Hand in Hand Parenting: The Podcast

What's Next? How About a Mind Flip Nov 07, 2019

Now that the Hand in Hand podcast is on hiatus, are you wondering where to get parenting support direct to your eats? You're invited to join Abigail during the hiatus for her Mother Flipping Awesome podcast where she does a deep dive with one mama in each show. And you get to listen in. #mindflip #parentingtransformed

Handling the Halloween Howls Using the Hand in Hand Tools Oct 31, 2019

This week: Handling Halloween Using the Hand in Hand Tools

So, your kids are fighting over the Halloween candy stash, and their sugar highs (and begging for more) send your blood pressure soaring. Maybe you have a child who is scarred by scare season's ghosts and ghouls - or simply refuses to be a part of the festivities.

Have no fear!

Elle and Abigail show you how to handle common Halloween howls using the Hand in Hand tools. Settle back with your pumpkin latte and get tricks you can use to make Halloween the family-centred treat you deserve.

Take a sneak peek into this week's podcast:

Why Halloween can bring out the worst in our kids
What happens to a child’s brain when they are melting down and how you can respond in a way that reaches and nurtures
Which Hand in Hand tools are most useful for handling the Halloween howls
Abigail's genius route to peaceful resolutions when two or more kids are going at it
How to play your way out of scare season fear and even anger

Listen now!

Get more great resources for handling Halloween with calm and confidence:

For kids that are scared or fearful: How to Help Kids Face Their Fears with Play
For help setting limits on candy: Loving the Candy (Setting Limits at Halloween)

Free Guide to Sibling Rivalry

Fights over candy, toys, time and your attention? You need this free guide on Surviving Sibling Rivalry using Hand in Hand Parenting tools and ideas.

Sign up to Abigail's New Podcast

Every week Abigail will walk along with a parent, right in their shoes, working with them to flip their parenting challenges. Visitwww.motherflippingawesome.com/mfapodcast

You're Invited To The Celebration - 100th Episode Podcast Party Starring YOU Oct 25, 2019

Happy 100!

This week - for our 100th episode - we turned the microphone over to you all.

And we are SO excited to share this episode.

You'll hear just what led parents to the Hand in Hand podcast, the breathtaking transformations you have seen happen in your parenting, and the different ways you all use the podcast from week to week.

We're thrilled and humbled by the community that has gathered since we started the Hand in Hand Parenting podcast two years ago!

This Week We Listen To Your Voices

Take a listen and see if you hear yourself!

There's comments that'll make you laugh, comments that'll have you nodding your head in agreement, and comments that will surely tug at your heartstrings.

But at the centre of it all is immense caring, movement and community.

And it's so powerful!

Your good work is a force for change. You're telling us how your perspectives are shifting, and with them, your struggles. We hear how you are becoming more playful with your kids and more understanding.

You are embracing being the parents you knew you could be.

Triple yee-haa!

We wanted to thank you so much for being with us each week because you are as much of this podcast as us.

Get ready to be uplifted hearing all that you are and all that you aspire to be. Listen to You're Invited To The Celebration now. We can't wait for you to hear this.

Oh, and a million hugs and thanks for everyone who sent messages and emails to be included in this episode. We are touched and honored by your contributions

More Resources for Getting The Support You Need As A Parent

This episode shows just how valuable regular support and guidance can be to your parenting. Do these three things to ensure that you get that support for yourself:

Join our Group. Did you know you can dive into our free Parent Connect group? Our instructors are in there daily sharing tools, ideas and advice on Hand in Hand Parenting. Not on Facebook? We hear you, but this was the most accessible platform we could find. We think it's worth joining just for this group.
Keep up with Abigail. Abigail is about ready to release her own podcast. Every week she'll be walking along with one parent, right in their shoes, working with them to flip their parenting challenges. Visit www.motherflippingawesome.com to see when it's happening.
Get weekly Hand in Hand Parenting inspiration right to your inbox. Every week we highlight strategies around a parenting challenge, share freebies and checklists, new videos and interviews, and show you how to make the most of Hand in Hand Parenting. You'll also be the first to know when the podcast returns for its second series. Get it here.

So, How Far Have You Come in Your Parenting? Oct 16, 2019

Where were you two years ago in parenting?

Sometimes we get so caught up in the present-day challenges we forget to look back and see the progress we've made.

And we should!

A week before the 100th episode of the Hand in Hand Parenting Podcast, Elle and Abigail do just that, with an affectionate look back over the last two years they’ve been making the podcast.

Abigail talks about how her kids have adopted, rely on, and now take ownership of the tools, and Elle recalls the sleeping and eating challenges they’ve overcome, plus how emotionally aware her kids are since the tools have become a regular feature of family life.

Now, your turn!

Here's why we need to look back sometimes...

This episode serves as a reminder of all the miraculous change and good you are doing now and can expect more of in the future.

Listen this week and then scan back over your own milestones, challenges and successes and drink in how far you've come.

How many can you chalk up?

Listen to So, How Far Have Your Come in Your Parenting?

Come celebrate the amazing work you are doing as parents.

More support for your parenting

Get these five ideas to make parenting less stressful to keep close when things get hard

Read A Love Letter to Parents

Can't chalk up any recent high points? Listen to Are You Headed for Parent Burnout?

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

The Best Ways to Rise Strong After Mom Shame Oct 10, 2019

Your heart sinks as you join the long line of people snaking the aisle at the grocery store.

Your baby is already making those noises she makes when she wants you to hold her, and there are about 15 minutes until she needs feeding.

You are pretty sure this line will take double that.

How did this happen?

You tried to get out to the store all day, but between your friend dropping in, the late nap, and your toddler refusing to get on his shoes you arrived late. (There's 15 playful ideas for getting out the house here).

Now, he’s begging for snacks, your baby’s cries are escalating and this line doesn’t seem to be moving. You pull your baby out of the cart and land her on your hips and she quiets for a few minutes.

But with about three people ahead of you, she’s screaming again. She’s late for her feed. You notice your son has dumped a few fistfuls of candy bars into the cart, and he wails as your dump them back out. The baby cries harder, and you quickly unbutton your shirt so she can feed, you can pay, and you can all get to the car.

You fumble in your bag for the dried apples your son likes and hand him one.

You breathe. It’s going to be ok...

An Already Hard Situation Gets Harder

And then a stranger taps you on the shoulder.

“The feeding room is over there,” she nods. “You shouldn’t breastfeed here. It's offensive."

The Best Ways to Rise Strong after Mom Shame

Have you ever been mom-shamed? Or felt judgment in your parenting choices? That moment when things are already feel bad and some person moves in and just makes things feel a hundred times worse?

Join us this week as Abigail describes the gut-wrenching time she got mom-shamed smack bang during one of her most desperate times in parenting.

She explains the exact advice she got that helped her rise strong and move on from mom shame, and we talk about how you can too.

See mom-shaming for what it really is
Who to turn to when you've been mom-shamed
Why you deserve support when parenting gets hard
Small but mighty ways you can help empower other moms and pass mom caring on

Bounce back from parent shame. Join us this week for The Best Ways to Rise Strong After Mom Shame.

Get More Resouces For Rising Strong After Mom Shame

Abigail invites you to join this intimate call with five of the wonderful mom's she's worked with. Find out what transformations they made in their families, and how you can too.

Sign up now - spots are limited.

Join here: https://www.motherflippingawesome.com/meet-mfa-mamas

What happens when you want to walk out on parenting? Oct 01, 2019

So, today we’re talking about the less sunny side of parenting. And when we say less sunny, we really mean those dark, never-ending winter-like days that are bleak, lonely and cold.

They hurt.

Some of us live in denial of these days - and it’s easy to see why. In a world of social media where every picture seems to radiate warmth and snuggly good feeling, saying your experience is any different can open doors to shame and judgment.

Even when we admit it, it's often as whispers while we're alone. “I want to walk out on parenting,” is not something you’d usually proclaim at your mom and toddler group.

If you wanted to keep going, anyways.

But today we’re plummeting those depths in honor of us and in honor of you, because if you have no place else (and we sincerely hope you do - listen to suggestions in the podcast) this should be a safe space.

You all are working so hard at being kind, calm parents - and everyone needs a space to rage.

