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Our guest today Neha Gupa, is a two time best-selling author, who has built both Elite Private Tutors and College Shortcuts. Our very informative session with her discusses top 3 mistakes you can make while preparing your child for college, how their social and digital presence can affect their future both positively and negatively and much more! Have a listen , it will be so worth your while!

In this weeks Off The Cuff Episode we talk about high parental expectations. Academic expectations, social expectations, extra curricular expectations...do we burden our kids with our aspirations? Are we somewhere secretly hoping that our kids excel in things that we never did as kids? Does the level of parental expectations vary by ethnic groups?

Or should we have parental expectations so that we are able to motivate our kids to do better. Do high parental expectations raise the bar for performance and hence propel them to success.

Listen in as 3 moms sit around the table, sipping tea, discuss their experiences, opinions and hopeful behaviors.

Our "Off The Cuff" girlfriend visiting us today is Dr. Srishti Mehta.

Srishti Mehta, is a mother to 2 beautiful girls. Also an an orthodontist, she graduated with a Masters Degree and Specialty Certificate in Orthodontics from the University of Oklahoma. She has been making beautiful smiles for the last 14 years!  Her practice, INDIGO Orthodontics in located in Richmond, TX which she started in 2016 after moving to the Houston Metro area for her husbands special oncology endeavors at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She loves her family, patients, work family and her job with a passion. Srishti enjoys cooking, working out with her girls, and has made a small confession about being a Netflix addict!

Listen in and send us your feedback or ideas...we are always learning!

FOMO or the “Fear Of Missing Out” is the fear that others elsewhere are having more fun, or that you are missing out on a rewarding experience. It can lead to feelings of anxiety, envy, insecurity, and loneliness. Nowadays, teens quantify their popularity through “likes”, “views”, “friends” and “followers” on social media sites, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter. This can lead to FOMO by making teens feel left out, uncool, and lonely.

Differences in parenting is an area where many couples struggle, and it can lead to divorce or living with resentment when it goes unresolved. Do you think your partner is too strict, not engaged enough, or inconsistent when it comes to parenting? Do you fight about it?

Learn about healthy options to feed the kids.

It is odorless (or may smell like a scented candle), colorless and the device may look like a USB drive! Naturally it goes undetected when our middle schoolers use it in the school hallways! We are talking about Vaping here aka using electronic cigarettes. Yes, our middle schoolers are using it in our own county! We listened in disbelief when Lauren told us how easily available and how dangerous Vaping can be! Have a listen about a topic we know very little about!

We are the first generation of parents who face a unique parenting challenge of monitoring and mentoring  our children’s social media space. While we breed a generation of digital natives .. we find ourselves falling short, not only in keeping up with the latest available in the social media space but also grappling with how to, best educate and mentor our children. Have a listen as four moms discuss and learn from each other about parenting the social media space.

Our amazing mom guests for our Off The Cuff episode are Meenu Midha and Ekta Popat.

Meenu is a Sugar Land resident, mother of two middle-schoolers, passionate about raising global citizens. She is actively involved as a parent in her school district. She's also a successful Marketing Manager with Dell Inc., and is known in her work place as a compassionate leader.

Ekta is a proud mother to a 13 year old girl and a 11 year old boy. She believes that Motherhood has definitely been the hardest and most rewarding job. She has been the Director of operations and She is also the founder and director of the incredible “Storytellers School of Dance”, and enjoys sharing her passion of Indian classical dance with the next generation.

Be sure to tune in to this fantastic episode where we delve deeper into the world of social media surround our kids.

 

A very sensitive topic for most of us. It was interesting and disheartening to discover how each one of us on the show has experienced it. Sometimes as a child, sometimes in their youth and how that has shaped us as parents! Even though body shaming is synonymous with fat shaming there are so many other physical attributes like skin color, height, hair texture... that are judged by society at large! Is there a positive way to deal with body image? What other influences exist outside home- school , social media, friends?

How do we encourage a generation to be comfortable in their skin when they are bombarded with confusing messages all focused on the physical aspect of their personality!

Tune in to hear more about it on our Off The Cuff Episode.

Welcome to the Straight Up parenting podcast “From the experts desk” episode. Our topic today is relevant to most of us parents. Are you a helicopter parent? How do you draw the line between being an involved parent versus being a helicopter parent. Today, we are getting the perspective of our experts. We meet, discuss and understand from those that work with our kids closely. Our school counselors, who give us their professional take on helicopter parenting and why it is so detrimental for a wholesome childhood. With a no bars held conversation, learn why it is ok for your child to get an occasional B or a C…and how conflict resolution is a critical life skill our children may fail to develop!

Our esteemed guests today are Mrs. Mariolga Parra, Ms. Anne Novak and Ms. Sharon Proba. 

Mrs. Mariolga Parra, the Assistant Principal at Commonwealth Elementary School. Mrs. Mariolga Parra has lived in Venezuela and England.  After graduating Cum Laude as a speech therapist she has worked with children in schools for 17 years. She has also worked in an early childhood center as an ESL teacher for a couple of years, that's where she fell in love with teaching.

After relocating to Texas in 2007, she decided to become a full time teacher. She has worked with students from pre-k to 8th grade at a public Charter Schools for seven years, first as a bilingual teacher, then as a special-education teacher, and later serving as the Special Education Director for the Charter. During this period of time, she completed a Master’s Degree in Special Education and a second Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston.

Mrs. Parra has served as the Assistant Principal at Juan Seguin Elementary and helped the school thrive through the hardship suffered after flooding during Harvey. And now we are excited to have her here at Commonwealth Elementary as the Assistant Principal.

Learn more about Public Schools on Ms. Parra's blog -  http://mariolgaparra.blogspot.com/

Our school counselors today are Ms. Anne Novak and Ms. Sharon Proba, they are both Professional School Counselors  at Commonwealth Elementary School and they provide a Comprehensive Developmental Guidance Program and services for all students. 

Hear their professional take on helicopter parenting and why it is so detrimental for a wholesome childhood. With a no bars held conversation, learn why it is ok for your child to get an occasional B or a C…and how conflict resolution is a critical life skill our children may fail to develop. 

Join us on our first "Off The Cuff" episode for a fun and a casual chat … where 3 moms find out on which side of  the parenting spectrum they fall on? Whether requesting for a particular teacher… or tying your 8 yr old’s shoelace make you a helicopter parent.. Find out this and more as we talk with our guest, Preity Bhagia. 

Preity was born and raised in Delhi, worked in Dubai and has now made a home in Houston, where she lives with her husband and two children. She earned a degree in literature at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. She is an entrepreneur by day and a writer/blogger by night. Her two children aged 11 and 8 make sure that her days are filled with laughter, creative problem solving and occasional hair-pulling. She enjoys travel and performing arts.

You can read her blogs at https://medium.com/@preitybhagia