The Blissful Parenting Podcast

From her years as a teacher Shaista knows that kids can't learn if they don't feel safe, both physically and emotionally. She noticed what a big difference it made for children to learn "soft skills" like emotional regulation along with academics and from that observation a new career was born. Today Shaista is on the podcast to share tips on supporting children through all kinds of anxiety as well as signs to watch for that your child could benefit from widening their resources and team of caring adults. Shaista is a certified children’s life coach and works with clients to build self-esteem, manage anxiety and develop the heart-mind. Shaista is the author of the book BACK HOME; which has received accolades nationwide. Over the past year, Shaista has developed programs such as The Thrive Kids Virtual Early Learning Academy, Thrive Mommy and Thrive Babies. The Thrive Kids Virtual Early Learning Academy was born out of the need for young students to engage in a preschool curriculum from the safety of their own homes. Four days a week, students from the US and Canada join Shaista as she virtually teaches them academic concepts such as early literacy, early numeracy and soft skills such as collaboration, mindfulness and communication. Helping kids and families THRIVE is her passion

There's no doubt that this is a difficult topic but because it is so hard to talk about many parents have no idea how to help their children cope with grief, especially if they are also dealing with their own grief. A lot of the ways grief was handled in our own childhoods amplified trauma instead of healing it. Not talking about our lost loved one or "moving on" can do more harm than good. Whether your child is mourning the loss of a sibling or a goldfish, there are powerful takeaways in today's episode to help them process grief. Michele Benyo is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist®, a parent coach, and the founder of Good Grief Parenting. After her 6-year-old son died of cancer, her 3-year-old daughter said, “Mommy, half of me is gone.” This heartbreaking statement focused Michele’s career as an early childhood parenting specialist on the impact of grief on young children, particularly after child loss. Michele equips parents and other caring adults to recognize young children’s grief and to provide the support children need to cope well with any loss. The desire of Michele’s heart is to see families live forward after loss toward a future bright with possibilities and even joy.

Too many young people are hitting adulthood completely unprepared. I think a lot of us are worried that could be our kids one day. But Nellie Harden is back on the show to share with us how we can start wherever we are now, whatever age our kids are now, to set them up for a wildly successful and independent future. Nellie is a Family Life & Leadership Coach that helps families build courage, respect and wisdom into their DNA to elevate their family experience and set their kids up for a wildly successful future equipped with their greatness for their greatness. She is a wife and mom to 4 middle and high school daughters having homeschooled them for the last 7 years. She has a degree in biology and psychology and knows that the best way to help the world is through one living room at a time!

Parents are often intimidated by Montessori and not sure about trying Montessori principles at home, but the truth is it doesn't need to be complicated. With two concepts, following the child and a prepared environment, Rachel Schindler is on the podcast to show us small ways we can bring Montessori benefits into our homes. Rachel is a military spouse and a mom of two boys, ages 1 and 2. She received her degree in Human Development and has an Elementary Education License. She taught 1st and 2nd grade before staying home with her two boys full time. As a child she attended a Montessori School and uses that influence to raise her own kids! She loves anything crafty and loves to DIY as much as she can for her kids. Her family also has 2 labradoodles and loves spending lots of time together!

Just as with music, sometimes the pauses are the most important part. In our lives (that keep getting busier and busier) we have to prioritize taking a pause and bringing breathing room back in. Rachael O'Meara is our guest on the podcast today, sharing a variety of methods to create those pauses so we can find one that works for us and our families! Rachael O’Meara is an executive coach helping successful leaders learn the proven tools and strategies to become even more empowered, resourced, and calm. Her thirteen years at Google helps her have a pulse on what it takes be a successful leader. Her first book Pause was a top business book for your career. She’s been featured in the New York Times, WSJ.com and on the TEDx stage. She is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC), has an MBA from Fordham University, and a Master’s in Transformational Leadership and Coaching from the Wright Graduate University.

As a new teacher Kailey Leftko was grateful to find strategies for mindfulness, stress-relief, and emotional regulation for herself. And she quickly realized her students could benefit from them too. But it turns out that the methods for teaching mindfulness practices to children is not the same as for adults. Over a period of trial and error Kailey was able to find the best ways to bring these strategies to kids. Today on the podcast she is sharing tips for how to begin bringing mindfulness and other techniques for emotional-regulation into your child's life. Kailey Lefko is a teacher, co-founder of Educalme and co-host of The Balanced Educator Podcast. She has a B.Sc. (concentrations in Biology and Microbiology), B.Ed., and vinyasa and yin yoga teacher certifications. She has experience teaching in high school (Science, Biology and Psychology) and middle school (all subjects) in a French Immersion setting. Before becoming a teacher, she was a babysitter, a tutor, a volleyball coach, a camp counselor and an Educational Assistant. Now, she provides educators the tools they need to easily share mindfulness with their students so that everyone can thrive in a calm and focused classroom.

