"We can't wait for our kids to do something wrong to teach our children what is right." - Dr. Gustavo Carlos 

Nature versus nurture.  It’s a concept we often discuss as parents in relation to how our children act or eventually turn out.  How much do our parenting practices actually influence our children? Enough of the hearsay.  Let’s look at the science.

Dr. Gustavo Carlo studies these concepts and I am so excited to talk to him about his scientific findings. Dr. Carlo is a professor at the University of Missouri’s Human Development and Family Science department.  He also a father himself. 

He has spent his career studying the development of morality in children and how children develop pro-social behaviors.  For example, what causes a child to be kind, be respectful and be nice to others?  He identifies the biological reasons and also the parent’s roles for these developments.  In other words he scientifically sorts out the roles of nature versus nurture in raising great human beings.

If you would like a free cheat sheet to this conversation - please visit www.parentingjournal.org/pages/6. That’s for episode 6 and there you can see the podcast notes for this episode, learn more about Dr. Carlo and his publications,  and also download a free guide to help you help your child become human being who is kind, respectful and nice to others. 

In this episode we cover:

• the risk factor in toddlers that can cause aggressive, delinquent, immoral behaviors when these children are 10 years old and older
• the risk factors that parents engage with parenting their toddlers that can cause aggressive, delinquent, immoral behaviors when these children are 10 years old and older  
• how parents can set their children up for success in developing pro-social and moral behaviors
• why reinforcing positive behavior is so much more effective than criticising negative behavior
• why let your child (and yourself) cool down before teaching how to manage behaviors and regulate emotions
• why the way you yourself were raised is not necessarily the best teacher 
• why it's important to use social praise to reinforce positive behavior and not material rewards
• Dr. Carol's advice to parents expecting a child 
• and much much more....

Dr. Carlo's books:

• New book on Ethnic/Racial Minorities in Rural U.S.: http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319209753

• New book on Prosocial Behaviors: https://amzn.com/0190499060

Read more on Dr. Carlo here.

Will you go out with me? Will you marry me? Do you want to have kids? The questions we ask each other have the power to change the course of our lives forever.  Today I am super excited to talk to the world renowned Frank Sesno about the power of questions and how we can use questions to better communicate with our children and be better parents.  Frank Sesno is an Emmy award winning journalist with a career spanning over 3 decades.  For over 20 years, he was the White House correspondent, anchor, and Washington Bureau Chief for CNN.  He is now Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and author of the best selling book, Ask More - the power of questions to open doors, uncover solutions and spark change. Former colleague Anderson Cooper says of the book “Ask More is an essential guide to asking questions in a way that can better achieve your goals.”

Frank and his wife Kathy have 3 children - Matt, Chris and Emily.   IN our discussion we draw upon Frank’s experience as a father and an expert questioner to figure out how we can use questions to communicate better with our children and ultimately, be better parents.  I hope you enjoy our talk as much as we did. 

You can read more about Frank and his wonderful book "Ask More" on his site www.franksesno.com  

In this episode we cover:

• The best questions to ask your children at the dinner table.
• How to use empathy questions to nurture your relationship with your child.
• How making an "appointment" with your child can help you manage your own emotions when talking with him. 
• The biggest mistakes we make when "listening" to our children and how to be a better listener
• How to use echo questions and other bridging questions to get your child to talk more
• And much, much more....

Work and parenting balance.  It’s a concept with which families struggle everywhere yet concrete, actionable advice that works to promote your career and at the same time is optimal for your family and for your children is elusive.  

Often we receive generic, unhelpful and frankly detrimental advice like “it’s not easy”, “reset your career goals” or “try telecommuting” and this advice is so unhelpful that we keep asking - is it possible to have it all?

Well Daisy Dowling says yes.  She has actionable advice on the work and parenting balance parenting balance that she has determined after putting a scientific approach to the situation.  She has over a decade of experience working with real parents and real work and parenting situations in the most high pressure financial environments to figure out and implement what works. Daisy is a mom of 2 young children and lives in New York City.  

