The world is full of people, especially on social media, telling your kids that they just aren’t good enough, that they should just “quit while they’re ahead.” But there are ways you can help your kids counter these negative thoughts and replace them a positive view of themselves and their potential.

In this episode we talk with “Coach” Kevin Baker, a certified Life Coach for Tweens and Teens about ways parents can help kids get over life limiting beliefs and improve the potential in their lives.

We’ll talk about how parents sometimes accidentally limit their children’s potential and ways to turn that pattern around by replacing communication blocks with curiosity. Using the same instincts that we have with babies we can lean in to what they are interested in and engage in what genuinely excites them .

By abandoning your preconceived expectations about what your child “should” be, you’ll learn the value of giving up trying to “control” your kid and instead opting for “influence.”

We tend to take speech for granted but some parents become anxious when their infants and toddlers don’t hit certain milestones. Realistically, when are these concerns founded and what can parents do to avoid the misinformation and bad advice from the internet?

In this episode we interview a speech-language pathologist Tala Hershey, M.S. CCC-SLP, TSSLD (https://www.hersheytherapypractice.com/) who gives us practical advice on how to look for and encourage realistic and appropriate speech milestones.

We’ll answer the questions:

Do we need to explicitly teach toddlers to speak? Isn’t it a skill that just develops organically or do parents actually need to focus on building speech and language? What’s the difference between Expressive vs. Receptive Language and Pragmatic skills?

Finally, we’ll address the WORST way to teach our toddlers to talk and whether to “reward” toddlers for saying certain words (and avoiding others.)

When it comes to drug and alcohol use, it’s very tempting as parents to put your head in the sand and say "Not my kid” but that strategy never works, even if your kid isn’t actively experimenting (yet.) Since the most important component of prevention is education, the first step for parents is to get educated and be honest with yourself.

In this episode we’ll talk about what you need to know as a parent to effectively communicate your values and concerns to your kids, without them shutting you down.

When do kids commonly start experimenting with drugs and alcohol? Should you start having conversations with your kids before then? How do you explain the difference between abstaining vs. postponing? We’ll talk about how to navigate denial (both yours and your child’s) and what are the pros and cons of using monitoring and tracking apps like Life360.

And with so much at stake, when is it okay to allow natural consequences and when should you step in?

This episode will give your practical advice on how to navigate this potential minefield, and keep your relationship with your kid intact.