On the podcast this week, we’re shedding light on:

Why parenting gets so hard
At least three things you can try when things get tough
How to find peace in parenting lightly when life is overwhelming
One tool you must try to find hope in the hard moments

If you’ve ever dared think you can’t go on with parenting, or if you’ve stuffed those feelings down so long you can barely feel them, we ask you to listen in this week.

Join Abigail's Free Class on Anxiety

Catch Abigail's free class on anxiety. Click here to get practical tips on flipping anxiety and living a freer happier life. Join class.

Powerful Ways To Banish Fear of the Dark (and other things that kids say go bump in the night) Sep 24, 2019

Powerful ways To Solve Your child's sleep issues using the Hand in Hand Tools

Your kid is going crazy about taking a bath. Just won't. You wrangle and wrestle. It's nearly bedtime after all. You are sooo close!

Then when you finally make it to the bedroom, your child refuses to put on pyjamas. Then requests a drink. And then another. Doesn't want to brush their teeth. Needs a certain toy who, yes, you guessed it, is missing.

Will sleep ever come?

Finally, your child makes it under the covers but as you go to turn off the light, your child screams, "No!" I'm scared of the dark."

"Mama. Don't go."

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

And you are left with the question, do you stay or will you go? (Or at least try?)

We called this podcast powerful ways to solve your child's sleep issues because, oh boy, if there was ever a parenting challenge made to test, it's this.

The end of the day.

Alone time insight.

A moments peace or a chance to rest yourself.

Sleep looms bright in our minds.

But so many times looms dark for our kids.

Why Do Some Kids Just Hate Bedtime?

Today we're talking why kids have such a hard time with bedtime. (And why we do!). And why sleep issues can be easy to dismiss. Know this - they are MUCH MORE to do with us than our kids.

On Powerful Ways to Banish Fear of the Dark (and other things kids say go bump in the night) we cover:

Lights? Music? Do distractions work?
How to take tiny steps toward fear
One key thing about leaning in and connecting
The counteractive way to banish bedtime blues
Hunting down the feelings behind your child's words

Listen now to Powerful Ways to Banish Fear of the Dark More Resources to Solve Your Child's Sleep Issues

Like this thinking? Read Three Gentle Ways to Fight A Child's Resistance to Bedtime or Sleep and The One Question You Need To Ask To Help a Child Sleep Better

Get more pre-bedtime games here: Five Games to Help with Bedtime Refusal

Take inspiration from this mom's story about how she used play when her child got scared at bedtime

Last chance to transform your parenting in Parent Club. Grab your spot now, doors close Wednesday. Click here to discover your bonuses, and everything else Parent Club offers you.

How to help Kids Manage Their Friendships Sep 18, 2019

So there it is. An invitation. Your child is waving it in your face with a grin brighter than gold.

And you?

Does your heart soar?

Or sink?

Acceptance
Similarity
Belonging
Self-worth
Influence
Betrayal

Here's Why OUR Friendships Matter

Friendships can arouse big feelings - in us as well as our kids - and how we approach the joys and the ickiness friendships can bring requires us to separate. We need to remove the "us" from the "them."

But it can be tough untangling our own feelings when we invite friends into our families. (or they invite us).

This week, we’re inviting you to spend a minute or two thinking about the friends your child has, and the common challenges that come up when kids make friends (or don’t!).

From Friends to Frenemies - the good, the bad and the ugly with kids and friends

An explanation about why kids exclude others that you may not have considered
Why friendships are fluid and how to use the Hand in Hand Tools to anchor relationships
When to get involved in friendships and drama, and when to let go
Why your friendships influence how you handle children, friends and their fallouts
One tool you can use to ease your children’s friendships along
One conversation to try when your child is getting controlled in a friendship

Helping Kids Get Along: How Laughter Can Bring Friends Together highlights a great way to help kids build bridges.

Need New Friends?

It can feel lonely parenting in a new way. And it's hard to forge a new path without support. It's why we created the Parent Club, a daily online spot where you can go find your tribe. Get answers from instructors, tailor the tools to your own family, take classes, get coaching, and meet together for weekly and monthly Lives with instructors (and our founder Patty).

The Parent Club is open now - for one week only!

From September 19 to 25th, you can join the Parent Club. Click here to learn more.

How to Keep Your Family Strong and Loving after Divorce Sep 10, 2019

Coping with divorce?

When today’s guest, instructor Kristen Zuzek Volk, found Hand in Hand, she’d almost written off a loving relationship with her daughter.

After divorcing, her two kids were screaming, crying and acting out, her daughter sometimes for nine hours a day.

Coping? Not really.

Kristen was hard on them, and harder on herself.

Even therapy didn’t work, so a parenting philosophy like Hand in Hand was the last thing she thought would help.

She was wrong.

Find Peace in Your Parenting After Divorce

Hand in Hand’s tools brought dramatic change to Kristen's family. She learned how to see through her kids' “crazy” behavior to the deep hurt causing it, and she found she could heal that hurt using the tools.

Today her kids are teens.

And they are also a tight, bonded, happy unit.

If you’re coping with life after divorce, find out how you can use the tools to reach your kids. How to hold them. Anchor them.

Learn how Kristen dealt with custody transitions, differing parenting styles, and upsets that came with separation.

And learn how she navigated Special Time and Staylistening as a single parent.

If you are separated or divorced, if you are co-parenting or raising your kids mostly on your own, if you feel isolated, or live with a partner whose parenting style is drastically different to yours, there's support for you in this week’s podcast.

Listen to How to Keep Your Family Strong and Loving after Divorce.

More Resources for Parenting After Separation or Divorce

Helping Children with Divorce or Separation is a wonderful resource.

If you loved Kristen's reminder to herself "Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way," print this poster for your fridge. (Wait! You're a dad? Then you'll want this copy!).

There are 12 Books for Children Dealing With Divorce here

Work with Kristen

Kristen Zuzek Volk is based in Colorado and works with parents in person and online. You can email Kristen directly here.

How to Handle Your Child's Negative Words Sep 05, 2019

You probably never imagined words like these erupting from your child’s mouth.

Dark.

Venomous.

Hurtful words.

But here they are.

“I hate you!”

Or worse. “I hate myself.”

“I want to die.”

Words that make us want to curl up and cry. Admit defeat. Give up parenting altogether. Except, of course, we can’t.

Even piling on hugs and love often doesn’t appear to soothe a child hurling those words (and thoughts) in those moments.

So what’s an emotionally-drained parent to do?

This week on the podcast, we’re talking about the times our kid's words get hurtful, whether they’re aimed at us or themselves.

Where these words come from
When to take notice, when to take action
Ways you can respond that shift those thoughts and feelings
When play works better than words

When kids say stuff like this, it’s hard. It’s worse when it feels like yours are the only ones saying them. They aren’t. Join us this week for support and suggestions for how to move on when your kid's words get hurtful.

More resources for when kids words get negative:

For more about how kids acquire harsh language, read this article

You can listen to negative language as you would a child cry when you staylisten. Here's the science behind the tool and how it works.

What is Hand in Hand Parenting? All you need to know about the listening tools.

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Can Special Time Really Increase My Child’s Level of Cooperation? Aug 28, 2019

Want to increase your child's co-operation? Have them listen more? Reduce clinginess?

Sometimes special time can feel like the magic balm in parenting.

It can:

Boost your child’s confidence.
It can build their resilience.
It can ease your own parent guilt about not spending enough “quality time with your kids.
And, one of the biggies, it can INCREASE children’s co-operation.

It does all these things! We’ve seen it countless times in our own families, but here’s the thing. Although it can increase co-operation, it isn’t guaranteed to.

Especially if you aren't setting up Special Time the right way.

So today, we’re talking about exactly why special time is so useful for increasing your child’s levels of co-operation.

How to set it up so that you stand the best possible chance of seeing this happen.
Are you using Special Time as maintenance or rescue? Why does it matter?
And the difference between Special Time as a bargaining tool and the genuine invitation of setting everything aside for your child and the big effects that has.

If you’ve ever felt like Special Time wasn’t delivering the way you hoped, come problem-solve with Abigail and Elle on the Podcast this week.

Listen to Can Special Time really increase my child’s level of cooperation?

Set Up Your Special Time for Success

Get all the help you need making Special Time a regular feature in your family. Join the Special Time Challenge, and increase your child's co-operation and reduce parent guilt.

You’ll get a daily tip to action to make sure you are getting the most you can from this amazing tool, and access to our pop-up group, with even more support, including lives with our instructors.