In this episode we cover:

• How to achieve balance between work and parenting
• 3 of the biggest mistakes working parents make that prevents them from achieving balance
• How to talk to your superiors about career goals
• How to frame your work to superiors so you position yourself to be promoted (and not punished in the workplace for being a parent)
• The best resources for working parents
• and much, much more

More on Daisy Dowling

HBR articles

How To Handle Work When Your Child Is Sick

7 Ways Working Parents Can Simultaneously Improve Their Careers, Their Families and Themselves

When You Are Leaving Your Job Because Of Your Kids

Balancing Parenting And Work Stress: A Guide

And more here

Daisy is Founder and CEO of Workparent, a specialty consulting firm that provides practical, commercial advice and solutions to working parents and to organizations that employ them. (For ideas on how your company can support working parents, take a look at my recent HBR article: https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-best-ways-your-organization-can-support-working-parents). She is an executive, advisor, author, teacher, and speaker who has focused my career on helping organizations drive commercial results through their people, and on helping individuals succeed at and advance within high-performance environments. 

"The ability to feed our offspring is one of the most fundamental human skills, one of the things that makes us human" - Dr. Maya Adam

Today I am super excited to sit down with Dr. Maya Adam.  Maya is a doctor with Stanford’s school of medicine where she specializes in Child health. 

She is revolutionizing the education industry by making her teachings on child health both free and engaging. 

Her first free online course was Stanford’s Child Nutrition and Cooking course - this is the course in which I first encountered Maya. This course has now had over 500,000 people take it around the world.

In addition, Maya has a non-profit Just Cook For Kids 

that creates and shares educational videos on healthy eating and cooking for families. Before attending medical school, Maya was a professional ballet dancer tor ten years at the State Theater of Saxony in Germany.

Maya is a mother of 3 children, ages 12, 9 and 7 years of age.  She is currently spending a year in South Africa with her family where she is pioneering an initiative to educate mothers on child nutrition by utilizing community health workers ( a network of women who are part of the community and visit expecting mothers and families during the postpartum period to do health checks at their home) and giving these community health workers  armed with Samsung tablets full of engaging and entertaining videos on maternal nutrition and child health and nutrition to combat maternal and infant mortality and help these children lead healthier lives.

In this podcast we cover:

• The biggest mistake we make when thinking about cooking healthily for our family
• How to make cooking healthily easy
• How to make cooking healthily quick
• How to make cooking healthily cheap
• The key principles of making a nutritious meal
• The best resources for parents to teach themselves about cooking healthily
• Why "it's better to be real than perfect" (Maya's mother's advice)
• and much much more...

Enjoy!

An interview with Dawn Dais.

Dawn is mother of 2, a bestselling author and comedian.  

Her latest book is The Overly Honest Baby Book, which makes an excellent gift for a parent to be.  It's a play on the usual baby books that record first steps, first laughs etc.  This book covers that too - but also hilarious realities like "The Last Time Mommy Showered 2 Days in A Row" or "The First Time We Had A Meal At A Restaurant That Did Not Result in PTSD."

In this episode, we cover:

• How comedy can make arduous parenting better
• How we can use comedy to teach our children to deal with social situations
• Dawn's advice to new parents
• The good, the bad and the ugly of social media
• Why not to compare yourself to your friend's Pintrest board
• and so much more...

You can download on iTunes here

In this episode we talk to Matt Heinz, dad of three young children and marketing and sales guru.  He's a best selling author and listed on numbers top 50 lists of the most influential marketers in the United States.

We discuss:

1. How his marketing expertise set him up to be a good parent (empathy)
2. His key principles for being a better parent - (1) Empathy and Affection and (2) Spending Quality Time With Each Child Each Day (10 minutes) 
3. Real life after bringing home his first baby
4. His favorite children's books
5. His go to activities with his children
6. How we can escape some parenting marketing traps
7. How to make homemade bacon....!
8. And more...!
9. Listen now. 

Read the article at www.parentingjournal.org

See more about Matt Heinz at Heinz Marketing

Check out Matt's most recent book Full Funnel Marketing here now.