Growing Pains

You can smell it before you see it. The haze is back in Singapore, and this year is the worst since 2015.

Schools have moved children indoors. Parents are buying air purifiers, and wondering whether they’re doing it right. The group chats are full of advice, and nobody agrees.

We sit down with two guests who each know half the story. Journalist Robin Hicks has spent more than 20 years following palm oil and deforestation, and he has names, some of them Singaporean. Dr Cheryl Kam is a family physician with firm views on what is already floating around inside your home, haze or no haze.

Who is really responsible? Is your supermarket trolley part of the problem? And why would a doctor worry more about the air inside your house than the air outside?

Press play once the kids are asleep.

About the Robin Hicks

Robin Hicks is the former Associate Editor of Eco-Business, with more than 20 years in sustainability journalism across Asia Pacific. He specialises in palm oil, deforestation and Southeast Asia’s energy transition, and he has a zoology degree from the University of Bristol. He also volunteers as a wildlife rescuer with ACRES Singapore.

Connect with Robin on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/robinjahicks

About the Dr Cheryl Kam

Dr Cheryl Kam is a family physician with a special interest in using nutrients to heal women in various stages of burnout. She is the founder and formulator of the clean supplement company Matrē. In this episode, she explains what the haze does to our bodies and what to do about it at home.

Connect with Dr Cheryl Kam:

Website: https://www.drcherylkam.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/drcherylkam/

Matrē Supplements: https://www.wearematre.com/

• Why the person who lit the match may not be the one who left the land ready to burn
• Which Singapore-listed companies are under scrutiny this year, and which banks are now being asked questions
• The ingredient in about half your supermarket trolley, and why swapping it out could make things worse
• What a doctor says is sitting in your living room right now (and has been for years)
• The daily routine one doctor does with her windows, and why keeping everything shut may backfire
• The food rule a nutrition-obsessed doctor refuses to enforce with her own kids
• Why Robin says we should stop pointing at Indonesia

00:00 Is the Haze Harming Your Family More Than You Think?

00:59 Why the Haze Keeps Coming Back to Singapore

02:14 What’s Actually Burning — and Why It Matters to You

04:55 Why This Haze Season Feels So Much Worse

07:03 Who’s Really Responsible for the Air You’re Breathing?

18:10 How to Shop Without Funding the Haze Problem

20:15 Should You Avoid Palm Oil? The Answer Isn’t That Simple

24:18 What PM2.5 Is Actually Doing Inside Your Body

30:59 The Best Way to Protect Your Family at Home

36:57 What to Feed Kids When You’re Worried About Pollution

45:41 How to Reduce Toxins Without Becoming an Anxious Parent

50:54 The Haze Rules Our Experts Actually Follow

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia’s podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore’s podcast studio.

What if the hardest part of disciplining your child is you?

Parent educator Kim DeMarchi has spent more than 30 years working with families, training thousands of parents around the world in positive discipline. Her first question has nothing to do with tantrums, consequences or bedtime. She asks, “who do you want walking through your door when your child is 25?”

Like all parents of young children, we want to know what to do when your child refuses to listen, throws the toy and finds every button you have. Kim answers with a live role play that goes wrong in a very familiar way, a four-step formula she once stuck on Post-it notes around her house, and a story about a bedtime threat she regretted.

Why does “good job” get a raised eyebrow? Why does a consequence need to make sense? And why might letting your child fail be one of the most loving things you do?

Can you raise kids without shouting, shaming or going fully permissive? Press play.

Kim DeMarchi is a certified parent educator and family coach with over 30 years of experience in education. She has trained thousands of families across 30 countries, produced close to 100 parenting podcasts and appeared regularly on US television. She has flown to Singapore for 17 years to teach positive discipline workshops that consistently sell out.

