Come one, come all to this week’s episode of Voices of Your Village. And babe, have we got an absolutely gorgeous episode for you this week. I chatted with Magda Newman, who wrote the book, Normal: A Mother and Her Beautiful Son. At the encouragement of the author of Wonder, R. J. Palacio, she wrote her book to share the story of her life, because Normal was a goal for her since her son was born. 

Magda gave birth to a son who did not fit into the social definition of “normal,” which to Magda means “like everybody else.” Her baby was born without the ability to eat, breathe, or hear but the first thing she saw when he was...

Welcome to Podcast Wednesday! The days are getting longer, the light is getting brighter and you know what that means… Daylight savings time is upon us! I know this is dreaded by so many of you, but let me tell ya- it doesn’t have to rock your world. This episode is designed to give you tangible tips on how to navigate this time change without it being all-consuming. We have gotten through so much worse than this one hour time change you guys, we can handle this!

I am going to keep this short and sweet, because we do not need to overthink Daylight Savings Time. So often we get more nervous about what it’s going to be than what it actually is. Let’s...

Hello and welcome to the 110th episode of Voices of Your Village! Today we’re talking about everyone’s favorite hot-button issue: timeouts. This topic was first brought to light a while ago when there were a few posts in our Facebook group asking for our village’s take on time outs. This began an ongoing discussion about how we save space for our kiddos to feel things, without punishing them in a time out.

Dr. Allison Mark joins me today to really get to the bottom of this timeout discussion. Allison is a clinical psychologist based in Miami, Florida who tests children in school who have learning and attention issues and works with parents to develop their...

Hi, everyone! Oh man, we have a very special episode of Voices of Your Village today that I am so jazzed about. I sat down with my friend Wendy Bertagnole, of the Exceptional Parenting Podcast, to dive into this idea we have of respectful parenting. While she and I were having this conversation we realized that as the respectful parenting community has grown (#RespectfulParenting) there’s this idea that it has to be perfect, that if you yell or say the wrong word you will somehow screw up parenting. I think we have to find a middle ground here, we’ve swung this pendulum from how a lot of us were raised (potentially without emotional development support) and now...

Hello there, and welcome to episode 107 of Voices of Your Village! Today we are talking about everyone’s favorite topic… sleep regulation! More specifically, this week is a pen and paper in hand episode all about the specifics of ideal nap times for different ages. If you are looking for a deeper dive into sleep pressure and regulation, check out episode 41. Because today is all about the importance of timing and example napping schedules.

Sleep is a little like food-  when you want your body to be ready to sit down for a meal at breakfast, lunch, or dinner you don’t have a snack 10 minutes before you are ready to eat.

When we want...

Come one, come all to episode 106 of Voices of Your Village! We’ve got a great episode this week, babe. It is chock-full of hot tips and reassurance about welcoming a new sibling into your family. Today I chatted with Bryana Kappa, a licensed marriage and family therapist and early childhood mental health specialist, with a private practice in Redondo Beach who works exclusively with new moms, infants, and toddlers doing attachment-based play therapy. Bryana is dedicated to building a village of mindful, conscious, women, and mothers trying to raise whole, healthy children.

“My goal is to create parents who can be therapists for their children while...

Howdy Villagers! And welcome to episode 104 of the Voices of your Village podcast. In today’s episode, I answer your questions and address your comments about one specific incident that arises in parenting: what does it look like when a child appears to favor one parent over the other.

There are adult feelings attached no matter which side you’re on.

When you are the parent who is the one your kiddo doesn’t want right now, there can be feelings of sadness and frustration. It can be lonely and disappointing, and you may feel left out when you are needed and desired by your kiddo for a long time at the beginning of their life to being no longer...

Happy New Year everyone, and happy first podcast episode of 2020! This week I sat down with Jessica Lahey, the author of the New York Times Bestseller “The Gift of Failure”. Guys, this book is no joke. After I read it last year I had my whole team read it and, because my team is made up of parents and teachers, it really resonated with us. If you haven’t yet, you’ve gotta check it out. 

In addition to being a bestselling author, Jessica has been teaching English, writing, and Latin to six through twelfth graders for the past 20 years. When Jessica noticed that her own kids weren’t being motivated in school for the right reasons-...

Guys, we did it! We made it to episode 100 of the Voices of your Village podcast! I am so grateful to any and all of you who have been listening since we first hit record in February of 2018. It has been one heck of a rollercoaster, y’all as we dove headfirst into a vast array of topics, most of which were directly requested by you, my village! So take a moment here to give yourself a pat on the back, because I couldn’t have gotten to 100 episodes without you! Not only did I get to share my insight on sleep, emotional development, and behavior support for your kiddos, but we also got to tap into the brilliant minds of so many other professionals whose passion...

Hey villager, welcome to episode 99 of Voices of Your Village! Before we dive into this week’s topic-  Reward, Punishment, and Behavior Charts- I need to preface this episode by saying it is unlike any episode we’ve ever released before.

I got to interview Alfie Kohn who is widely known for his work on unconditional love and moving away from things like punishment reward systems. He is very outspoken and I find his message to be rather intense. He and I had only half an hour to speak, within that limited time I found it really hard to get a word in. It was a different type of interview than I’ve ever done before. I’ve been holding onto...