Parenting Understood

With the start of summer, this week we revisit a former episode with Dr. Ashley Fallon in which we discuss the summer slide - in which children, at times, display some loss in skills learned in school the previous year. Dr. Fallon introduces structured and unstructured activities that can be included in your young child’s every day to help stem this potential slide.

Dr. Fallon has her PhD in Early Childhood and Childhood Education from New York University. She is currently the Director of Mansfield Children’s Center. Dr. Fallon can be reached out at [email protected]

This week we speak with Dr. Carly Robinson on ways to help families support children around particularly meaningful moments in education. Dr. Robinson outlines some of her research that has identified common barriers to parental engagement, as well as sources of support. Also as part of our conversation, we discuss the need for transparency in research. A growing but not yet large trend is for studies to pre-register research questions prior to data collection and/or analysis. As we discuss, such practices hold promise in ensuring the dissemination of valid and complete research findings. 

Dr. Robinson is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University’s Annenberg Institute where she works with the National Student Support Accelerator. She is also affiliated with the Social Psychology in Education & the Environment (SPiEE) Lab at Johns Hopkins University and the Student Social Support (S3) R&D Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School. She completed her Ph.D. in Education at Harvard University. While at Harvard, she was awarded the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and was an IES Fellow in the Partnering in Education Research (PIER) program.

Prior to conducting educational research, Dr. Robinson worked as a New York City teacher. She received a B.A. in Psychology from Williams College and a Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. .

For more information on Dr. Robinson and her research please see the links below:

Carly Robinson (carlydrobinson.com) Carly Robinson (@Carly__Robinson) / Twitter

(2) Carly Robinson | LinkedIn

Today we speak about how social media use impacts teens and preteens development and mental health. We discuss the more nuanced research on screen time with this group delving into how screen time alone does not tell the whole story, and the potential risks as well as benefits of social media. Similar to discussions we have had on other types of research, we also delve more into the role of individual differences in the impacts of social media on mood and other outcomes, and the importance of mindfulness around how social media impacts’ oneself and mental well being. Additionally, we discuss limit setting around phone usage and how to engage one’s child in the process. We also touch on Dr Nesi’s current research looking at emotional regulation and phone usage, and the role of social media in our own lives as moms.

Dr. Nesi is an Assistant Professor at Brown University, where she studies how technology use affects teenagers and how parents can help. She got her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Harvard University, and her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Her research has been funded by organizations like the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). She regularly speaks at conferences, trainings, schools, and organizations. To learn more about her please see links below. 

Twitter  |  Google Scholar  |  ResearchGate  |  LinkedIn  |  Researchers@Brown  |  Contact Me

Today, we revisit our previous Episode 20 with Professor Emily Oster in honor of her being named one of Time’s most influential people of 2022. We are so thrilled that Emily is receiving recognition for her important work supporting parents by providing them with information on valid research, evidence based practices and economics-driven decision making.  

In this episode, we speak with Emily about the impetus for her third book, The Family Firm, in which she discusses how to use data driven approaches to parenting school age children. With school age children, at times, there is not as much research available to drive parenting decisions. This can make some of us less at ease as we want to turn to the research for advice on best practices. Emily though lays out a four F framework in terms of thinking about when faced with parenting decisions related to your older school children how you can make thoughtful decisions in the face of what is often very limited data. In our discussion, we delve more into the importance of realistic options and, at times, reconsidering decisions that we have made. Additionally, we discuss the role of values in decision making around parenting.

Emily is a Professor of Economics at Brown University and the author of Expecting Better, Cribsheet, and The Family Firm. She holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard. Prior to being at Brown she was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Emily’s academic work focuses on health economics and statistical methods. She is interested in understanding why consumers do not always make “rational” health choices — why do people not eat a fully healthy diet, or pursue all recommended preventative health behaviors? Her work also concerns methods for learning causal effects from observational data. 

You can find more information on Emily Oster, her books and research, and join her bi-weekly mailing list at emilyoster.net. You can also connect with Emily via Twitter and Instagram @ProfEmilyOster

In this episode, we speak with author Nefertiti Austin about her journey to motherhood as a resource and adoptive parent, and how this journey is reflected in her first non-fiction book, Motherhood So White. As Nefertiti discusses, her experience as a Black, single by choice woman was not reflected in parenting books and other resources. This lack of representation inspired her to add her voice and experience to the literature. Nefertiti also talks about the emotional space of black mothers who face heightened concerns regarding their children’s safety due to race. Lastly, we speak with Nefertiti about her upcoming book around raising neuro diverse children of color.

