Parenting with a Story Podcast

I pushed my way through these kids, and ran over to the ambulance. In the back of the ambulance was my son, Jordan. He was partially conscious and covered in blood. . .  The paramedic said he had internal bleeding and had to go to the hospital immediately. . . I jumped out of the ambulance and started asking, ‘What happened? What happened? What happened?’ Jordan Peisner after attack. December, 2016. KABC-TV. “And that’s when some of the kids ran up to me and said, ‘Look!’ And they showed me a video. It was of my son talking to a friend. And from behind comes this boy, who swings with all his might at my son’s head, and knocks him out. The sound still gives me chills. And down he goes, to the ground. And then you see kids running over — as my son is on the ground, eyes rolled back, and bleeding — and these kids are jockeying for position to take pictures.” Those are the words of Ed Peisner as he describes what happened to his 14-year-old son Jordan in December of 2016. In what was probably a game of “knockout”, the assailant had planned the attack with accomplices at the ready with cell phone cameras to videotape the shocking event all to generate likes and shares on social media. And while the attack was obviously criminal, the social media profiteering from it was not. Ed realized that unless someone figured out a way to remove the social media incentive, these horrific acts would continue. And so he did. Ed founded the Organization for Social Media Safety. And together with Marc Berkman, they began lobbying for legal reform. In one of their first victories, what’s now known as “Jordan’s Law” was passed in the State of California — the first law targeting social-media motivated violence. That law states that if you coordinate with someone to video tape their violent attack and post it on social media that you will be prosecuted as a accomplice. But in the process of advocating for Jordan’s Law, they learned of a rapidly expanding list of social media-related dangers, like cyberbullying, hate speech, and sexual harassment, which their organization now battles. Click play above to listen to our conversation and learn how you can protect your own children and help be a part of the solution for others. At the 17-minute mark, Ed and Marc discuss 3 things parents can do right now to protect their kids. Have a listen. Find out more at https://www.ofsms.org/. And here’s a link to their free safety course: https://courses.ofsms.org/courses/the-buckling-the-social-media-seatbelt-supercourse Click these links to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or Podbean. Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on business storytelling,

Imagine you’re driving home from work one night around 8 pm. It’s cold. It’s raining. And there’s a dirty, slushy, melting snow on the ground. You glance out the car window and you see a young girl huddled up on the side of the road. She looks cold, scared, alone, and injured. You pull over and invite her into your warm car, and take her to a diner for a meal. She doesn’t speak to you the entire time. She just sits there, staring down into her plate while eating, dripping gray water all over the seat. Your mind races though all of the unthinkable possibilities for what might have lead her to this place in life. When she finishes eating, still not having said a word, she peels herself off of the plastic seat, gets up, and heads toward the exit. You watch as her frail little back walks away from you. In two more seconds, she’ll be through the door and gone from your life forever. At that moment, what do you do? Emily Chang doesn’t have to imagine. She knows. Because this happened to her. At that moment what she decided to do was yell out, “Where are you going to sleep tonight”? The girl stopped. Her shoulders quivered a bit. And Emily continued, “I have a spare room.” That girl became the first of sixteen people over the last 25 years to have been blessed to spend some of the darkest times of their lives in the respite of Emily Chang’s spare room. An abused child bride. An unwanted boy with hydrocephalus. A girl raised in a brothel. And over a dozen other young people whose lives were changed for the better in Emily’s spare room. Emily documents their stories in her new book, The Spare Room: Define Your Social Legacy to Live a More Intentional Life and Lead with Authentic Purpose. In the book, she not only shares their unforgettable stories, but the life and leadership lessons we can all learn from them. In this episode, Emily describes one of those young people lucky enough to spend some time in Emily’s spare room. Click the play button above to hear the story of Devon, a child bride thrown out of her own home. Emily Chang has worked in leadership positions at Procter & Gamble, Apple, and Starbucks. Today she serves as the CEO of China for the global advertising giant, McCann. You can find Emily at https://social-legacy.com/. Click these links to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or Podbean. Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on business storytelling, a keynote speaker, and bestselling author. Connect with him via email here.

