040: Only children: Are they as bad as advertised?

Today's episode comes to us as a result of a listener who wrote to me saying she and her partner don't want another child but are worried about the potential impact on their daughter of growing up without siblings. Personally I don't have this problem; my own selfishness about not wanting a second child has overridden the issue of growing up without siblings to the extent that I had actually never considered it a potential problem until I received the question. But having pondered it and found that there is some research on it, I decided the time was ripe to find out whether only children really are as awful as popular wisdom says they are. Listen up, my friends. Will I be vindicated, or will I throw away that pack of birth control pills before the end of the episode?

Om Podcasten

Parenting is hard…but does it have to be this hard? Wouldn’t it be better if your kids would stop pressing your buttons quite as often, and if there was a little more of you to go around (with maybe even some left over for yourself)? On the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, Jen Lumanlan M.S., M.Ed explores academic research on parenting and child development. But she doesn’t just tell you the results of the latest study - she interviews researchers at the top of their fields, and puts current information in the context of the decades of work that have come before it. An average episode reviews ~30 peer-reviewed sources, and analyzes how the research fits into our culture and values - she does all the work, so you don’t have to! Jen is the author of Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection & Collaboration to Transform Your Family - and the World (Sasquatch/Penguin Random House). The podcast draws on the ideas from the book to give you practical, realistic strategies to get beyond today’s whack-a-mole of issues. Your Parenting Mojo also offers workshops and memberships to give you more support in implementing the ideas you hear on the show. The single idea that underlies all of the episodes is that our behavior is our best attempt to meet our needs. Your Parenting Mojo will help you to see through the confusing messages your child’s behavior is sending so you can parent with confidence: You’ll go from: “I don’t want to yell at you!” to “I’ve got a plan.” New episodes are released every other week - there's content for parents who have a baby on the way through kids of middle school age. Start listening now by exploring the rich library of episodes on meltdowns, sibling conflicts, parental burnout, screen time, eating vegetables, communication with your child - and your partner… and much much more!