• Website: https://empoweredparenting.com/
• Passport to Parenting podcast: https://empoweredparenting.com/category/passport-to-parenting/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empoweredparentingwithkim

• The question Kim asks every parent before she talks about discipline at all
• Why your child sometimes needs to borrow something from you, and what happens when you have none to lend
• What your own irritation is trying to tell you about your child
• The one small word that quietly cancels out your empathy
• Why “good job” might be the most expensive two words you say
• The three questions Kim asks before handing out any consequence
• Why letting your child fail might be one of the kindest things you do

IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 Why Your Child Needs You to Stay Calm First

00:57 Meet Kim DeMarchi: 30+ Years of Parenting Wisdom

02:16 Who Do You Want Your Child to Be at 25?

05:37 Gentle, Tiger or Positive Parenting: What Actually Works?

13:52 Your Child Needs to “Borrow Your Calm”

21:37 Why Your Kids Need to See You Make Mistakes

24:41 What “Bad Behaviour” Is Really Trying to Tell You

28:26 The Four-Step Formula for Setting Boundaries

37:49 Are Your Consequences Actually Teaching Anything?

46:03 Why “Good Job” Can Backfire

50:40 Stop Rescuing Your Kids if You Want Them to Be Resilient

52:25 Rapid Fire & Steph’s Biggest Takeaways

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia’s podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore’s podcast studio.

You were told to keep your head down, do good work and wait to be noticed. That may have cost you. Our guest spent ten years inside the rooms where promotions and pay rises get decided. She has bad news about that plan.

Angel Kilian coaches ambitious professionals, many of them mums. One client doubled her income. It did not start with a new skill.

In this episode, Angel talks about money, maternity leave, layoffs, AI and the small matter of being home by six. There is a payslip fact most of us never knew. There is a hiring confession and the rapid-fire round with one phrase you may want to delete from your inbox forever.

Good work was never the problem. Something else is.

Press play before someone else gets the credit.

About the Guest

Angel Kilian is the founder and CEO of Career inFocus, a career consultancy for professionals going after senior roles, promotions and higher pay. She spent a decade leading recruitment teams and sat in the talent reviews where careers get decided. She is a two-time LinkedIn Top Voice.

• Career inFocus: https://www.careerinfocus.co/
• Career inFocus on Instagram: @careerinfocus.co
• Angel on LinkedIn: https://sg.linkedin.com/in/angelkilian
• Career inFocus on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@careerinfocus

What You’ll Take Away

• What actually gets said about you in a room you were never invited to
• The first step a client took to double her income (and why it wasn’t a course)
• What Angel’s CEO told her that changed how she talks about work in progress
• Why asking for more can get a woman labelled “difficult,” and the language that sidesteps it
• The payslip question no Singapore law stops an employer from asking
• The one thing to confirm about your bonus before maternity leave
• Why AI can copy your work but not the thing Angel says to show instead

00:00 Teaser: Why Good Work Isn’t Enough

00:58 Introduction

03:04 What Really Happens in Talent Review Rooms

04:51 The Career Myth: “Do Good Work and You’ll Be Noticed”

09:07 How One Woman Doubled Her Income

11:53 Is It Performance, Perception or the System?

13:45 How to Talk About Your Work Without Bragging

16:51 Stop Waiting Until You’ve Already Won

19:36 How to Be Seen When You’re Not in the Room

20:53 Why Women Struggle to Ask for More

23:44 Stop Letting Your Last Payslip Decide Your Worth

26:53 Maternity Leave, Ambition & Your Earning Power

32:19 Layoffs, AI & Building Career Security

35:32 Career Breaks: How to Own the Gap

40:45 Rapid Fire & Faz’s Top Takeaways

Connect with Growing Pains

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia’s podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore’s podcast studio.

You grew up on ’90s diet culture. And now you are the one setting the tone at your own dinner table.

Black plastic? Non-stick pans? Superfoods?

On this episode of Growing Pains, we speak with accredited nutritionist Charlotte Mei, who says you can have your laksa and eat it. And she’ll tell you how.