It starts on September 4th and its free, so what are you waiting for?

Join here

Do You Know the Best Way Out of Parent Anger? Aug 21, 2019

What gets you super seething mama mad?

Is it the constant asks and requests, the “Mom where’s my… that’s so overwhelming?

Maybe it’s the piles of toys and dishes and chip packets you asked to be tidied but are still smirking at you from the living room?

Maybe it’s the stubbornness and defiance your child shows when you ask them to take a bath after giving them a wonderful day out?

At least, you think it’s that the cause of all your parent anger!

But what if that's not really it at all?

What if the source of your rage is connected to the limits you are setting. Or, more correctly, not setting?

What does parent anger have to do with setting limits, anyway?

This week on the podcast we’re sharing what behaviors make us blow and figuring out why. We show you how why, when you peel back the layers of feelings tightly packing your parent anger, you might well find a mama who was too exhausted, too overwhelmed, or too oblivious to set limits with her kids.

And we talk about why not setting limits leads to rupture.

Do you know the best way out of Parent Anger?

This week, we're talking:

How to start identifying your triggers and trace the source of your dissatisfaction
Why setting limits (or not setting them) leads to arguments and rage
What your parent anger can teach you, and how to recover from it
The power of frontloading to keep your family on track and running without disruption
Why good limits begin with getting clear on your values
Abigail also shares two good tips for getting good “anti-rage” systems in place

Join us on the podcast this week for Do you know the best way out of Parent Anger?

Listen now:

Abigail and Elle are Taking A Break

We’re nine episodes away from 100! And while we love and appreciate the chance to connect with you weekly, we also need to set some limits - with our own schedules.

We’ll be taking a bit of a break after episode 100, and we'd love to ask you a favor!

How Have Things Changed?

We want to feature your voices in episode 100. If you want to be included leave us a message.

All you need to do is to include these three things:

Your name or pseudonym
Where you are from
And answer, “What has this podcast done for your parenting?”

You can also call: 818-643-1714

And if you can’t call, email Abigail and Elle at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

More support for Parent Anger:

These five ideas and wonderful in times of parent meltdown: Crazy Mad: Five Ways To Ward off Parent Anger

Listening Partnerships are THEY BEST way to offload anger and examine your triggers. We also use them to explore our parenting values. Download this free guide to Listening Partnerships to get some set up.

For daily answers to your parenting questions join our wonderful free community. Join Parents Connect

What Could We Do Better?

While we’re rebooting, share your ideas! Please let us know how we can do better, and what parenting topics you’d most like for us to cover in future episodes at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

How to Make Your Kids Love Chores (guest starring Abigail's son) Aug 14, 2019

If you catch yourself late at night, surrounded by toys, folding clothes and wondering why you don't have time or energy to take a shower, ask yourself:

Why am I doing all the chores?
Where are my kids when I need them?
And why aren't those helpful little mice from Cinderella a real thing?

And then breathe.

Because chances are if you don't, you'll explode the mother lode with a tyranny of "Why do I never get any help around here?

"Why do you NEVER pick up?"

"Why do I have to ask you THREE times,"

You know, all that fun explosive stuff you promised you wouldn't yell.

Things Are About to Change

This week on How to Make Your Kids Love Chores we're looking at some great ways you can actually get down and dirty with getting your kids on board with helping around the house.

On the podcast this week, we're talking:

Working with your toddler's natural inclinations to help
Getting clear on what works for you and your kids when it comes to chores
Working on a feedback loop that encourages chat and change
Figuring out what's holding you and your family back from a workable chores plan
The debate between rewards, charts, and consequences

And Guest-Starring...Chores From a Kid's P.O.V

Abigail's son even makes a (surprise) guest debut this week and shares some very insightful reasons on why he detests doing laundry! (We giggled!).

Join us this week if you are tired of battling the kids around chores, or you just don't know where to get started on setting chores for your kids.

More To Help You In Your Quest in Managing Chores for Kids

Take a look at this primer on Hand in Hand Parenting's approach to chores

Here's our podcast on Emotional Projects

Remember that study we talked about where kids love to help pick up? Here it is

And, since it's good to harness help in the toddler years, get this Transition to Toddlerhood guide if you have an ankle-biter. Download now

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Parenting Sick Kids: How To Navigate Medicine, Worry and Stress Aug 06, 2019

What's the one thing you want for your child when they are sick?

To have them feel better.

What's the one thing that most often gets in the way of that?

When you walk away with a specialist appointment or wonkily-written script from Doc you have two things: A ticket better health for your child, hopefully, and also a potential prescription for tears and battles.

How do you keep calm and carry on?

This week on the podcast we show you how you can use the tools to overcome medical worry, emergencies, trauma and stress.

Because when you are parenting sick kids, it isn't just them who suffers.

Whether your child has been through common childhood complaints or more serious medical challenges, we'll show you what you can do to soothe things (that don't just rely on a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down).

On Parenting Sick Kids this week, learn:

How Abigail armed herself with the tools to make a complete care package for her son's heart-surgery - and her own sanity. This is really inspiring stuff.
Why a slowly-slowly approach can eradicate all fears and battles
What happens when medication NEEDS to happen
How Special Time can totally turn things around - and what to do when it doesn't And how to take care of you, your other half and your kids when procedures get traumatic

If your child gets dotty about doctor's visits or mad about meds, listen in today and turn that panic around.

Listen to Parenting Sick Kids: How To Navigate Medicine, Worry and Stress

And if it's you who is sick? Read this post on how to be sick and a mom

Parenting a sick child can be hard enough, and it gets even tougher when your other child feels left out. Discover how to balance things out in this post

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

How to Master Motherhood (and other parenting lies) Jul 30, 2019

You probably got very excited when you discovered that Hand in Hand Parenting had five tools that could rescue you when parenting got sticky (or downright dirty).

Very excited.

It was the exact result you wanted Google to deliver. It may even have been how you found our podcast.

You needed answers.

Here they were.

Even better. These five tools were kind parenting tools. They meant you could stop feeling like a demon mother ready to explode the moment your child said no, got sassy, or gave you a kick in the shins.

Which is often, by the way.

With new and ever rosier visions of running together with your kid through green and blooming fields (or, maybe the park, or the mall if you are city dwellers like us) you couldn't wait to stop yelling and start connecting. To start forging beautiful, sunset-glowy memories...

So why do you still feel like you are messing it all up?

Your Parenting Fails are A-OK

Why do you still feel yourself sliding into motherlode-ready-to-explode mode?

Why are you tearful, or fearful, or just too plain exhausted to dig deep into the tools? (All you want to dig deep into is the cookie jar).

Why?

Because, dear mama, if you set out to master motherhood you are chasing an impossible dream.

We've been there too!

Let us tell you something - we tell other parents how to parent and we still mess up.

Bigtime!

Yes, our stories are littered with so-called parenting fails.

Getting Real on our Parenting Fails

This week we're celebrating 500,000 downloads (break out the ice-cream cake and some Pinot) by getting real about our parenting fails.

What stretches our patience to the max?
The moments we lose it (and what happens afterward)
And how the rockiest parts of our parenting journey have lead us to some surprising new destinations

See, we're learning (always learning!) that these "parenting fails" are not fails at all. (In fact, after this episode we vow to NEVER call these diversions that at all!).

Join us this week as we dish the dirt on our mothering mishaps and mayhem and share some shinier thinking on how it all fits together in the end.

This is for you if you ever felt like you failed at motherhood - because you just never ever deserve to feel like that.

