Whole-Hearted Parenting: How to Use Emotional Intelligence to Create More Peace, Collaboration and Joy with Joshua Freedman, CEO of 6seconds.org.

Aired Thursday, 25 February 2016, 7:00 PM ET

Parenting is a delight—except when it’s not! We’ve all experienced those moments of “emotional idiocy” when we over-react or miss important clues… How can we be more intelligent with our own emotions and our children’s? And how can we teach them the essential skills to be more aware, intentional and purposeful?

It is no secret; parents are more stressed out than ever before as the demands of two-parent working families, single parent working families and the complex social environments test even the steadiest of parents. Through a series of personal essays and examples, this practical and inspiring new book shows how parents can use the time-tested methods of emotional intelligence to navigate the strong emotional waters of parenthood. This book is less an advice manual and more of a helpful companion and friendly storyteller for parents seeking a better way to raise their children.

About the Guest Joshua Freedman

Joshua Freedman is the author of five books about using emotional intelligence at work, school and in life, including the international best-seller, At the Heart of Leadership: How to Get Results with Emotional Intelligence. Freedman was born in Berkeley, California and attended the Head-Royce School in Oakland. After a stint at the University of Toronto, he graduated from the World Arts and Culture program at UCLA and went on to work at the Nueva Learning Center in California in the early 1990s. While there he worked with the emotional intelligence focused “Self Science” curriculum developed at the school. Now Freedman leads the world’s largest network of emotional intelligence practitioners and researchers.

Six Seconds has offices and representatives in over 25 countries. Freedman has coauthored six validated psychometric assessments for adults, children, businesses and schools, and trained thousands of professionals to use these methods to create positive change. Joshua Freedman is one of a handful of experts in the world with over a decade of full-time experience in the emerging field of EQ.

Website: www.6seconds.org

So, you’ve committed to raising your family in a healthy, holistic manner. You go out of your way to source the best and healthiest organic foods, you’re careful about what you expose them to, but how can you be sure that all your efforts are not being compromised by EMF’s, toxic contaminants, mold, and other things in your home that could undo all your good work and put your family at risk?

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

All children are afraid of the dark some time, and some children are more afraid than others. Michelle Cohen has designed a simple yet effective protocol based on decades of experience working with concerned families whose children suffer from unexplained terrors. Actually, There is Something Under the Bed is her book created to empower children and parents alike. Through easy to follow and fun exercises, the family learns together that they have more command than they realized in any creepy circumstance. Michelle emphasizes that it doesn’t matter if what scares children is real or imagined; the bottom line is—something is causing fear, so tackle that. In this show, Michelle will explain how to help a frightened child share his or her experience, and offers several constructive ways to find power and control over the situation. She will also share s how children as well as adults can get rid of any unwanted energy in their environment.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

There’s no denying that we are living in an unsettled and chaotic time in which there is very little good news to be found in the world’s media. With weird weather, geopolitical shake-ups, financial recessions and a mass movement of people displaced by wars, violence, and extreme weather conditions, how do we help our children understand and cope with the many changes that are at hand? How do we keep them from becoming fearful and stressed? What strategies, tools and resources can we offer them to help them remain centered and calm?

This week’s show will be more experiential than most, as Sonja will be providing some powerful meditations and exercises for parents and for children to help manage the stressful situations that are a by-product of chaotic times.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

As a parent, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by all of the conflicting parenting advice tossed around by various experts. Are you supposed to praise your children, or will that make them narcissistic? Do you involve yourself in playtime, or let them figure it out on their own? In the end, it’s easy to get caught up in the “right” ways of parenting, and completely forget what our goals are for our children.

In response to this phenomenon, child psychotherapist Katie Hurley wrote THE HAPPY KID HANDBOOK: How to Raise Joyful Children in a Stressful World. In this simple yet insightful guide, Hurley gives parents what they want most: a straightforward approach that produces happy children and sane adults. Noting the differences between extroverts, introverts, and everything in between, Hurley urges parents to respond to the child as an individual and tailor their approach according to the particular needs of the child. In THE HAPPY KID HANDBOOK, she helps parents to:

* Understand their child’s personality and temperament
* Discover how to best engage and empathize with each child
* Help each personality type build social skills, understand emotions, and empathize with others
* Know when and how to praise their child
* Decide what or how many activities to schedule, and when to let their child quit

These and other actionable strategies help parents raise confident, capable – and most of all – happy kids. Simplifying what has become way too complicated and confusing, THE HAPPY KID HANDBOOK helps parents learn to use their instincts and meet their children exactly where they are.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

For parents, a child’s adolescent years can be intimidating, confusing and anxiety-ridden. The behavioral changes that take place during this period can strain even the strongest parent/child relationships, leaving both sides frustrated and begging a fundamental question – why do teens act this way?