Charlotte has spent over a decade in nutrition, and she will tell you exactly what she thinks. Her take: most of what scares us in the kitchen needs more nuance, not panic. Also on the table: weight loss medication and why it keeps turning up at dinner parties, a food safety habit that splits families down the middle, and a story from her teenage years she has never told in public.

If you want your kids to reach for food with joy instead of guilt, press play.

About the Guest

Charlotte Mei is an accredited nutritionist who helps people build a guilt-free relationship with food and their bodies. She is a TEDx speaker, a former radio talk-show presenter and the producer of the nutrition podcast In A Bite. She has run over 250 nutrition literacy workshops, turning nutrition science into everyday tools.

• Instagram: @thecharlottemei
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWpBI-E-LPyphVdLJeiiiPg
• Podcast (In A Bite): https://open.spotify.com/show/3oIJLgAEKavIDMQcUJuRUT
• Services: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/628340695eb0bf7547dd84f6/t/6a632b800309546ad9320142/1784884916031/Charlotte+Mei+-+Media+Kit+-+2026.pdf

What You’ll Take Away

• The one word Charlotte wants retired from every dinner table (and what to say instead)
• Why a nutritionist hid snacks in her bedroom at 15
• The vitamin a standard blood test leaves out (and why sunny Singapore did not save her)
• The two questions to ask before anyone starts weight loss medication
• Why the people who need these drugs are scared of them, and the people who don’t are asking for them
• The kitchen habit half of Singapore swears by, and the nutritionist who begs you to stop
• What to say to a best friend who tells you she is starting next week

00:00 Teaser: Have We Made Healthy Eating Too Complicated?

01:01 Meet Charlotte Mei: The Nutritionist Who Still Eats Cookies

02:18 How Charlotte Turned Food Curiosity Into a Career

04:00 The Childhood That Shaped Her Relationship With Food

05:45 “Give Me 10 Years”: Why She Chose Nutrition

09:08 When Food Became an Act of Rebellion

12:10 Why We Still Want a Snack When We’re Already Full

16:18 How ’90s Diet Culture Messed With Our Relationship With Food

18:17 The “Superfood” Marketing Myth

21:28 Protein Maxing, Supplements & Wellness FOMO

25:29 The Nutrition Advice That Actually Moves the Needle

29:28 Weight Loss Medication: What Nobody Is Saying Out Loud

34:22 Who Gets Access to Weight Loss Drugs — and Who Doesn’t?

37:37 Is Taking Weight Loss Medication “Cheating”?

39:54 How to Raise Kids Without Food Guilt

41:20 Can Food Be Comfort Without Becoming a Problem?

43:47 Is Your “Low-Tox” Kitchen Making You Anxious?

46:21 The Food Safety Mistakes Hiding in Your Kitchen

49:48 Rapid Fire: Milo, Kiwi Skin & Food Rules

50:51 Faz’s Top Three Takeaways

Connect with Growing Pains

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia’s podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore’s podcast studio.

Her wedding portrait appeared on an outdoor stage in Singapore, faces cut out, as a Hari Raya decoration. She never agreed to it. She spoke up, and it became a national story.

Most people saw the headlines. They did not see what came after: the harassment, the smear campaign, the friends who disappeared. Sarah Bagharib has never told that part in full until now.

She has spent her whole life being told which box she belongs in. She grew up wanting to be Malay. On paper, she is filed under “Others.” So what do you do when no box fits? She decided to build her own.

Now a mother of two, she is raising a daughter who asks questions most adults avoid. Some parents have opinions on how Sarah answers them.

Press play for the version of the story the news never ran. It will stay with you long after bedtime.

About the Guest

Sarah Bagharib is a storyteller, TEDx speaker, emcee and coach. She is the founder of women’s platform Crazy Cat and host of the podcast Nusantara Women Conversations. She calls herself a minority within a minority (Arab, Javanese and Minangkabau roots in a Malay-majority community), and she now teaches women to own their stories before anyone else writes them.