Listen now to How to Master Motherhood (and other parenting lies) now

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

How To Get A Defiant Child Moving When You Have to Be Somewhere Jul 23, 2019

You just dropped one child at his playdate. Now you have 15 minutes to scoot across to the pool for your younger kid's swim lesson. Easy, right? Actually no. Your child is refusing to scoot. He doesn't want to put on his swim clothes. He won't go to the pool. "I HATE swim class," he yells defiantly. Why Reasoning Won't Work Oh, and when you tried reasoning? He kicked his scooter across the car park and laid flat on the tarmac. He isn't going anywhere. How Do You Set Limits WIth A Defiant Child? If you are using the Hand in Hand Tools you know that a child's defiance shows they are having a hard time. You also know that one of the best ways to work through this is by letting your defiant child work through their anger and frustration. Staylistening through their upset works great—when you have time. But What Happens When You Don't Have Time? Right now the clock ticking in your head sounds like a bomb waiting to explode. Your indecision on how to move forward mounts with every second that passes. You notice passersby eyeing up your situation, and you're ready to blow. Do you: A: Sit and listen to your child's outburst, and watch the clock tick past the start of the swim lesson. B: Pack your defiant child under one arm and the scooter under another and march over to the pool. C: Announce that class is off and suggest getting an ice-cream instead. You'll tackle this some other time. Surprise! None of these are right. And none of them are wrong! Today on the podcast we share ideas and tools that will help you decide how to respond when your child gets defiant and simply says "No." Listen in for: - Surefire strategies to prevent these stands-offs from happening in the first place - Why every limit you give your child is actually multiple limits bound together as one and how to unravel them - How to get clear on limits you want to hold and those you can let slip away - What to do when you absolutely, really, definitely need your child do something and they are defiant in saying no STAY CONNECTED We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges.;Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Yes! You Can Playlisten When your Child is Upset Jul 17, 2019

Your child grabs the one extra cookie you said he wasn’t allowed…

What do you do?

Or your daughter whines the minute she sees you pull out peanut butter for her toast...

Or, when your son hears that his sister is having a sleepover he yells that you’re a mean mom...and that you have wrinkles!

Yes he did.

To Play or Not to Play...That is the Question

Would you, could you playfully parent in these situations, or would you Staylisten to your child’s upset?

A lot of parents ask us when to play and when to stay and we answer in the podcast this week:

When to play and when to stay...

When can you play and then stay…

And why would you stay then play…

Ok, we’ll stop with the rhyming now and get down to business.

Listen to Yes! You can Playlisten when your child is upset. We’re talking:

Discover the signals children use to tell you play is ok today or that it’s better to stay...
Playful parenting ideas you can use when storm clouds are just brewing
How to move from Staylistening into play
How to decide if you are Staylistening too much when you could be playing instead
And why play isn’t a substitute for Staylistening and why we can’t replace tears with laughter

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

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How To Potty Train Your Child in 10 Easy Years Jul 10, 2019

Since we have all personally gone through potty training and we will all have to go through it with our kids, you'd think we'd have nailed down one, surefire potty training method.

But the 11,000 google results you get when you type in 'How to potty train my child,' clearly shows that a one-size-fits-all approach is about as likely as you getting a 5-minute shower with no disruptions.

Yerright.

Sadly, there is no magic potty training method. And sometimes it feels like you'll still be sitting with your child and wiping their butt when they go off to college! But, don't fear...

So Many Methods, So Many Questions

Potty-train in 3 days or wait till they lead?
Will pee but won't poop...
Is fine at home but won't pee at pre-school...
Pull-ups or bare bums?

The questions are endless.

Which is why we get wholly confused, flabbergasted, frustrated, impatient and exhausted when it comes to potty training.

Does this rite of passage have to be so arrrgh?

This week, a few ideas to help.

No matter which potty training method or approach you lean towards you can incorporate the Hand in Hand tools to de-stress the process. And we can certainly promise some fun solutions too.

This week, find out out how you can laugh, play and cry your way to the potty and back. You'll discover...

Play methods you can use to reduce potty pressure and power battles.
What to expect from the potty training years, whichever method you choose.
Why we veer clear of rewards and use laughter instead
A slowly-slowly approach that really works with fearful kids

We're talking the good, the bad and the stinky in potty training. Join us for How to Potty Train Your Child in 10 Easy Years and then get the super fun potty training games in 8 Ways to Make Potty Training Playful.

Join the waitlist for the Hand in Hand Parent Club. Entry is closed right now, but we'll be back open in the fall.

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

3 Smart, Sensitive Ways to Respond to Your Child's Anxiety Jul 03, 2019

“Mom, I can’t go to camp today. I have a stomachache.”

This is the third time this week your child has complained of a sore stomach, and yet she shows no other symptoms of being unwell.

You wonder…is something else going on under the radar?

Does your child complain of stomachaches?
Does she get tearful or angry regularly, refuse to go places or try new things?
Does your child worry a lot, gets obsessive or compulsive? Does he or she act clingy or have trouble sleeping?

Or, do you see all of these?

what are the signs my child is anxious?

Child anxiety is on the rise, but even if your child has not been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, all children have anxious moments. And what can look like defiance or stubbornness can indicate your child is feeling anxious.

Reading the signs and responding to them with actionable strategies can help a child shake off anxiety and emerge stronger and more resilient.

try these 3 ideas to flip your child’s anxiousness

On this episode of the Hand in Hand podcast, we look at the causes and signs of child anxiety, and Abigail shares three really useful flips you can use to turn your child's anxious behavior around. You'll share new insights and mindshifts that will point your child towards strength and confidence.

Listen now.

More on How the Hand in Hand Tools Work with trauma

You can learn more about the t herapeutic benefits of using Hand in Hand Parenting here. Get download.

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Why is my kid swearing? Jun 26, 2019

Have you ever asked your child to do something simple, like pack their toys away before dinner? For a second they stare back and you wide-eyed, all chubby-cheeked cherubic sweetness.

And then they scrunch those eyes and tell you to $#@ off?

oh no, she didn’t…

Kids who cuss are more common than you might think. If you put those terms into any search engine results throw up videos full of kids swearing.

Some people, apparently, find kids swearing hilarious.

Others not so much.

And as we share on the podcast this week where you are on the parenting swearing spectrum has much to do with how swear words showed up in your own childhood.

This week we’re talking about why some kids swear with glee and other kids, well meh, they’d rather go draw a comic.
We’re talking the parenting shame and humiliation that happens when your kid swears and what you can do.
We’re talking about getting light around swearing while at the same time setting limits on sassy language.
And we’re talking about how swearing can offer fertile grounds for connecting. Yes, you read that right, you can use swearing to bring you closer.

try a little four-letter fun…

And because this podcast is the shizzaz we’re sharing four strategies you can use to get clear on where your family stands with swearing and handling your kids when their searing looks like its spiraling.

If you’ve been asking why is my kid swearing? Listen to the podcast this week and discover why there may are many reasons your child is swearing, and why none of them are bad.

a little something extra

Oh and here are 15 of Shakespeare’s swears (that Abigail mentioned) and they are way too fun. Would thou wouldst burst?

This post shares more on why kids get hooked on bad words and how you can respond.

find your tribe School’s out and so are we

Summer enrolment for the Parent Club is closing soon. Check out our special summer offer…before it’s gone

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Try These Quick, Smart Tips to Conquer Your Parenting Overwhelm Jun 20, 2019

You sink down on the rug in tears and wonder how you can ever keep going. Then you see your daughter’s abandoned stuffie under the sofa, next to an overdue library book, so you scoop them out, tuck them on the shelf, shove your hair in a bun, and get started with the laundry.

What happened to your tears? You discarded them like your daughter did her stuffie.

Welcome to mom overwhelm.

Mom overwhelm is the science of feeling crushed by the weight of life and living it anyway!

This week, we’re making space for overwhelm and talking about the ways we can bust through it.

If you feel like a cog in a wheel of making breakfast and answering email and rushing to activities and getting laundry done and finding lost library books and washing bodies and reading story books and wait, when did you last really see your partner?

Listen in.

quick smart tips to conquer your mom overwhelm

Today we talk turning that overwhelm around…

Why is overwhelm like eating a really hot curry
Why modern life creates a perfect environment for overwhelm to flourish
How to cultivate walk away moments
Why you need to listen to warnings as whispers and see if they grow loud
How redefining your mom role can create space and recognition
Why urgent and important are not the same thing
How to go to bed feeling happier you moved the needle

find your tribe School’s out and so are we

Summer enrolment for the Parent Club is closing soon. Check out our special summer offer…before it’s gone

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Who Else is Watching Your Power Struggles? Jun 12, 2019

Read on to learn why it pays to keep positive with your kids

"Last cookie," you say, lightly.

"No." Your son says. Then he stuffs the cookie into his mouth, grabs three more and runs from the room.

You're just about to charge from the kitchen in a chase when your eyes fall on another set of eyes.

Your younger son.

Wide-eyed and wondering.

Who's in charge here? his eyes seem to say.

How far can we push you? Are you going to...lose it?

This week we're talking the kid that pushes your buttons...and the brothers and sisters who are watching.

How does what you say or do in the heat of the moment reflect on them?

