Positive Parenting for Military Families | Mr. Dad

Lucie LeBlanc, author of Ordinary Parents Raising Extraordinary Children. Topic: Unlocking your child’s inner strength to full self-expression. Issues: Understanding the human mind; programming your child for success; the six creative faculties (perception, memory, reason, will power, intuition, and imagination); common parental errors; much more. Mark Borg, author of Don’t Be a Dick. Topic: Change yourself, change your world. Issues: What does it mean to be a dick and why are some people (including ourselves) that way? The difference between internal dicks and external dicks; how to quit being a dick—and get others to quit too; how to avoid backsliding; lessons for parents; much more

James Knipp, author of Stuff Every Grandfather Should Know. Topic: Making sense of the grandfather years. Issues: When to give advice and how to take it; (re)learning how to be a parent; going from father to grandfather; building a relationship with your grandchild; things to do with the grandkids; technology and social media; grandparenting through your child’s divorce; much more. Liz Frazier, author of Beyond Piggy Banks and Lemonade Stands. Topic: How to teach young kids about finance. Issues: The “right” to talk with kids about money; teaching about money in an increasingly cashless society; allowances; what is money, how do we get it, and what do we do with it? Advanced topics such as interest, lending, the economy, and more.

Dorette Noorhasan, author of Miracle Baby. Topic: A fertility doctor’s fight for motherhood. Issues: Surrogacy, insurance, and overcoming every possible obstacle on the way to becoming a mother. Leslie Schrock, author of Bumpin’. Topic: Navigating the journey from conception through birth—and beyond. Issues: Getting your bodies and your lives ready; drafting your healthcare dream team; pregnancy issues and myths (such as that having an epidural or a c-section is “failure”); difference between a birth plan and going overboard; what you don’t know about having a baby; the importance of communication between partners; dad’s important role; much more.

Mary Reckmeyer, author of Strengths Based Parenting. Topic: Developing your children’s innate talents. Issues: Setting kids up for success; finding out what your parenting strengths are; understanding your children’s strengths; creating a parent-child partnership based on your and your children’s strengths. Mike Berland, author of Become a Fat-Burning Machine. Topic: Overcoming metabolic syndrome. Issues: How to lose the belly fat, end sugar cravings, and gain energy; identifying foods that store fat vs. those that burn it; a new workout strategy that burns fat more effectively than whatever you’re doing right now; diet and fitness myths that are sabotaging your success; implementing these fat burning and fitness strategies with your family.

Robert Weiss, author of Prodependence. Topic: Moving beyond codependence. Issues: Addiction, empathy, and psychotherapy; what is codependence? Our need to connect; defining and understanding pro-dependence; addiction is an intimacy disorder; creating and living co-dependent relationships. Kurt Newman, author of Healing Children. Topic: Stories from the frontiers of pediatric medicine. Issues: A longtime pediatric surgeon talks about the story of his career and some of the hundreds of children he’s treated; the triumphs and tragedies he’s seen; the revolution taking place in children’s medicine; what children need to thrive in today’s world.

Jennifer Weeks, author of The New Age of Sex Education. Topic: How to talk to your teen about cybersex and pornography in the digital age. Issues: Why pornography isn’t always a bad thing; how a parent’s beliefs about sex and sexuality influence how they do or don’t talk to their child about sex; connection between texting and sexting; how to know whether your child is having a problem with sexual identity. Devorah Heitner, author of Screenwise. Topic: Helping kids thrive and survive in their digital world. Issues: The differences between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants,” assessing your own digital literacy; becoming a tech-positive parent; friendship and dating in the digital age; how much screen time do kids really have? the “forever” nature of the Internet; where do we go from here?

Eric Jensen, coauthor of Turnaround Tools for the Teenage Brain. Topic: Helping underperforming students become lifelong learners. Issues: Research-based, classroom-tested strategies to strengthen students’ mind, body, and help them become exceptional lifelong learners; how and when to use workarounds; how the brain changes; how increase your student’s effort, build a better attitude, and improve behavior. Lauren Sandler, author of One and Only. Topic: The freedom of having an only child, and the joy of being one. Issues: What are only children really like? Debunking stereotypes and myths about “onlies”; the benefits to children, relationships, and society of having–and being–an only child.

William Levin, author of Parenting without Fear. Topic: Raising balanced children in a healing world Issues: Recognizing the guiding signals from our children’s nature in their early years; how we can move into natural partnership with our children’s nature and our own; recognizing and disengaging from the shamed and fearful beliefs that obstruct those natural partnerships. Jessica Lamb-Shapiro, author of Promise Land. Topic: One woman’s journey through America’s self-help culture. Issues: Overcoming phobias and fears; walking on hot coals; coping with grief at the saddest camp in the world; the trouble with the Law of Attraction; the best and the worst of the self-help gurus.

