Sitting in a Car

‘How do you teach your kid not to touch their vulva or bum in public

without body shaming them?’

What a great question!

It’s so useful for all of us who want to raise a child who is not ashamed of their body.

Lots of us know from personal experience that when we feel shame about our body,

it disempowers us.

It makes it harder to speak up for what we need.

It makes it harder to ask for help if something doesn't feel right.

It even makes it harder to ask for medical attention when we need it.

So there are so many great reasons why we want to avoid body shame for our kids.

How can we help our kids understand that there are rules about how and when we touch our own bodies,

without body shaming them?

To hear more about how to have these conversations about bodies,

and about how to raise kids without shame,

have a look at Sitting in a Car this week

x Sarah

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

‘Should you talk to your 6-year-old about pleasure?

And if so,

how should you do it?’

The parent who wrote in with this question also said,

‘I can talk about procreation, but I can’t jump to pleasure!

What do I do now?’

This is such a great conversation to have!

Because, if you think about it,

we are so careful, and spend so much time, learning how to talk to our kids

about sperms and eggs and how we make new humans.

But… most sex that humans have, is because sex feels nice!

It’s not to make new babies.

So how on earth do we talk about that?

For more thoughts about this fascinating and complex topic,

about why we should talk about pleasure with our kids starting from when they’re very small,

and scripts and ideas for how to do it,

have a have a listen to this week’s episode.

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

‘I’m a trans dad and I want to be able to talk to my girls about sex in all its forms.

How can I approach chats about non-traditional relationships?’

There are three things to think about, when you’re having chats like this with your kids.

It’s so important to teach our kids that they don’t have to fit into a mould,

and be who the world tells them they should be!

And that they can just be fully themselves.

And indeed, doesn’t the world tell us quite narrow, quite fixed things sometimes

about what s=e=x is,

and what gender is, and what relationships are?

But of course we know that the options for who we grow up to be is so much wider and wonderful than that.

So if we can chat with our kids about how the world teaches us very limiting ideas about relationships,

we can help them to grow into whomever they are.

And for much more about exactly how to have chats with your kids

in ways that leave loads of room for our kids’ uniqueness and the amazing diversity of life,

listen to this week’s episode of Sitting in a Car.

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

This week, let’s talk about

how to avoid passing on shame to our kid(s).

And I’m going to show you how the Evolved Family method does exactly that with it’s three pillars,

Growth, Courage, and Kindness.

Because the whole Evolved Family method is about reducing shame.

The best way I know to reduce shame,

is by building deeper connections with our kids.

And the way we do that,

is by having conversations with our kids about sensitive things.

Connection is about openness.

Connection is about feeling seen & heard.

When we feel connected w someone else,

shame doesn’t exist there.

So! Press play and watch this week’s episode of Sitting in a Car, cos it’s a special one.

And if you’d like to know more about Growth, Courage and Kindness, and the Evolved Family method,

reply to this email and I’ll let you know the next time The Evolve School opens its doors.

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

Let's chat about boundaries.

A parent who wrote in, has an over-enthusiastic kid

Who loves to hug and embrace and touch all the time!

And this parent’s not fully comfortable with this,

but of course doesn’t want to shame her child.

This is a super question.

My answer comes from the courage pillar of the Evolved Family method,

which looks at the skills we need to step up and speak out about super sensitive topics.

A situation like this is a great opportunity

to teach our kid about consent.

So often, when we think about consent,

we think about teaching our kid to speak up for themselves,

and how to say no when they need to say no.

But another really important part of consent,

is learning to listen to other people’s needs.

If you want to learn more about that,

visit www.sarahsproule.com/evolve and put your name down

to find out when The Evolve School opens next.

In the meantime, to hear much more about how to hold gentle but firm boundaries without shame,

and how to help our kids get what they need,

spend some time with me on this week’s episode of Sitting in a Car x

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

This week, a parent asks,

‘How do I respond to things I hear my kid say that I don’t agree with?’

