119: Aligning Your Parenting With Your Values

Ever have a vague sense that your interactions with your child aren't quite aligned with your values...but aren't quite sure what to do about it?   Have you been to a protest and shouted "Black Lives Matter!  Fight the Power!"...and then gone home and forced your child to brush their teeth?   Have you chastised Grandma for 'stealing' kisses from your child because it disrespects their body autonomy...and then pinned them down for a haircut?   You're not alone.  We're in this weird place where we know we want to do things differently than the way we were raised.  But cultural norms are still telling us: we need to be in charge.  (Because if we aren't in charge, who is?)   A conversation with the hosts of Upbringing My guests today, Hannah and Kelty of the Upbringing podcast, see this dissonance more clearly than almost anyone I've met.  In their podcast they explore how we live one way as people (who believe in freedom!  respect!  consent!  empathy!) and another way as parents (timeouts, shame, control, consequences), and how we're unwittingly undermining the very skills and values we hope to promote.   But blaming and shaming helps nobody (not us...and certainly not our children).  By instead approaching the topic with compassion and optimism, we can get out of an us vs. them relationship with our children, and take back our parenting practices from our cultural conditioning, and parent in relationship with our children in a way that's deeply aligned with our values.   Hannah and Kelty describe their RESIST approach (Respect, Empathy, Sync up, Innovate, Summarize, Trust) and also have a new guide to navigating sibling conflict (use discount code MOJO at checkout for 15% off!) on their beautiful website.  If our conversation strikes a chord, I'd definitely encourage you to check out their podcast and weekly Q&As on Instagram.   Parenting Membership  If parenting feels really hard, and it seems like you’ve read all the books and you’ve asked for advice in free communities and you’re tired of having to weed through all the stuff that isn’t aligned with your values to get to the few good nuggets, then the Parenting Membership will help you out.   Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when enrollment reopens in May 2026. Click the banner to learn more.      

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!