles.

Robin and Anna explore the value justice (tzedek) and how we can teach this value to kids. Robin tells a personal story of injustice — threatened to pay twice the price on an airplane due to the size of her body. To add a little levity, the hosts play a game called “That’s Not Fair: Court Cast or Preschooler’s Complaint,” in which Robin shares complaints from real people and Anna must guess if it is the complaint of a real-life legal case or a preschooler.

The episode guests are the founders of a the Social Justice Literati Book Club — Smita Sanwardeker and Swati Chaturvedi — along with two book club facilitators — Kelly McClusky and Jackie Matusow.

Founded after the death of George Floyd, the Social Justice Literati brings together kids book clubs to read and discuss age-appropriate books about discrimination and injustice. The book clubs are made up of kids in the same age group and facilitated by an experienced educator. They use literature to think about injustice in the world and ways in which they might make a difference.

At the end of the episode, Anna and Robin commit to helping their own kids notice injustice during the week. The example they give is talking pointing out the abundance of fresh produce at their local grocery store and how many people in the US live in communities where fresh nutritious produce is difficult to find.

It’s time to listen the people this podcast is meant to be all about - kids!

In this episode, Robin and Anna talk about the value of repairing the world (tikkun olam). Robin tells a story about her young son noticing injustice early. Then, Anna challenges Robin to some trivia about “We Are the World.”

The guests for this episode are young friends Hannah (rising 2nd grader) and Kiera (rising 1st grader). Then, Anna and Robin are joined by their own kids Ellie (rising 6th grader) and Asher (rising 7th grader). The kids share their ideas about what needs to be repaired in the world and what they hope the world will look like when they grow up. They also share ideas about how grownups can help them and some examples of what they have done already in their lives to make the world a better place.

As always, the episode ends with a commitment to make some repair. Asher and Ellie join Anna and Robin in making commitments to save energy and eliminate some of the waste they produce.

In this episode, you will learn about:

What Repairing the World is all about

How kids think about repairing the world

Ways that kids can get involved in making the world a better place

Robin and Anna explore the value courage (ometz lev). Usually when we talk about courage, we tell kids that means feeling scared and doing it anyway. But in this episode, Anna and Robin say courage should be about listening to your intuition and being brave in enough to do what’s right even when it goes against the status quo.

Our guest, Mitch Klages-Bombich, identifies as a trans man, father, and husband. During his interview, he openly explains many of his experiences in growing more clarity around his gender identity and eventually transitioning from “butch” to “male.” He talks about how he helps his kids to understand his gender identity and how his wife has played a role in his journey. Mitch is an educator in the New York City public school system and shares stories about some of the bravery he has seen among the students in the schools — from standing up against bullying, advocating for undocumented families, and identifying as nonbinary.

In this episode Robin and Anna explore the value respect (kavod), which requires first that we recognize others as whole human beings. Teaching respect means first modeling it by showing respect to the kids themselves. Our guest is Dr. June Elcock-Messam — pediatrician, teacher, non-profit founder, and child abuse physician — on a personal mission to improve the lives of as many children as she can. Dr. Messam shares recent examples of disrespect and microagressions she experiences as a woman of color. She talks about her work to improve the lives of children through her general pediatrics practice, her work has a board certified child abuse pediatrician, and the founder of Every Child Counts. She explains that the best way to teach children respect and how to stand up for others is demonstrate that for them.