This week, renowned neuro psychiatrist and bestselling author of Parenting from the Inside Out and The Whole-Brain Child, DANIEL J. SIEGEL, M.D., joins Sandie to discuss his newest book BRAINSTORM: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (Tarcher/Penguin paperback), which reveals how parents can crack this code and transform one of life’s most challenging periods into one of its most rewarding Topics discusses will include:

* Popular myths about teenage behavior
* How brain development affects teenage behavior and relationships
* Why teens are driven to seek out novelty and take more risks
* How the brain undergoes rapid changes, even throughout one’s early 20s (i.e., your rebellious “teen” years don’t end when you hit 20)
* How adolescence is truly a “Golden Age” of innovation and creativity

If you’ve ever been frustrated, exasperated and mystified by an adolescent’s behavior, find guide to transforming one of life’s most challenging periods into one of its most rewarding, BRAINSTORM is essential reading for everyone who wants to better understand the teens in their lives.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

Growing up – It’s a fact of life that every woman has had to face, and yet, for some reason, many women still find it difficult to talk to their daughters about anything that goes on below the female belt. Sadly, our awkwardness about addressing such a sensitive subject has resulted in many girls suffering for years in silence with such issues as urinary tract infections, digestive problems, and bladder leakage. According to this week’s guest, jeni Donatelli Ihm, once potty training ends, parents have largely ignored the need for further education in these areas until menstruation begins…and not enough even after that. A consequence of this appalling lack of information about how to care for their pelvic area has left young girls at risk of inadvertently creating problems in their later years. Problems such as pelvic pain, bladder leakage, and organ prolapse are often associated with—and accepted as part of—the aging process, when, in fact, these often devastating health issues are almost always preventable.

In her book, BELOW THE BELT: HOW TO BE QUEEN OF YOUR PELVIC REGION, this week’s guest Jeni Dontalli Ihm and her co-author Missy Lavender address everything that can happen below a girl’s belt with a perfect blend of humor, tenderness and reality. Produced by the Women’s Health Foundation to dispel shame and myths, quiet fears and generate conversations, BELOW THE BELT frankly covers everything from peeing, pooping and pelvic floor muscles to periods and exercise, and addresses how great it is to be female.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

Homeopathy is a safe and effective system of medicine that helps the body’s own efforts to heal itself by dosing it with minute ‘potentised’ quantities of a plant, mineral or animal by-product capable in its undiluted state of creating similar symptoms to those a child or adult may be experiencing. Homeopathy offers a safe, natural solution for seasonal and everyday complaints such as headaches, tiredness, sleeplessness, backache, skin rashes, small cuts, grazes or bruises, coughs, colds, as well as some long-term chronic conditions.

homeopath Mary English joins Sandie to discuss how homeopathic remedies can provide an important part of your family’s medicine chest, and which remedies are best to keep you and your children healthy through the winter.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

William Stillman offers a holistic perspective to parenting, together with tips and strategies for caring for one’s self in order to be in the best position to care for one’s child with a unique and different way of being in the world. This asks for an awareness of being in the moment as well as pausing for meditative reflection, sustenance and solitude. An exercise for the second half of the show will require that listeners have a pad of paper and pen ready and available for a brief autism simulation. An opportunity to process the simulation and discuss its impact may be debriefed.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom

As parents, we all want to be inspired, conscious, patient, and supportive. But while most of us can be some these things some of the time, it’s getting harder and harder to be all these things all of the time. The fact is more parents are feeling exhausted and disconnected from their kids than ever before. Why? Parenting today really isn’t the same as it was for our parents and grandparents. We live in a different time, and in a vastly different society where the expectations, stresses, and distractions for both parents and children are greater than they have ever been. If you’re looking for answers to ending conflict at home, and tips, tools and strategies to discipline consciously, communicate effectively, and transform your relationship with your children forever, join Suzi Lula and Sandie for this lively, informative, and empowering edition of the Inspired Parenting Radio Show.

Listen Live to Inspired Parenting Radio Show every Thursday at 7 PM ET on OMTimes Radio, the iOM Radio Network, http://omtimes.com/iom