Abigail shares a big win when she got her over-tired tween to bed early, despite his resistance at every opportunity. But what surprised her most was how her younger son responded.

Listen in and feel inspired if you:

Struggle with keeping calm in Staylistening
Feel like one of your kids is playing you or pushing your buttons
Get sucked into debate and reasoning with your child when you set a limit
You feel like one child takes up so much more of your energy than the other
Power battles between you and one child results in your kids taking sides
Feel like you always give in...

You'll see how your responses can impacts everyone in your house - including you! And why it pays to keep positive with your children in ways you might not imagine.

find your tribe School's out and so are we

Summer enrolment for the Parent Club is closing soon. Check out our special summer offer...before it's gone

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother-flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

How to Superboost your Parent Support Today Jun 05, 2019

The baby woke at 4am.

His brother just 45 minutes later.

Since then you’ve been puked on, drawn on, and changed three diapers. You burnt a bagel and your kid tipped his cereal over in a rage. Now the baby is screaming because he’s hungry and your son is pulling at your pants leg because he wants to play.

Oh yeah. And it’s only 7.53am.

Who you gonna call?

Ghostbuster’s won’t help. But there is someone else. A special person who will let you scream about how bad your morning has been, and gently tell you they understand. Who will nod sympathetically and not judge you when you say that you are Just.Too.Tired.To.Play!

Who will laugh with you when you admit, embarrassingly, that you just wanted to fling that dumped out cereal bowl across the living room, pick up your bag and walk out of there forever. (Or at least just until you’d had a mani-pedi/shopping binge/peace and quiet.)

If you know Hand in Hand Parenting then you know that when the going gets tough we call…a listening partner.

There’s no other place that offers quite the same level of support, care and nurturing when you are at the end of your rope with parenting. It eases exhaustion, lightens the mental load and makes room for more energy and enjoyment with your kids.

But are you using your listening time to the max?

This week Abigail shares a powerful story about how listening rescued her when she hit rock bottom in parenting, and her and Elle discuss the ways you can boost your listening time to make it even more empowering, supportive and freeing.

And if you haven’t started a listening partnership, don’t worry! There’s plenty in the podcast for you – and some downloads below!

On How to Superboost Your Parent Support, you’ll find:

Why making time honors your self-care and enhances the work and care you pour into your family
The times a light clearing out of your feelings can be useful versus times to probe deeper
Three ways to get more from your listening time and really boost your well-being
Still journaling? That’s great – but why haven’t you started listening? Overcoming the obstacles and actually getting started with Listening Time

find your tribe

Never heard of Listening Time? You’ll find everything you need to know in this ebook.

Want to find a listening partner? Join our free Facebook community and post to get started.

Listen to our earlier podcast and discover how Listening Partnerships can sound.

Take the class!

Be the best listener you can be. Learn the art of connected active listening and discover how you like to be listened to. This in-depth online video course teaches steps to building your ideal listening partnership so you can change parenting for the better. Learn more.

Become Mother-Flipping-Awesome!

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother- flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Do you know when your child needs you most of all? May 28, 2019

The last time you asked them to tidy their crayons, they smashed the whole box on the floor and ripped up the color sheet.

You have to psyche yourself up when you need them to turn off the TV, because…BOOM! Epic meltdown.

Forget about asking for a hug. Your child wriggles away from your hand on his shoulder.

Does every request you make send your child into a raging meltdown?

You spend life walking on eggshells. (As well as Lego bricks.)

But, do you know what?

This is actually when your child needs you most of all.

But how do you get close when your child acts like a tiny tyrant, doing everything they can to push you away? When it’s hard to even be in a room with them?

you need to get close when your child pushes you away. here’s why.

This week, Abigail and Elle show you how to maximise a special tool you can use when you want to transform meltdowns into closeness and co-operation. Use it to stop power battles and turn your child’s difficult, defiant behaviors around.

On the podcast this week:

Learn what your child’s ongoing acts of aggression and rage are showing you
How to take shouting and screaming and turn then into smiles
Maximise the tool so you two can laugh, play and actually enjoy each other again.

If you are exhausted or confused by your child’s rage and meltdowns, listen in now and get these simple solutions you can apply today.

get your guide to special time

New to Special Time? Here’s a free chapter from our book Listen. Learn all about this amazing tool.

find your tribe

Join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother- flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

How to Respond to Your Kid's Mistakes in a Way You Can Be Proud Of May 22, 2019

Do you know how bad your child feels when they mess up?

They may look angry. They may look amused. They may show bravado.

But in every kid that messes up is a pit of shame, sadness, confusion and doubt about their own self-worth.

How do we know? Because aren't those the exact same feelings we adults feel when we mess up - when we really look inside?

And we parents often heap on that shame.

You get into blame and guilt, lectures and stand-offs. Just the way you were treated when you were little.

If you want to avoid the stand-offs, forced apologies, shame and humiliation we experienced when we messed up, we need new tools and new responses.

This week we share three ways to respond that will actually build trust and empathy with your child - whether mistakes are big or small!

Discover 3 Responses You Can Use To Build Trust and Avoid Shame

On this week's podcast, we're talking mistakes - when you make them and when your kid makes them. Listen in for:

Why confrontation and blame only builds kids shame and self-loathing
Why empathy isn't a soft response when it comes to mistakes
Why sharing your own mistakes maybe the best thing you can do when your child messes up
Three different approaches you can use to build trust when your child messes up (or feels like they have)
How to show your child that mistakes can be teachable moments

When mistakes happen in your house, these tools and ideas will guide and support your child and boost trust.

Join us this week for How to Respond to Your Kid's Mistakes in a Way You Can Be Proud Of

Here's the download Elle mentions. Reduce the stress of parenting! Get now

Find Your Tribe

Get ready to join Abigail’s rocking new community and be mother- flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

What to Do When Your Family Wants to Rule Your Parenting May 16, 2019

How do you make like Meghan Markle and stand strong when you face loud and opposing opinions on how you *should be* raising your child?

Meghan and Harry have broken many a protocol since bringing royal baby Archie into the world, from not using the royal family's preferred hospital to Harry holding Archie at a (delayed) press call.

No-one is telling them how to raise a prince, not even the queen!

How About You?

How can you get the same support from your family when your ideas about parenting differ from theirs?

How you can avoid endless confrontations and feuds?

How can you stand strong when their feelings rock you and you face indecision and uncertainty about your parenting style?

Hand in Hand Parenting can seem very different to an older generation, and even younger friends and family that find mainstream parenting practices successful for them. So, how can we show the differences in a positive light without alienating anyone?

Listen to this episode and find out how to own your parenting when your family wants to rule over you.

Why your parenting ideas rub moms and mom-in-laws up the wrong way and how you can ease this
One easy tip for keeping everyone happy when your child moves offtrack and everyone expects you to act (and no, you won't need to time-out)
How to see the good in their criticism and ways to handle their opinions

Get More Support and Resources for Times Family is Judgmental

Try these five tips for responding when you feel judged about your parenting
Get the book Listen, to hear the 100s of stories from families using these tools.

Find Your Tribe

Don't go it alone!

The Hand in Hand Parent Club offers daily support from instructors, with free access to our Setting Limits class, and monthly Q&A Sessions with Hand in Hand's Founder Patty Wipfler.

We're re-opening in the summer. Drop us an email at Podcast@Handinhandparenting.org and we'll be in touch about dates.

Get ready to join Abigail's rocking new community and be mother- flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

What to Do When Your Family Wants to Rule Your Parenting May 16, 2019

How do you make like Meghan Markle and stand strong when you face loud and opposing opinions on how you *should be* raising your child?

Meghan and Harry have broken many a protocol since bringing royal baby Archie into the world, from not using the royal family's preferred hospital to Harry holding Archie at a (delayed) press call.

No-one is telling them how to raise a prince, not even the queen!

How About You?

How can you get the same support from your family when your ideas about parenting differ from theirs?

How you can avoid endless confrontations and feuds?

How can you stand strong when their feelings rock you and you face indecision and uncertainty about your parenting style?

Hand in Hand Parenting can seem very different to an older generation, and even younger friends and family that find mainstream parenting practices successful for them. So, how can we show the differences in a positive light without alienating anyone?

Listen to this episode and find out how to own your parenting when your family wants to rule over you.