Nefertiti is an artist and author. In her first non-fiction book, Motherhood So White: A memoir of race, gender and parenting in America Nefertiti writes about the erasure of diverse voices in motherhood. Her work around this topic has appeared in many publications including the "New York Times", "Washington Post", “Huffington Post”, "MUTHA", and “Gen Medium”. Nefertiti is the adoptive mother of two children and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

To learn more about Nefertiti Austin and her writings visit Nefertiti Austin

To learn more about the Back Pocket Essentials, visit: https://www.thrivingtoddler.com/backpocket-essentials

Dr. Cara Goodwin has a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Virginia, a Master’s in Developmental Psychiatry from Cambridge University, a Master’s in Child Psychology from Vanderbilt University, and a PhD in Child Psychology from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed an APA accredited clinical psychology internship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University.  She is currently licensed as a clinical psychologist in the state of Virginia. 

You can learn more about Dr. Goodwin and her work at: Parenting Translator

If you are raising a Toddler and you’d like to learn more about Back Pocket Essentials, visit ThrivingToddler.com. 

Today we are thrilled to be joined by the Childhood Collective. We speak about skills that support children with ADHD, and the importance of providing children with ADHD and their parents information on the neurological underpinnings of ADHD. We also discuss in more depth what an evaluation for ADHD may entail, and the role of schools in supporting children with ADHD and their parents. 

The Childhood Collective was founded by two child psychologists (Lori Long, Ph.D. and Mallory Yee, Ph.D.) and a speech language pathologist (Katie Severson, M.S., CCC-SLP). Lori, Mallory and Katie are three moms who are dedicated to supporting parents of children with ADHD. With over 40 years of combined professional experience, they empower parents by teaching science-backed strategies to raise happy and confident children!

To learn more about the resources and supports available from the Childhood Collective visit:

https://thechildhoodcollective.com

@thechildhoodcollective 

We are delighted today to be joined by Dr. Dale Farran and to discuss the results from a recent study of hers and colleagues, which has followed for over a decade 2,990 low-income children in Tennessee who applied to free, public prekindergarten programs. Some of the children were admitted by lottery, and the others were not, creating a “real world” randomized, controlled trial, which is the gold standard in science to show causality. Recent results show that children enrolled in the public pre-k were scoring lower than their peers in the control group on state tests of Math, English and Science in sixth grade. Furthermore, at sixth grade, they were more likely to have experienced an expulsion or suspension than their peers not enrolled in a public pre-k. But as we discuss there is much nuance and complexity to this research that must be considered when considering the results and how they can inform policy and practice.

Dr. Dale Farran is an Emerita Professor at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Farran has been involved in research and intervention for high-risk children and youth for all of her professional career. She has conducted research at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., and the Kamehameha Schools Early Education Project in Hawaii. Dr. Farran is the editor of two books dealing with risk and poverty, the author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters, and a regular presenter at national conferences. Her recent research emphasis is on evaluating the effectiveness of alternative preschool curricula for preparing children from low-income families to transition successfully to school and longitudinal follow up for long term effects. Currently she is directing an evaluation of the State of Tennessee’s prekindergarten program. Most recently, she has been involved in identifying early childhood classroom practices most facilitative of children’s outcomes, including coaching tools to improve practice.

You can learn more about Dr. Farran  and her work at:

https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/dale-farran

To learn more about the Parenting Understood email series on Pre-School please be sure to visit and join our mailing list at: https://parentingunderstood.com/

We are thrilled today to be joined for the second of our two part episode with Dr. Jenna Elgin and Dr. Shanna Alvarez of Helping Families Thrive to continue our discussion of attachment and social learning. We also explore how parents can shift through information found on social media and Instagram to make best judgments for themselves and their families.

For more information on Dr. Elgin and Dr. Alvarez, please visit their website: https://helpingfamiliesthrive.com/ and their Instagram account @helpingfamiliesthrive

We are thrilled today to be joined for the first of a two part episode with Dr. Jenna Elgin and Dr. Shanna Alvarez of Helping Families Thrive to discuss attachment theory and science. There is a lot of information (often contradicting) regarding attachment that leads parents to feel confused, conflicted, or even guilty in their parenting styles. Dr. Elgin and Dr. Alvarez will speak with us on how to shift through all this information. 

For more information on Dr. Elgin and Dr. Alvarez, please visit their website: https://helpingfamiliesthrive.com/ and their Instagram account @helpingfamiliesthrive

For more information on Thriving Toddler’s Backpocket Essentials program, please visit:

https://www.thrivingtoddler.com/backpocket-essentials