How do we get our kids to read (and to like reading)? That's a question for so many parents, especially as technology and screens become more ubiquitous. Patrick Carman discovered that a great stepping stone to reading is listening to stories. He developed a podcast for young kids to listen to stories, get their imaginations firing, and develop those important parts of their brains. It turns out it's a proven pathway to a love of reading! Listen to today's interview to learn about podcasts for kids: what they are, how to find them, and how to work them into your day! As co-founder and Creative Director of GoKidGo, Patrick Carman writes, directs, and produces every GoKidGo show! Mr. Carman has authored 40 novels with over 5 million books in print across 23 countries. Millions of young readers have read, watched, and played multimedia books Mr. Carman has produced including ‘39 Clues’, ‘Skeleton Creek’, ‘Trackers’, ‘Voyagers’, and ‘Towervale’. He is also the creator of Aftershock, a #1 fiction podcast on Apple and iHeart. Mr. Carman is an inexhaustible public speaker who presents at events throughout the year including the National Book Festival, the LA Book Festival, and the American Library Association national conference. He has spoken live to over a million students at over 2500 schools across the country.

The Moms On Call are former pediatric nurses who have spent years building up a resource library for parents. They deliver rapid-fire advice that will have you thinking, "I'm really not alone in this." After listening to Laura and Jennifer you can't help but come away feeling confident in your parenting instincts! "Every day as pediatric nurses, we used to take after-hours patient calls for a busy pediatric practice in Atlanta, meaning if any of the 9,000 patients had a question at night or on weekends, we got paged. For years, we answered questions from concerned parents who, interestingly, all had the same questions! We decided it was time to give parents a simple and easy-to-follow guide addressing their most common curiosities and concerns. This was so well received, our print-outs quickly grew into a library of resources including 3 books, 3 video courses, 2 apps and a flourishing network of consultants. Moms on Call is amazed to say our that resources have helped over 750,000 moms and dads across the world parent with confidence as they discover the joys of the first four years. And we are thrilled to introduce you to the team that makes this magic happen!” - Jennifer and Laura

This powerful interview will change the way you look at disciplining your children. It's challenging to know what to do when our children are falling apart or we're on our last nerve especially when we want to be calm, compassionate, and peaceful parents. Today on the podcast Katherine Sellery has some perspective shifts that can help us see discipline and managing challenging behaviors in a whole new way. Katherine Sellery, CEO and Founder of Conscious Parenting Revolution, helps individuals minimize misunderstandings and melt-downs in order to communicate with more collaboration, cooperation, and consideration. A creator of the Guidance Approach to Parenting, a program that applies conflict resolution skills to communicating more effectively with children, Katherine has positively influenced relationships for generations and brought about healing and reconciliation in families that were suffering from disconnection. For over 20 years, she has taught and coached thousands of parents, educators, social workers, and medical professionals in half a dozen countries through her popular workshops, coaching programs, TEDx talks, 250 page comprehensive training manual, and Ebook. Katherine is also a trained mediator, attended Law School, has certifications in different trauma models, teaches a breathing meditation modality with the Art of Living Foundation, and ran her own commodities-trading business in Hong Kong for 30 years. Katherine is a 3x TEDx Speaker and Amazon bestselling author of “7 Strategies to Keep Your Relationship With Your Kids from Hitting the Boiling Point.”, which reached the #1 spot in both the Parenting and Parenting Teenagers categories, as well as the #2 spot in the Parenting & Relationships category. For her expertise she has been featured onGood Morning Washington, Good Morning Texas,Great Day Washington, Atlanta & Co,Fox31 Denver,4CBS Denver,CBS8 San Diego,The Donny Walker Morning Show and has been a guest on over40 podcasts

As a child psychologist Krysten Taprell noticed that a lot of parents were coming to her for help with nightmares. Not night terrors, just the normal nightmares we all get from time to time. For kids nightmares are such a common experience and it seemed a shame to her that they had to go to a doctor for something that should could help them fix on their own. On the podcast she shares her simple method to banish nightmares along with some of the other resources she developed to help parents solve problems at home quickly so they didn't have to get in to see a psychologist. Krysten Taprell is a Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience working with children and families. She has worked in many settings including schools, Private Practice and Government agencies. She has extensive experience working with people on the Autistic Spectrum as well as conducting diagnostic assessments. During her work she found that she was seeing the same issues coming through her door, requiring the same strategies. This is why she started her website www.thetherapistparent.com. While some difficulties will need regular sessions with a qualified Psychologist, sometimes parents just need a few tips and creative ideas to bring change to their children's lives. The regular blog offers parents proven strategies and playful activities that children respond and also supports parents. Krysten has also written a children's book that focuses on empowering children to manage nightmares.