Links:

• Instagram: @sarahbagharib
• Crazy Cat: @hellocrazycat
• Nusantara Women Conversations: YouTube, Spotify

What You’ll Take Away

• What a wedding portrait has to do with Hari Raya, and why the answer is the whole problem
• Why the use of her wedding portrait was not the part that hurt most
• The police report she wanted to make, and the reason she never filed it
• What choosing a co-founder for Crazy Cat revealed about what she had absorbed without realising
• The word she would ban from every introduction of her
• What happens to family dinner plans when a seven-year-old runs the “boycott police”
• The question people should stop asking minority women (and what to do instead)

IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 Teaser

01:01 Meet Sarah Bagharib: Storytelling, Identity & Belonging

02:33 What It Means to Be a Minority Within a Minority

02:58 Growing Up Desperate to Belong

03:52 Heritage, Identity & Being Put in the “Others” Box

05:47 Why Do Minorities Get the Qualified Compliment?

07:13 The Wedding Photo That Changed Everything

10:41 What Happened After Sarah Spoke Up

19:01 Building Crazy Cat & Refusing to Stay in One Box

22:12 Why So Many Women Think Their Stories Don’t Matter

23:25 Finding Belonging Through the Nusantara Podcast

27:07 Faith, Palestine & Choosing to Speak Up

31:00 How Sarah Talks to Her Kids About the World

34:19 Motherhood, People-Pleasing & Healing Through Her Daughter

38:25 Rapid Fire: Identity, Labels & What People Should Stop Asking

40:07 Faz’s Top Three Takeaways

Connect with Growing Pains

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia’s podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore’s podcast studio.

Some children walk into a room full of toys and say they don't know how to play.

Lovleen Walia hears it more than you would think. She is a certified Play Therapist in Singapore, using figurines, clay, art, sand trays instead of questions. She gives no instructions. She doesn't interpret, yet children tell her things they have told no one else, which is why friends call her Mary Poppins. (She does not own an umbrella.)

At home, her two girls get close to zero screen time. She calls herself a strict mom. Her friends tell her to let the kids enjoy the movie.

We talk about what she sees when your child plays and you don't, the $200 problem nobody has solved, and a conversation with her own mother that left the studio tearing up.

The next time your child says they are bored, you will want to have heard this first. Hit play.

What You'll Take Away

• What happens when a child walks into a room full of toys and asks what to do
• Why Lovleen never asks a child a single question
• What a child lining up toys in silence might be telling a play therapist
• What Lovleen's daughters say when the film ends (it is not what you would expect)
• The two rules behind a judgment-free play space at home
• The restaurant table game where anything can be anything
• The 10 minutes Lovleen asks every parent to hand over tonight

IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 | Teaser: What Are Screens Taking Away From Our Kids?

00:55 | Meet Lovleen Walia: The “Mary Poppins” of Play Therapy

02:17 | From Reality TV to Mumbai at 20

04:07 | Too Indian, Not Indian Enough: The Casting Struggle

05:17 | The Moment She Realised Children Needed More

06:35 | Play Therapy: When Toys Speak for Children

09:38 | Inside a Play Therapy Room

12:43 | Why Some Children No Longer Know How to Play

13:54 | Stop Entertaining Your Kids

19:31 | The Families Who Can’t Afford Therapy

22:15 | When a Teacher Says Something Is Wrong

25:16 | Strict Parenting Without Fear or Punishment

28:13 | Why She Refuses to Hit or Use Silent Treatment

30:55 | Raising Kids With Almost Zero Screen Time

32:37 | When Your Child Becomes the “Therapist” Friend

34:02 | Grandparents, Boundaries & Picking Your Battles

36:20 | What We Lose When a Mother Tongue Disappears

39:36 | Your Child Isn’t Giving You a Hard Time

41:21 | Faz’s Top Three Takeaways

About the Guest

Lovleen Walia is a certified play therapist in Singapore, one of very few practising a method that uses toys, sand trays and figurines instead of questions. Before therapy, she won Singapore's spot on India's first reality TV show, acted in Mumbai and taught drama to hundreds of children. She is a mother of two girls, teaches Punjabi, and is pushing for play therapy to reach schools and hospitals.