Benny Nachman, CEO of Jassby, joins me to explain how a new APP can both make your home life easier, while teaching your kids about smart money management. read more

This might be the strangest Thanksgiving most of us ever have, due to the Coronavirus. So, to help you make it a good one, here’s a Thanksgiving lesson in humility that will help you make sure your interactions with family this year are ones you’ll be proud of. . . read more

Finding out a hurricane is about to bear down on your hometown isn’t the kind of thing most people get excited about, especially when they’re eight years old. But then, most people aren’t like Jayson Zoller. read more

The past three weeks have been an almost non-stop parade of protests, all centered around the most recent tragic deaths that didn’t have to happen. “Yes, that’s terrible. But what can I do?” you might ask. After all, you already changed your Facebook profile for BlackOut Day. And you even attended a Black Lives Matter march. So, you’re good right? No, not really. Those things only signal that you’re on the side of making things better. But only on the side. As in, the sideline. If you actually want to make a difference, you need to get off the bench and into the game and that’s a lot harder than changing your profile picture. And it probably means getting knocked around a little. I don’t mean literally. This isn’t a call to violence. And I’m not suggesting you intervene in an active arrest or break the law in an act of civil disobedience (although both of those have their place, too). Here I’m talking about the kind of thing you can do on a daily basis by just calling out bad behavior when you see it — in your family, friends, and neighbors. And that takes courage. It might mean temporarily straining relationships with people you care about. In the worst situations, you might even lose a friend over it. But in most cases, you’ll end up earning new respect, from others, and for yourself. Instead of “civil” disobedience, let’s call it “social” disobedience. Because in this case, you’re rubbing up against generally accepted rules of social behavior, like “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” or going along with what everyone else is doing even if you don’t agree with it. Or, more generally, the aversion many of us have to disagree with or offer even the gentlest of criticism to people we know for fear of damaging the relationship. We need to get over that. True friends will appreciate you being honest and direct with them anyway. So, here’s an example of what that looks like in the context of racial bigotry. But social disobedience can be used for any worthwhile social change that you support and from any side of the political spectrum. If it’s important to you, let the people closest to you know — especially when they themselves are the problem. Basketball with Torlick When Ed was a five- or six-year-old boy growing up in Colorado, he noticed that his was the only house in the neighborhood painted red. All the other houses were either brown or green. When he asked his dad why, his father said very matter of factly, “Because when we moved in, the Homeowners Association told us we could only paint it brown or green. So, naturally, I painted it red.” Apparently, Mr. Tanguay wasn’t much of a rule follower, at least not with rules he considers unworthy. So you shouldn’t be too surprised at how he responded on another occasion when he received a more unsettling directive from the HOA.  When Ed’s older brother Mark was fourteen, he visited their aunt and uncle, who were on assignment in the Peace Corps in the Marshall Islands, very close to the equator in the western Pacific Ocean. Just prior to returning home, he called his parents to ask if he could bring home a guest for a while. He’d befriended a local boy named Torlick who’d never been to the United States.

This won’t be a typical podcast and post. As I’m recording this, we’re about halfway into a national social distancing experiment to combat the Coronavirus. People are stressed out, anxious, and stepping all over each other at home. We’re worried about our jobs and our retirement savings and wondering if grandma’s going to get the [read more]

Next week is National School Choice Week. So I wanted to talk to an expert about how to choose the best school for your child. And I found exactly the right person!  My guest this week is Andrew Campanella. He’s the president of National School Choice Week, and previously served in senior-level positions at the [read more]

I’ve been wanting to write this post for six years. Seriously. This is the day that I get to start telling the world about one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met. His name is Kenny Tedford. And he’s the subject of my new book that’s being published today, called Four Days with [read more]

I’ve been wanting to write this post for six years. Seriously. This is the day that I get to start telling the world about one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met. His name is Kenny Tedford. And he’s the subject of my new book that’s being published today, called Four Days with Kenny Tedford. And despite the title, it’s one I’ve been working on for over six years. So, I’m incredibly pleased to tell you that it’s finally on shelves today. I can also confidently say that it’s the most meaningful book I’ve ever written, or ever will. And once I explain to you a little about Kenny Tedford, you’ll understand why. Now, I’m going to have a lot more to say about Kenny and this book in other posts. In fact, I’ll probably bring him on my podcast and let you get to know him personally. But I think what I should do here is let you meet Kenny Tedford the way I met Kenny Tedford, which I explain on the first few pages of the book. So, if you’ll indulge me, I’m just going to share those first two and a half pages to you so you can see how we met, and get to know a little about Kenny.  Excerpt from the Four Days with Kenny Tedford, page i. I was sitting in the front row waiting for the next performance to start when I saw him. He was a large man. Sixty-ish. With grey hair encircling a bald head, and glasses thick enough to start a fire on a sunny day. He walked slowly and deliberately, with a slight list to one side. He made his way down the aisle and sat in the chair next to me. Following quickly behind him was a twenty-something man with dark hair. The young man pulled one of the empty chairs out of the row, turned it around backwards, placed it directly in front of the older man, and sat down with his back to the stage. I was intrigued, to say the least. A few minutes later, the next speaker walked on stage and started her performance. The young man, who’d been staring at the older man, silent and motionless since sitting down, suddenly sprang into action. He lifted his hands in front of his chest and began a flurry of cryptic motions that identified him immediately as a sign language interpreter, and the older man as deaf. I thought that was pretty ballsy, a deaf guy at a three-day storytelling festival. I knew immediately I wanted to meet him. So at the next break, I introduced myself. We exchanged a few pleasantries, enough to know that he was an affable sort of guy. But we both had to go to our next set of workshops. An hour later, I was walking with a tray of food, looking for an empty table, and that same affable fellow walked up to me and asked if I wanted to have lunch with him. I quickly accepted. We sat at a table by ourselves, his interpreter having been given time off for lunch. For the next hour, I listened to Kenny Tedford tell his story. I listened while he spoke with impressive diction, but with the muted tones of a deaf person. And he read my lips, seemingly, as easily as I spoke with them. But, underneath the telltale tone of his voice, I noticed something else telling. His vocabulary and sentence structure were both charmingly juvenile. As his story unfolded, I started to understand why. His deafness turned out to be only one of many challenges life dealt Kenny Tedford. He was almost blind in one eye, and had poor vision in the other, partially paralyzed on his left side, unable to speak well until the age of ten, and had somewhat limited cognitive abilities,

My guest this week is John Kim. He’s a licensed marriage and family therapist and one of the the pioneers of the online life coaching movement. Interestingly, he calls himself the “Angry Therapist.” It’s essentially an admission that, while he was a licensed therapist and life coach, he was no better off than the people [read more]

My guest today is Dr. Pamela Ellis. She conducts research into the areas of high school of college transition, parent engagement, African-American males in education, and college completion. As part of that, she’s visited more than four hundred colleges and universities internationally to understand their cultures and their academic and social opportunities available to students. [read more]

If you’re curious whether you should stalk your kids online (spoiler: you should, at least for a while), this is the woman to ask. My guest this week is Dr. Jillian Roberts. She’s a child psychologist, a professor, and the associate dean at the University of Victoria. And she’s also the author of the new [read more]

You’ve no doubt heard that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were educated at Montessori schools and attribute much of their success to that upbringing. So, what if you want those kinds of opportunities for your kids, but you don’t have the resources or the opportunity to do that where you live? The answer, according [read more]

This week I got a chance to chat with digital literacy educator Diana Graber. Diana is the author of RAISING HUMANS IN A DIGITAL WORLD: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology and the creator of Cyber Civics, a course taught in 42 States and 4 other countries. It was an eye opening discussion and [read more]