Why your parenting ideas rub moms and mom-in-laws up the wrong way and how you can ease this
One easy tip for keeping everyone happy when your child moves offtrack and everyone expects you to act (and no, you won't need to time-out)
How to see the good in their criticism and ways to handle their opinions

Get More Support and Resources for Times Family is Judgmental

Try these five tips for responding when you feel judged about your parenting
Get the book Listen, to hear the 100s of stories from families using these tools.

Find Your Tribe

Don't go it alone!

The Hand in Hand Parent Club offers daily support from instructors, with free access to our Setting Limits class, and monthly Q&A Sessions with Hand in Hand's Founder Patty Wipfler.

We're re-opening in the summer. Drop us an email at Podcast@Handinhandparenting.org and we'll be in touch about dates.

Get ready to join Abigail's rocking new community and be mother- flipping-awesome. Go here to get registered now.

3 Reasons We Parents Can Suck at Setting Limits May 07, 2019

Elle confesses that she really sucks at setting limits with her kids - and together she and Abigail suss out ways to make rules, boundaries and enforcing them a whole lot easier.

Join us this week if you've ever battled with yourself about when to set limits, or found that whenever you do set limits your kids just don't seem to listen.

Listen to the podcast this week and learn

Top 3 reasons why limit setting is failing you
Ways you can reframe what it means to set limits
Why backchat isn't all bad
Why determining what matters for you and your family really helps you set limits more effectively.

If you want to stop yelling and start setting calm limits, or you are sick of your buttons and boundaries getting pushed, join us for this podcast.

More Resources for Setting Limits with your Kids

Discover Hand in Hand's 3-Step Approach to Setting Limits in this free ebook

Take our online Setting Limits class and get proven tools to set healthy limits that fosters closeness and cooperation in your family. Sign up here, or register for the Hand in Hand Parent Club and get this class free with your membership.

Stay Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

What To Do When You Aren't So Psyched to See Your Kids May 01, 2019

We know we love our kids, but that doesn't stop them being hard to like sometimes.

This podcast is for you if you ever wondered how you were going to get through the next few hours with your kids close by.

We talk about how we get to the point where the dread feels real and we share things you can do when parenting feels this hard.

Listen to What To Do When You Aren't So Psyched To See Your Kids and

Find the hidden power in giving in to a bad day
Get play ideas and ideas for when play seems just too hard
Learn how to hold off on constant control and mommy managing
Why it's vital to have your own time to whine and tantrum sometimes

We also wanted to take a moment to thank you for being here and seeking ways for happier days with your family - you are amazing for all the caring you do.

More Resources For Help for Hard Times in Parenting

This is the Listening Partnerships online class we mention. Don't forget you can get it for 25% off when you join the Hand in Hand Parent Club.

Stay Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Why Does my Child Only Listen When I Lose It? Apr 12, 2019

This week Abigail and Elle respond to a mom who feels like she sees power struggles, aggression and kickback when she's parenting the way she wants to, and compliance only once she gets mad.

Are her efforts to parent kindly back-firing? And why would that be?

On the podcast this week we talk about:

What to expect when parenting with respect
Setting boundaries on your own levels of calm
Comparison parenting and why no way is the perfect way
What power struggles actually mean, and working on embracing them as a win not a loss.

Join us if you've ever felt like your efforts at being an empathetic parent are lost on your child and learn why that definitely is not what is happening!

More Resources on Mean Words and Mean Moms

This article on how kids acquire bad words and re-use them is very insightful. Read Bad Words from Good Kids.

"Mean mom," comments can be very triggering. Here's how instructor Irina handles it step-by-step. My Child Calls Me Mean Mom. What Should I Do?

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our newsletter

Setting Limits: The Hard No Apr 10, 2019

You know about setting warm limits: Moving in calmly when you need to stop a behavior, but what happens when it feels like there is no chance to keep calm?

Like, your child is about to stick their finger in the power socket. Or dashes out across a busy street. Then how do you set a warm limit then?

On the podcast this week, we talk about the Hard No. And why no is hard! When no means no - and those times you aren't even sure your no needs to be hard.

Discover how Abigail handles a hard - and fast - no when there is no doubt a quick, firm limit needs to be set.
How to evaluate if a no needs to be hard.
What happens when your no is hard and then you realise it doesn't need to be.

Join us this week for Setting Limits: The Hard No, and figure out how to stay firm and keep cool.

For more resources on Setting Limits, try these:

Do you know what or why you are setting a limit? It can really help to know. Here's four limits kids need and why to set them.

Read Abigail's post about how to connect before you set limits in One thing to do Before Setting Limits

Want more on Setting Limits? There's 3 days left of our Setting Limits challenge. You get daily ideas for setting limits plus access to our online class on the weekend. You can join here.

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Help! My Kid Keeps Bragging Apr 03, 2019

Where does the need to be competitive come from and why does it rub us parents up the wrong way? This week Abigail and Elle respond to one mom about her son's competitive streak.

On Help! My Kid Keeps Bragging we talk about:

Is your child's competitive streak signalling some other need?
Competitiveness and confidence
Is competition bad, anyways?
Why sometimes it's good to bask with your child in their glory

Figure out what's causes a child to get competitive, and get new ways to handle things when your kids start telling you "I'm fastest," "I'm fittest," "I'm best."

Get More Resources for Helping Competitive Kids

This is the Hand in Hand 30 Parenting Challenge fundraiser that we mention at the end of the podcast. It's not too late to join...

Stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Finding Your Calm Place in Parenting (It Really Can Happen!) Mar 26, 2019

So, you may be fairly new to Hand in Hand's approach or maybe you've been trying out the tools for a few months, even years. But at some point you'll probably - most likely when you are particularly tired or frustrated - ask, "Is Hand in Hand too hard???"

We know!

We've been there!

This week, Elle and Abigail talk about when and why this question pops up. They explore the alternatives and share their own experiences about when it's happened to them - and don't forget Abigail has been parenting this way for about a decade! Plus, we also walk you through ways to get past this ickiness so that you really do find your calm place in parenting.

We've been there too - it really can happen!

Listen to Finding Your Calm Place in Parenting - It Really Can Happen and find out:

Why we reach our limits with this approach
Why other parenting styles may offer a quick fix that seems good in the moment and how this compares with Hand in Hand over time
What we can do to get on track
How to navigate those darker moments

More Resources For Getting Support As Parents

Haven't tried Listening Time yet? Read about how it differs from chatting with friends and post for a partner in our free Facebook Connect support group

Listen to Abigail and Elle's podcast A Little Lite Listening Partnerships Demonstration

For daily support from instructors, plus regular Q&A call-ins with them and our founder Patty Wipfler, join the Hand in Hand Parent Club.

stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Raising Resilient Girls...Part 2 Mar 20, 2019

Join us as we continue examining how nature, nurture and culture affects boys and girls, with social philosopher and author Michael Gurian.

On Part 2 of this series, Michael talks about how we can use what science says to raise resilient girls.

On this week's episode:

The way mothers and fathers empathise differently, and why this can be beneficial in building resilience and boundaries
Why fathering is essential for adolescent girls, and what happens in same sex families
How girls can get locked in perception and destructive thought patterns and how parents can help unlock this
Why nurturing our girls according to their nature builds resilience

Listen to Part Two of Raising Resilient Girls now

more resources for raising resilient girls

Learn more about Micheal’s work at www.GurianInstitute.com and read more about his approach to raising girls in his book The Minds of Girls.

Join Michael and Abigail at this year’s Summer Institute.

Hear Micheal on Part One of this podcast, and his talk with us about Raising Boys - Raising Boys and Girls Differently

Raising a tween? Get help navigating the changing landscape and challenges of keeping connected as your child steps further into independence. With tools that supports you, your child and your relationship.

stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Raising Resilient Girls - with Michael Gurian Mar 13, 2019

Social philosopher, family therapist, and New York Times best-selling author Michael Gurian returns to the podcast this week for some girl talk!

Last time Michael guested with us, talk turned to boys. But why even separate talk about boys and girls? Michael explains the fundamental differences in brain science between girls and boys and why these difference affect:

How girls learn and process information
Why the mean girl phenomenon happens and why this can be an important part of a girl's rise into maturity
Why some girls are more prone to anxiety that can lead to self-harm like eating disorders
Cyclical thought processes that can stall our girls' decision- and action- taking.