• Website: https://northstartheraplay.com/
• Instagram: @northstar_theraplay

Connect with Growing Pains

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio.

Every clinic in Singapore has a TikTok now. Every influencer has an opinion on your pores. But there is one aesthetic doctor known less for what she sells and more for what she refuses to do.

Dr. Rachel Ho built her name talking women off the ledge, literally saying no to procedures they were sure they wanted. This week she sits down to talk about the treatments millennial women can't stop asking for, the ones she won't touch, and the uncomfortable math behind flying to Seoul for a deal.

We get into what it means when a child asks why mummy's face is bruised, why teenagers in some countries get plastic surgery as a graduation gift, and whether the beauty industry needs the insecurities it claims to fix.

It's a conversation about faces. But really, it's about something else: what we're teaching the next generation to see when they look in the mirror.

Press play before you book anything.

IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 | Teaser: Beauty, Aging & the Pressure to Keep Up

00:44 | Meet Dr. Rachel Ho: The Doctor Behind Skin Longevity

01:53 | Why She Left Surgery for Aesthetic Medicine

02:39 | Does the Beauty Industry Manufacture Insecurity?

04:38 | Sephora Kids, Teen Skincare & Plastic Surgery at 16

08:06 | The Biggest Skincare Trend of 2026

09:31 | Skin Longevity vs Anti-Aging: Is There Really a Difference?

12:02 | How Honest Content Built Trust in Aesthetic Medicine

14:11 | Motherhood, Invisibility & Finding Yourself Again

18:39 | Why She Opened a Clinic in a Saturated Market

19:23 | Medical Tourism: Cheap Treatments & Hidden Red Flags

21:46 | Skin Boosters & What’s Taking Off Across Asia

24:12 | What Every Woman Should Know Before Getting a Treatment

28:29 | Faz’s Top Three Takeaways

• Why the doctor known for treating faces is the one who says no
• The real cost of flying overseas for a "cheaper" treatment
• What Gen Alpha's skincare obsession is really about, and who's paying for it
• The line Dr. Ho won't cross with her own children, even at 16
• What "skin longevity" means once you strip away the marketing
• The one thing a bruised face teaches a child, whether you explain it or not
• How to spot the red flag doctors say most people miss when booking treatments abroad

About the guest

Dr. Rachel Ho is an aesthetic doctor with more than 16 years of clinical experience and the founder of Skin Longevity Clinic. Originally trained in ENT and head and neck surgery, she brings a strong foundation in facial anatomy to an evidence based approach to skin longevity, facial harmony, and natural looking rejuvenation. She is also a long time skincare writer and content creator, known for making aesthetic medicine and skincare science easier to understand.

Connect with Dr. Rachel Ho:

Website: theskinlongevityclinic.com

Instagram: @drrachelho

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio.

At twenty-something, she promised her mother a private jet by the time she turned fifty. Instead, she walked away from a safe accounting career in Malaysia and got on a plane to London with no job, no plan, and a rattling old house by the sea to show for it.

What came next took her through years of IVF, a husband who carried his own grief in silence, and a phone call on Valentine's Day that changed everything overnight.

This week, we sit down with a community builder and COO of Every Child.sg, Aarathi, who has spent almost two decades in Singapore proving that belonging isn't something you're handed. It's something you fight for, cry over, and sometimes build from a single yes.

She talks about the question people ask about her adopted son that she wishes she could ban forever, the one her husband never got asked, and what it actually took to stop feeling like an outsider in a place she now calls home.

If you've ever wondered what it costs to build a family and a life from scratch, twice, this is the conversation.

IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 | Teaser

00:55 | Meet Arathi Arumugam

03:05 | Leaving the Safe Path: From Malaysia to London

08:11 | Finding Purpose and Community Through AWARE

11:48 | When Does a Place Become Home?

15:26 | The IVF Reality: Loss, Control and the Struggle Nobody Saw

26:51 | Choosing Adoption

38:22 | Every Child SG: Rethinking How We Educate and Raise Children

45:23 | The Questions Adoptive Parents Wish People Would Stop Asking

What You’ll Take Away

• The private jet she promised her mother by fifty, and the corporate ladder she walked away from instead
• What it actually felt like to realize her "expat" circle could never really be her people
• The single IVF round that produced an unheard-of number of eggs, done the very week of her 35th birthday
• The moment she finally understood what her husband had been carrying in silence the whole time
• Why one phone call to a stranger, "just find me a baby," led somewhere months later, on Valentine's Day
• The black box exhibition asking parents to confront the exact words they use on their kids
• The one question about adoption she wishes people would stop asking, and the one they never do

About the guest

Aarathi Arumugam is a chartered accountant turned community builder, currently leading EveryChild.sg and serving as president of AWARE. She has lived and worked in Malaysia, the UK, and Singapore, and is the mother of two: a daughter born after multiple rounds of IVF and a son adopted from Malaysia.

Connect with Aarathi:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarathiarumugam/

Every Child SG: Website, Instagram

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio.

Three parenting philosophies just went head to head, live, in front of an audience, and nobody left the stage unscathed.

Gentle parenting says emotions come first. Tiger parenting says the world is hard, so prepare your kid for it. Authoritative parenting says it is the golden mean. But when three experts actually had to defend their corner out loud, the debate went somewhere none of them expected.

Then the characters came off. What these three actually do when a child melts down in public, when a bad morning starts before 7am, or when grief shows up uninvited, looks nothing like their opening statements.

One of them cried in front of her daughter and let her watch. One of them agreed to cane her kids before she had any. One of them has been told by her own mother that she's failing her grandkids.

So which style actually works? Stick around for the answer that surprised even the people debating it.

Marissa Nasution is a psychotherapist, conscious parenting specialist, and school counselor with over a million followers on Instagram. A former TV presenter and mother of two, she champions gentle parenting and works with families on emotional intelligence and co-regulation.

Keep up with Marissa:

• Instagram: @marissaln
• Website: https://www.marissanasution.com/about

Dr. Amrit Kaur is a clinical psychologist with over 15 years of experience across Michigan, New Zealand, and Singapore. She specializes in trauma therapy and advocates for Every Child SG, championing children's wellbeing and protection.

Keep up with Dr. Amrit:

• LinkedIn: @dramritkaur
• Website: https://dramrit.org/

Anabel Chew is co-founder of a Singapore barre studio and of Tiger Moms Club, a former professional musician, and a mother of two who now homeschools her children.

Keep up with Anabel:

• Instagram: @tigermomsclub, @anabel.chew

IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 | The Great Discipline Debate: Finding the Parenting Sweet Spot

01:16 | Meet the Champions: Introducing Our Parenting Panel

04:13 | The Showdown: Defending Gentle, Tiger, and Authoritative Parenting

13:57 | The Final Word: Closing Statements

16:44 | The Verdict: Audience Poll & Dropping the Personas

17:33 | Marissa’s Reality: Co-Regulation and Humanizing the Parent

19:54 | Annabel’s Journey: Intuitive Motherhood Beyond the "Tiger" Label

23:57 | Amrit’s Approach: Parenting the Child in Front of You

27:20 | Peeling the Onion: Equipping Kids With Emotional Vocabulary

30:42 | What the Data Says: Managing Anxiety and Modeling Vulnerability

42:04 | Live Q&A: Opening the Floor to Real Parents

42:23 | Fostering Self-Knowledge and Empowering Kids

45:39 | Bridging the Gap: Navigating Cross-Cultural Clashes

49:42 | Honesty Without the Heavy Lifting: Setting Emotional Boundaries

56:14 | Holding the Line: Natural Consequences and the "Conditional Yes"