Michele Lilyanna, coauthor of Awakening Joy for Kids. Topic: How grown-ups can nourish themselves and raise mindful, happy children. Issues: Understanding intention setting with children; mindfulness matters for grown-ups and how we can teach them to our children; mindfulness in schools and how it helps kids cope with pressures large and small; the power of gratitude. George Lynn and Cynthia Johnson, coauthors of Breaking the Trance. Topic: Parenting the screen-dependent child. Issues: The difference between dependence and addiction; how to tell whether your child is screen dependent; what screen dependence does to children’s mind, nervous system, and body; effects on boys of screen dependence; regaining control.

Melissa Atkins Wardy, author of Redefining Girly. Topic: How parents can fight the stereotyping and sexualizing of girlhood. Issues: How to redefine girly in your home; getting friends and family on board; navigating kids’ play; how to avoid stereotyping girls and boys; saying no to sexed-up toys and too-sexy-too-soon parties. Jennifer Hanin, author of What to Do When You Can’t Get Pregnant. Topic: Options for couples facing fertility issues. Issues: Advances in natural products for women; new supplements, medications, and treatment protocols; the latest in egg freezing, vitrification, gender selection, and genetic testing.

Daniel Siegel, co-author of The Yes Brain. Topic: How to cultivate courage, curiosity, and resilience in your child. Issues: Defining the Yes Brain and why it’s so important; The four fundamentals of the Yes Brain and how to strengthen them; the key to knowing when kids need a gentle push out of their comfort zone vs. needing the cushion of safety and familiarity; strategies for navigating away from negative behavior and expanding your child’s capacity for positivity. Terri Apter, author of Passing Judgment. Topic: Praise and blame in everyday life. Issues: The important role that praise and blame play in relationships (whether between adults or between parents and children); the “magic ratio” or praise to blame and how it correlates to a couple’s probability of staying together; the damage done by insincere praise; how social media has made it easier to gossip and blame others.

William Marsiglio, author of Dads, Kids, & Fitness. Topic: A father’s guide to family health. Issues: More and more dads are taking on an active role as caregivers, but men are also disproportionately likely to neglect their own healthcare, diets, and exercise routines. This book explains why dads need to be involved in their children’s health—and how to do it. Sam Weinman, author of Win at Losing. Topic: How our biggest setbacks can lead to our greatest gains. Issues: How we win from losing (and sometimes lose from winning); inspirational stories from famous people on how they coped with loss and use it to propel them to even greater success.

Rupert Isaacson, author of The Long Ride Home. Topic: The extraordinary journey of healing that changed a child’s life. Issues: The remarkable story of a boy, a horse, overcoming autism, and a revolutionary approach that has changed the life of thousands of children and their family. Catherine Price, author of Vitamania. Topic: How vitamins revolutionized the way we think about food. Issues: How vitamins were discovered and named; the surprising story of America’s blind devotion to vitamins at the expense of our health; why so much we “know” about vitamins is actually wrong; what vitamins actually do (and don’t do).

Justin Sonnenburg, co-authhor of The Good Gut. Topic: Taking control of your weight, your mood, and your long-term health Issues: The relationship between our bodies and the trillions of organsms that live in our gut; the ways those organisms (called “microbiota”) determine whether we’re sick or healthy, fit or obese, sunny or moody; why our microbiota is facing a “mass extinction event.” Susan Greenhalgh, author of Fat-Talk Nation. Topic: The human costs of America’s war on fat. Issues: The politics and culture of fat in America; how the war on fat damages the physical and emotional health of our young people and disrupts families and intimate relationships; how to change the national conversation and reframe our relationship with our bodies and our health.

Angie Hallier, author of The Wiser Divorce. Topic: Positive strategies for your next best life. Issues: Developing a solid game plan to keep tempers in check and everyone moving forward; identifying bad habits that can lead to unhealthy choices; how learning to collaborate with your ex-spouse will give your kids a bright future; saving money by choosing your battles wisely; why going to court is rarely the best solution. Leon Scott Baxter, author of Secrets of Safety-Net Parenting. Topic: Raising happy and successful children. Issues: The importance of letting our children fail—and learn from the experience; helping children find their passions and strengths; the difference between nudging a child in a particular direction and pushing; why you’re not your child’s friend—and shouldn’t try to be.