Michael suggests ways that we can observe what's happening in our girls' lives and support them to be strong and resilient.

Join us this week for some fascinating insight on how the world looks for girls and the practical ways you can guide yours.

More Resources for Raising Resilient Girls

Learn more about Micheal's work at www.GurianInstitute.com and read more about his approach to raising girls in his book The Minds of Girls.

Join Michael and Abigail at this year's Summer Institute.

Hear Micheal talk about Raising Boys on our earlier podcast Raising Boys and Girls Differently

For daily support from instructors, plus regular Q&A call-ins with them and our founder Patty Wipfler, join the Hand in Hand Parent Club - your rich, deep dive into Hand in Hand Parenting

Parenting a Strong-Willed Child Mar 05, 2019

You may have heard about how your tenacious, persistent, negotiating go-getter is developing the skills he or she needs to be a great leader in the future, but daily parenting a strong-willed child can feel like an uphill battle. All those constant requests, desires, energy and power play is a lot!

This week Abigail and Elle weigh in on why parenting a strong-willed child can feel so demanding and draining, and how you can raise your strong-willed child without so many power struggles - or the need to "break them."

On this week's podcast, Parenting the Strong-Willed child:

How an agenda won't help when you raise a strong-willed child
How to harness your child's enthusiasm, desire and power
Why these kids can also be super sensitive
Learn how to dance between limits and freedom
What to do if you disapprove of your child's nature and how to develop a mindset that helps improve things

Listen to Parenting The Strong-Willed Child now.

You might also like:

Setting limits with a strong-willed child can feel really hard - yet they do really need those limits. This article shows how you can hold a limit with a child without breaking them - and comes with a free checklist.

If parenting feels too hard you might find yourself yelling. Here's 15 ways you can stop shouting at your kids

For daily support from instructors, plus regular Q&A call-ins with them and our founder Patty Wipfler, try the Parent Club free for 30 days.

stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

The Most Important Question To Ask When Your Child's Behavior Gets Hard Feb 26, 2019

Did you ever think you got this parenting thing figured out only to find your child brings home some new parenting challenge?

Maybe they start shouting potty words at you, seemingly from nowhere?
Maybe they start throwing punches when normally they'd been fairly calm?
Or maybe things simple things that you ask them do suddenly brings on meltdowns, where before they'd do it without a struggle?

Where did the child you thought you knew so well go to?

In the quest to find solutions to this sudden new and disagreeable behavior, you head to friends to compare notes, you hit Google for answers, or you even seek the services of a professional.

After all, you want those words to stop, that aggression to fade, that resistance to disappear.

But what if you started with "Why?"

Why is your child so fascinated with hurtful words right now? Why does he or she have so much tension the only thing that angry words or angry actions seem to have become a default reaction? Why is having to hang a schoolbag so difficult now when just a few months ago it was a no-brainer?

Why?

This week Abigail and Elle respond to a mom who found surprising answers when she stopped asking her four-year-old to quit yelling and instead asked herself why the yelling was happening at all.

We highlight the gorgeous ways this mom used the Hand in Hand Parenting tools to delve deeper, and the beautiful way her daughter opened up and let her mom support her through what turned out to be some very difficult moments in her school life.

Listen to "Why?" is Your Most Important Question When Kids' Behavior Gets Hard and learn how to ask why effectively when you want to bring change.

For daily support from instructors, plus regular Q&A call-ins with them and our founder Patty Wipfler, try the Parent Club free for 30 days.

stay connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Why is it so Hard to Hear your Child Say "I Hate You!" Feb 19, 2019

Three little words with such immense power. Following on from last week's podcast on children with anger, this week Elle and Abigail suss out why it feels so bad to hear "I hate you," and the many ways you can respond.

Elle talks about the different reasons she hears "I hate you," both in anger and as connection bids, and Abigail shares why she thinks they hardly ever hear "I hate you," in her house.

We also talk about times we can respond playfully, and times we can set limits on hearing those words, and times when "I hate you," is not aimed at you but is instead thrust at a sibling.

If you've felt threatened, upset or confused about the times your child has said "I hate you," you'll want to listen into this episode.

More Resources for When Your Child Says "I Hate You."

Both these articles share where bad words come from and how to manage them in your house: Bad Words from Good Kids and When Kids Words Hurt

And we love how Hand in Hand Instructor Irina thinks and responds when her child calls her mean mom.

Contact Abigail Wald about her upcoming 5-Month Transformation session

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Why is my Child So Angry? Feb 12, 2019

This week Abigail and Elle respond to a mom who is Staylistening to her child, but never sees tears. Worse, it seems to her that the more she leans in to listen to her child's feelings, the more her child gets angry, starts scowling and tries running away. How can she listen to anger?

So, this week we're asking if Staylistening should always result in a cry, and if not, what can we do? Why we as parents find it so hard to listen to a child's anger, and how can we trust them to do as they need with their feelings.

Join us this week if you've ever felt like you've "failed" at Staylistening, or it doesn't look in your house how you expected or thought it would - we have soothing news for you.

Get More Resources for Parenting an Angry Child

Sometimes all an angry child needs if for you to listen. Read Getting from Angry to Happy in 20 Minutes or Less

Listen to this next - we talk more about Staylistening in this podcast: When Staylistening Doesn't Go As Planned

Get the e-book Reaching For Your Angry Child

Here's a free cheatsheet about everything we covered today around Staylistening. You can download it here.

Get community, get support, get listening partnerships, everyday – in The Parent Club. Try it free for 30 days.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Elle and Abigail Meet For the First Time and Talk About Why Parents Deserve a Village! Jan 29, 2019

This week Elle and Abigail finally meet face-to-face! No wonder they felt inspired to make this podcast.

"It takes a village," so the old proverb says, and anyone who tunes into our podcast for parents often knows that this is all too true. In fact, it's the reason we made the podcast - to share a weekly space for parents so you don't feel alone.

And, as we meet this first time, we also realise the value in coming together week after week to share, to listen and laugh, to comfort and cry as we make the episodes.

And we want the same for you... Where's Your Village? So many of our reviews about the podcast say the episodes help parents feel part of something bigger - and we want that for you not just once a week, but every day and at any time you need it! Your village doesn't even have to be close physically - we're living proof of that! When you have a village, you have a guide, a force, and a strength behind you as you face your parenting challenges - and we've learnt this year that having that makes them so much easier to overcome. We're asking you to think about who else you want in your village? It's time to reach for your people! Reach for your support, because parenting shouldn't be a solo sport. Listen in today and find out why you need to build that village for yourself, and how you can do it. More Resources About Building A Parenting Village

There are so many ways to reach out and get the support you need within Hand in Hand Parenting. If you haven't already, join one of our facebook groups: Parent Support Group or if your child is 10 and over Parenting By Connection for Older Children.

If you have read our book Listen and want to connect with other like-minded parents, consider a Listen Book Club.

For daily support from instructors, plus regular Q&A call-ins with them and our founder Patty Wipfler, try the Parent Club free for 30 days.

For a deep dive into the tools, and an introduction to Listening Partnerships, with small groups of parents, take our 6-week Starter Class. And you can find all of our talks and classes here.

Stay Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

How to Get a Child to Eat When They Refuse Jan 28, 2019

This week, Abigail and Elle respond to a listener who has a 5-year-old picky eater. How can she get her to eat more than a few reliable meals?

Elle talks about her own process parenting her picky eater, including how she discovered that a good, workable solution was as much about her as it was her child.

And Abigail shares the varied healthy diets her sons sampled (endured!) following their early health scares, and the tips and tools she used to get them on side.

On this episode, we talk about the many things you can try with your picky eater, including:

Play - how it can help at the table and completely away from dinner

Choices - What, how and when to eat, and variations you might consider

Getting cries out ahead of the dinner table

Deciphering the actual issues

Why it's useful to evaluate your own expectations and eating philosophies as you work with your picky eater

Finding peace with your picky eater!

Picky eating can be incredibly stressful and frustrating, even for the most peaceful parent! Listen to How to Get a Child to Eat When They Refuse a create a workable plan for you and your little one.