57:58 | Loosening the Pressure Cooker: Embracing the "Good Enough" Parent

• Why the "sweet spot" between two extremes might not be as simple as it sounds
• What actually happens in the body of a tiger parent raised by parents who didn't push hard enough
• The one phrase from a Singapore anti-abuse campaign that makes people cry when they hear it back
• Why one guest says gentle parenting is the harder path, not the easier one
• The real reason kids misbehave, according to a school counselor who has heard it from hundreds of them
• A German phrase about dirt that changed how one host thinks about her own upbringing
• What happens when a parent lets a child watch them grieve, and where the line is before it becomes too much

Connect with Growing Pains

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.

Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio

Something Crystal Lim-Lange said about why Singaporeans don't speak up went viral, then landed her a cover story in The Straits Times. It touched a nerve because it wasn't really about confidence. It was about what happens to people who take a risk in a room where risk isn't safe.

She says the same idea shows up at home, in a much smaller room, every time a child throws a tantrum and a parent loses it right back. Crystal has trained over 100,000 professionals, but the work she talks about most now isn't the kind you can put on a resume.

Before any of that, she was a student who got caught stealing food at a recruitment event, and the recruiter who caught her offered her a job on the spot. That accident of a start led to a decade in investment banking, then to a vineyard in rural Australia rebuilding a marriage and a sense of self, then to heading a multimillion dollar initiative at NUS.

In this episode, she gets into what actually happens in the moment a child triggers a parent, and why so much of parenting comes down to a version of ourselves we never fully dealt with. Click play.

About the Crystal Lim-Lange

Crystal Lim-Lange is a bestselling author, LinkedIn Top Voice, and former head of NUS's Centre for Future-Ready Graduates, where she led a multimillion dollar initiative training thousands of students for the future of work. A former investment banker turned personal growth facilitator, she now runs two companies with her husband Greg, delivering leadership and communication training to organisations including Pfizer, Airbus, and LVMH.

Guest links:

• Instagram: @crystallimlange
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/crystal-lim-lange
• YouTube: @comfortandgrowth
• Website: https://www.crystallimlange.com

00:00 | The Conflict Blueprints We Hand Down

00:40 | Welcome to Growing Pains with Crystal Lim-Lange

02:31 | How a Stolen Sausage Roll Launched a Career

07:47 | The Betrayal That Shattered "Having It All"

09:37 | Why a Picture-Perfect Farm Life Felt Empty

12:53 | The Pitch That Transformed University Education

19:42 | The Real Reason You Won't Speak Up at Work

22:36 | The Lonely Reality of Growing Up Gifted

27:34 | Decoding Society's Unspoken Rules

29:01 | Why New Skills Can't Fix Core Wounds

31:57 | The Ghost Kid: Parenting Your Inner Child

35:22 | The 4 Ways We Inherit Family Trauma

38:39 | 7 Years of Therapy in 7 Days

43:12 | The Ultimate Antidote to Paranoid Parenting

44:36 | Takeaways: Stop Rushing the Journey

What You'll Take Away

• Why something Crystal said about Singaporeans staying silent went viral, and ended up in The Straits Times
• What's really happening in the split second your own kid triggers you
• The "little ghost kid" theory Crystal uses to explain why some parenting moments feel so much bigger than they should
• The four categories of reasons anyone stops speaking up, and which one is hardest to fix
• The recruitment-event scam that accidentally launched a career in finance, while she was still a student
• Why a vineyard in rural Australia taught her more about community than a decade in banking did
• Why healing your own patterns might matter more for your kids than anything you actively teach them

Connect with Growing Pains

Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.

YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids

Instagram: @honeykidsasia

Website: honeykidsasia.com

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Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio