Mastermind Parenting Podcast

In this episode, I share my view on why we lecture and what to do instead. Lectures do NOT teach our kids the valuable life lessons we want to teach them. In fact, lecturing often reinforcing the behavior we wish to eliminate while also damaging our relationships. I have an approach that will teach you how to infuse empathy into your conversations so that they are actually effective, connecting and ultimately, PRODUCTIVE.

In this episode, you will hear the audio version of a video I filmed for my private parenting community on the last day of our Colorado vacation. I discuss some hard topics and difficult conversations we had that added tremendous value to our memory making moments. The bottom line is that parenting is hard. That old message about being a good parent and how it all SHOULD come naturally and instinctively ...are words spoken by Nazis and other deplorable people in my opinion.

In this episode, I share a clip from my FB Live interview with Danielle Atkisson who runs the silver lining Mamas fb group. I started the clip on the tale end of answering a question from a mom that is worried about her 11 year old anxious daughter and how it’s hard to understand her bc they are opposites. At the end of the episode I talk about my upcoming 30 day brain retraining parenting course, Closing the Parent Gap Basics. Enrollment closes April 28, 2018. http://www.randirubenstein.com/cpg

In this episode, I discuss the documentary Screenagers and the silent addiction epidemic that we are facing as a society. I had been wanting to attend a screening of Screenagers and was coincidentally invited to be a panelist at a private school in my home city. Needless to say, I had a pit in my stomach as I watched the reality of what we are facing in terms of screen addiction and how it affects our kids and ourselves, frankly.

I discuss time-out; the punishment that many of us have used to replace spanking. We are often misguided to believe that it’s this progressive humane improvement when it’s potentially just as damaging emotionally as spanking is physically. I know many parents are simply looking for resources to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong. Punishments like time out and spanking are divisive, polarizing and teach our kids not to trust us.

I discuss kids that I refer to as “sensitive nervous system kids” who present as challenging and willful and how they are usually misunderstood and frequently misdiagnosed as having conditions like ADHD. As parents we are often confused about what to do and what our options really are when it comes to these strong willed kids. Unfortunately, when we turn to traditional resources we are often led down a 1 size fits all path and it’s often not the right one for our kids.

In this episode, I talk about one of the most powerful things you can do to help your kid through a hard moment; the skill of walking in their shoes to empathetically convey that you understand your child’s perspective. This tool discussed in today’s conversation will help you to immediately improve the conversations in your home with your threenagers and your teenagers. Perspective taking is a form of empathy. I like to call it: Walking in your child’s shoes.

In this episode, we are going to discuss strong willed kids. These kids present as defiant and defensive.  Everyone seems to walk on eggshells around these kids. Most likely, these kids have a highly sensitive nervous system. Smells are smellier, tastes are more intense, tags are scratchy-er, noises are noisier.When you have a highly sensitive nervous system, the world feels overstimulating most of the time and even more so during early childhood.

In this episode I cover some specific mistakes we make when it comes to our kids going through the hard stuff. Whether your kid is struggling with school work or a rough patch socially, as parents we want to fix the hurt and take away their sadness, disappointment, insecurity, etc. There is a single tool that fixes negative emotions only - EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It’s called empathy and there is a very specific way to model empathy with your kids when life throws a curveball their way.

As parents, we frequently find ourselves in a gap between the parent we want to be and the one we currently are when our kids are pushing our buttons. This is usually when we either yell (fight) or check out (flight). That’s right, we go into basic survival mode and many families find themselves living in a state of survival which often looks and feels a lot like everyone walking on eggshells. This is the opposite of what we want the vibe to be in our household. www.mastermindparenting.com/book