Andrea Yi went from engineer to stay at home mom to four boys. It wasn't long before she was looking for ways to keep them occupied with educational activities. The key? They had to be super simple. So simple that she wasn't going to do anything she didn't already have ingredients for in her house. She soon found there was an audience of other parents looking for engaging activities for their kids that didn't require a trip to a specialty store (or even the grocery store some days!) Today on the podcast Andrea is sharing a few easy activities with us as well as talking about how she grew a business based on these simple kid activities. Andrea is the Author of “100 Easy STEAM Activities” and the founder of Raising Dragons, an education website where we share simple, fun, educational activities to do with kids of all ages! We emphasize STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) and early learning in our experiments, crafts and toys. Our social following is over 1.1M people and our videos have reached over 100 million people.

It turns out that we often incorrectly estimate our children's abilities and what they are ready for. Devon Kuntzman has found that most parents underestimate what their child is capable of physically while overestimating what they are capable of emotionally. She has some great tips on how to tell what your child is ready to handle and how to guide them towards being able to regulate themselves and make good choices. Devon Kuntzman, PCC, is the original toddler parenting coach and the founder of Transforming Toddlerhood. As a toddler expert, she is on a mission to transform the myth that toddlerhood is terrible. Devon empowers toddler parents to overcome the challenges of toddlerhood, nurture development and create confidence in their skills by being the Loving Leader & Guide™ through using positive, respectful and developmentally appropriate parenting tools. As a result, parents are able to transform their parenting, their toddler’s behavior and their overall experience of toddlerhood creating a foundation for a relationship that lasts a lifetime with their child. Devon is also the host of the Raising Toddlers Conference and has supported thousands of parents and caregivers across the world to transform their parenting and their toddler’s behavior. She holds a degree in psychology and child development. When she isn’t working with parents and toddlers, Devon can be found on her yoga mat, riding her bicycle or drinking kombucha (not all at the same time!)

Vanessa Broer never planned to be a mother. Never wanted to be a mother. So when she became pregnant, she was devastated. But she took the time to work through those feelings and to rebuild her sense of self. She continued her journey of self discovery through motherhood itself and has brought her hard-won wisdom to us on the podcast today. Vanessa works high performers to help them thrive. Most high performers only focus on success. But in order to thrive, you have to add in self-expression and joy. Vanessa helps anxiety driven high performers create wealth, freedom and joy. She is also on a mission to help women reclaim their identity through motherhood. She believes that motherhood isn't designed to break us down, it's designed to break us FREE. She is where spiritual evolution meets high performance.

Child abuse is one of the scariest possibilities a parent can face. Especially when we know the stats that our children are most likely to be abused by people they know, adults that we trust. Kristen Rae Ray survived it and with a good therapist, supportive spouse, and powerful insight she is sharing ways that we can empower our kids while also preventing them from living in fear. Kristin is many things. A mother, a wife, a writer, a speaker, an author, a saleswoman, a daughter, a podcaster, an activist, a sports lover and so much more. A Lansing, Michigan native, her work has seen her journey through writing a children's book, blogging, founding a trade organization for women, writing a sports column, and hosting multiple podcasts. Her most recent project, the children's book, FEARLESS, debuted as the #1 Children's Short Story New Release on Amazon in its first week.

If you're usually a calm and reasonable person, it can be very confusing when that calm vanishes the moment your child frustrates you. At first we think, if my child would just stop doing that I would be fine. But the truth is there's an underlying fear your child's behavior is triggering and it usually comes from a trauma in your own childhood. Maybe not a huge trauma, maybe a small way that you learned to set aside your needs. And when your child behaves in this way it triggers those same feelings of not having your needs met. Jen Lumanlan is on the podcast today to share with us how we can defuse and regulate our reactions while giving ourselves grace and kindness. Jen Lumanlan holds an M.S. in Psychology (Child Development) and an M.Ed., and hosts the Your Parenting Mojo podcast which is a reference guide for parents of toddlers and preschoolers based on scientific researchers and the principles of respectful parenting. In each episode she examines a topic related to parenting and child development from all sides to help parents understand how to make decisions about raising their children. She lives in California with her husband and daughter.