This is a great question,

because on the one hand, we want to raise kids whose values are in line with ours.

But on the other hand, we don’t want our kid to feel we’re constantly telling them

that what they believe is wrong!

So what can we do?

This is a super-juicy topic

and this week’s episode gives you loads of real-world tips on how to have these conversations.

By the way, you may be starting to realise

that gaining higher level skills like these is becoming a priority for you. Your kids are growing older

and you want your skills to be rock-solid.

If that sounds like you,

visit www.sarahsproule.com/evolve

and leave me your info.

That way I can let you know the next time I open The Evolve School –

so you'll be able to learn everything you need to know

about how to have these sorts of conversations and build more connection with your growing kid.

Sarah x

This episode is a gentle reminder about this past question on Sitting in a Car and how my answer can support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family but you’ve forgotten about in the swirl of family life x

‘How can I get my 5-year-old daughter to stop touching her little brother’s penis,  without shaming her? I’ve said that his penis is private, like her vulva is for her. But she keeps doing it.’  What a great question.   As parents, it’s good to talk about this.  Because when stuff like this happens with our kids,  we immediately think about horrible news stories of abuse and non-consent, and our minds go to some very scary places. So we really want to get this right.  But here’s the thing.   It’s actually NORMAL for kids to be curious about bodies.  Their own bodies and other people’s.   To hear more about this great question,  have a look at our video here. x Sarah  Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

I have a fantastic question for you this week.

A parent writes,

‘How can I teach my 15-year-old daughter to say no

when she’s in highly pressurised situations?’

My answer to this week’s question comes from the Courage pillar inside the Evolved Family Method –

which helps us speak up about complicated things,

using everyday situations

in a way that builds deeper connection with our child(ren) as we do it.

This is a super question because so many parents really don’t feel great about this bit of parenting.

In the teenage years, we can feel a bit like our kid has drifted apart from us.

We might feel our influence waning.

We could feel a bit out of control, out of our depth.

We might find ourselves saying things like, ‘You know you can always say no, right?’

And watching our teenager roll their eyes and say, ‘I KNOW.’

And it's not a convo that feels very connected or very good.

In fact, it’s MOST unhelpful!

So what can we do about it?

If you feel like you could use some support for this part of your parenting and to hear all about how to teach your teen to say ‘No’ more easily, join me on this week’s episode of Sitting in a Car.

I’ll see you there

x Sarah

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

‘What’s a good way to manage nakedness in family situations, both for parents & kids’

What a great thing to chat about!

But before we get into it, I want to reminisce a bit.

We are so influenced by the culture we’re raised in.

Depending on the country where you are living, there will be different levels of nakedness that seem normal.

But we also get to create our own family culture,

we can think about this stuff and decide for ourselves how we want to be with our bodies,

and how we want our family to be.

Isn’t that great?

To hear more about nakedness, listen to this week's episode of Sitting in a Car. Let’s chat about being nude.

Ps. This is a gentle reminder of how to support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family, but you’ve forgotten about it in the swirl of family life x

Let’s chat about the hidden questions you mightn’t even know to ask,

that will give you more connected conversations with your kids.

These questions come from the Courage pillar of the Evolved Family method,

which is all about connection – and empathy.

You may be surprised to learn (or not!)

that the key to a lot of the questions we parents find the hardest to answer,

is empathy.

So let’s talk about the emotions and thoughts that go unsaid

when we’re having sensitive conversations with our kids –

and how we can use those hidden questions, no matter how scary,

to create a more connected family.

If you feel like you could use some more support to build deeper connections with your kid(s), join me on this week’s episode of Sitting in a Car.

x Sarah

This episode is a gentle reminder about this past question on Sitting in a Car and how my answer can support even more connection between you and your growing kid. Because sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the things you wanted to talk about in your family but you’ve forgotten about in the swirl of family life x