More Resources for Dinner Times and Picky Eaters

20 Playful Ways to Help Picky Eaters is a fantastic resource if you can be playful around food.

Making connection as high a priority as your meal plan can help ease dinnertime battles. Read why and how in Are You Missing This One Vital Ingredient To Stop Dinnertime Battles

Get your free guide to partnering with your child around food

Get community, get support, get listening partnerships, everyday – in The Parent Club. Try it free for 30 days.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Parenting Tweens: Staying Close As Your Child Gets Older Jan 22, 2019

Does it seem like one minute you were waiting for your baby to take its first steps, and now you are watching him or her as a tween march out the door, bursting with independence? Worries about tantrums and them sleeping through the night long ago given way to conversations (and concern) over mobile phones and curfews?

As your child enters the pre-teen stage now known as "tween," you'll notice many other changes, not least their signals your child uses to show you they need you (and they still do!).

This week Abigail and Elle talk about what they've seen with their own tween children, and the adjustments they made parenting them using the Hand in Hand Parenting tools.

Elle talks about why she had to give up the words "special time," without actually giving up on special time, and Abigail shares the agreement she has with his son as they work towards him getting his own phone.

Listen in this week and find out why it can be so hard parenting tweens when the boundaries keep changing, and why getting on their wavelength now helps foster connection that will last through their teens.

Join us this week for Parenting Tweens: Keeping Close to Your Older Child

More Resources for Parenting Your Tween:

If you thought tantrums were done in the tween years, you're wrong - they may just look a little different. This podcast is all about Tweens and Their Tantrums

Help for when your tween is angry - Read A Playful Response to My Angry Tween

You still have a few days to pre-register for our new online class for parents of tweens, led by Patty Wipfler. Get information about the class content, and a special discount now.

Click to get more information on our newest class

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Are You Headed for Parent Burnout? Jan 15, 2019

Have you ever asked yourself where the fun parent went? The parent you that says yes to play-dough tea-parties, the parent you that says yes to piggy-back races and then suggests races to the dinner table?

If you have, you probably also have many different responses. You left that fun parent under the washing and work pile. You packed her away in your laptop when you went back to work. You lost him under a mountain of unpaid bills and worries. He got muddled in with the recipes you labor over that get returned complained about and uneaten.

And still your kids ask for more. More time, more attention, more fun, more play. And. It. Just. Feels. Like. You. Can't.

So the next time they yell. You yell. And you rage. And rail. And cry.

This week on the podcast we're looking at that line we all meet as parents and wish we never had to: The Breaking Point.

We look at why parents - especially moms - have their limits overstepped so often, and how we contribute to it, and why having our limits overstepped too much leads us to rage, confusion, isolation and, finally, parent burnout.

How can you listen to yourself and the signals that show you're on the road to parent burnout?

How can you give as much as you need to, get your own limits met and make them sacred so that you can get back to being the fun, parent enthusiastic parent you want to be?

Join us on the podcast this week, and find out how to stop feeling heavy about all you do in parenting, and start celebrating everything you give, not because you have to, but because you choose to love - every day and beyond measure - the little humans you are raising.

Listen to Are You Headed Towards Parent Burnout?

More resources to help with Parenting Stress and Burnout

Already at Breaking Point? Join Abigail's Intensive and rediscover how to choose love and love parenting. Contact her at abigail@realtimeparenting.com

Understanding Parenting Stress - you just can't give what you didn't have.

Reduce Parenting Stress: Why do we put off Listening Time? Don't! Listening Partnerships are gold.

Get community, get support, get listening partnerships, everyday - in The Parent Club. Try it free for 30 days.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Parenting in Public: How To Stick To Your Parenting Philosophy and Parent with Confidence When Others are Watching Jan 08, 2019

Do you feel awkward or anxious about your parenting when others are around?

Do you find yourself coming down more heavily on your kids when you are out in public?

Or do you find your yourself wanting to set a limit but not being able to?

Are you stuck when your child meltdowns while other parents are watching, or feel uncertain what others think about your parenting style?

In this week's podcast, we respond to a parent's question about social anxiety when parenting in public. We talk about how to stick to your parenting philosophies, even when others are watching, and what we need to do to parent calmly, consistently and confidently when out in public.

We talk about various ways to respond well for days you are feeling brave and empowered, as well as days you want to crawl under a rock.

Get ways to feel lighter around parenting in public, resist feeling judged, and focus on what’s happening with you and your child, not the parents watching.

We also share one practical strategy that helps you connect to a child who is melting down in public.

Listen to this week's podcast, Parenting in Public: How To Stick To Your Parenting Philosophy and Parent with Confidence When Others are Watching.

You'll stop worrying about what others think while actively showing them that a kinder way to parent is possible

More Resources for Parenting in Public:

This is the post that Elle mentions and has some excellent responses and actions you can take when you feel the heat of judgment. 5 strategies to help when you feel judged on your “softer” parenting style

And this is a nice one when your kids meltdown in public. Helping children with tantrums and emotional moments in public

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Got a Tween?

Does it feel like they are changing? Growing in new independence, new attitudes. Do you feel left behind? Pushed away? Even if your tween doesn't show you they want you close, they do. And it's vital for their development. Learn how to keep close now your child is getting older. Our new class Staying Close to Your Tween will show you how to navigate your changing relationship, respond to the moodiness and outrage, keep close. Find out when the class launches and how you can be a part of it.

Why Your Best New Year's Resolution Could Be "No Resolutions"... Jan 01, 2019

Why are we always compelled to start a new year with a list of resolutions that even a saint would be hard-pressed to keep up with? If there's one thing every good parent is good at, it's over-extending! We're all about the #parentgoals!

We are so happy to be starting the new year with you, our beautiful, caring community of parents. We know that you being here each week with us is because you are always striving to be doing better by your kids, in your parenting, in your communities.

That's not a New Year's flight of fancy, that's a constant, and that's amazing.

And while we think there's nothing wrong with new year's resolutions, creating new habits, bettering ourselves or developing new skills, we also see the pressure in that. Lots of pressure to do more, generate more, be more.

So, how about we DON'T make New Year's resolutions? Instead, why don't we do something equally as mindful, equally as transformative, and, some might say, just a little bit easier?

We're not talking self-care, more self-preservation. Because let's face it, we already have PLENTY on our plates.

Join us this week on the podcast for an uplifting new take on New Year's resolutions, and start 2019 a little less stressed and a lot more supported.

Listen to Why Your Best New Year's Resolution Could Be "No Resolutions"...

More Resources about Parenting And Resolutions

If you really have your heart set on making some new resolutions this year (go mama, go papa) you might enjoy last year's New Year's podcast - the one Elle mention's this week: Making Changes: New Year's Resolutions That Actually Succeed

If commitment is something you are working on in your family, this post will help: How to Help Your Child Keep Commitments

Start writing or type / to choose a block

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

The Parent Club is our monthly membership where we really put the Hand in Hand Tools to work with our families. Click here to learn more and get the support you need and deserve.

Too Many Toys?!! Dec 19, 2018

What goes hand in hand with holiday gifting? Toys and more toys.

This week we’re asking how you feel about toys, what decisions you make around holiday request lists, and how you can keep them in check, plus why we can all expect some meltdowns over toys in the holidays.

On the episode, you'll hear about:

Overwhelm - theirs and yours - and what you can do to overcome it
Envies and jealousies
Getting clear on what toys mean to you and why
Expectations and appreciations: Why your child might find it hard to say thanks
Making room, clearing out, cutting down, and giving to others

If you've ever felt overwhelmed on how much to give or how much is coming into your house at this time of year, here's a chance to mull over what you love - and might want to lose - about seasonal giving traditions.

Listen to Too Many Toys? More Resources about Kids, Limits and Toys

Read - Toys often cause big feelings for kids - especially when they can't have something they want, or feel like they chose the wrong plaything. Here's how one mom's trip to the store with her son ended in tears, and some positive steps she learned following.
Watch - Hand in Hand instructor Anna Cole reads about the time her son got violent in public when she refused to buy him what he asked for, and the strategies she used to handle his outburst calmly.
40% off Listen - Get over 100 real stories like Anna's of parents using the Hand in Hand approach to parenting in our book Listen: Five Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges. When you use "holiday2018" at checkout you'll get the e-book at 40% off. Show me how to get Listen on sale. (Offer good until December 31).

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our weekly newsletter

My Child is Hitting: Parenting The Problem, Not the Punch Dec 12, 2018

What should I do when my child hits?

It's one of the most common questions we get at Hand in Hand Parenting, and it's the content of this week's podcast. And no wonder. Hitting can feel dangerous. Offensive. Confusing.

But if hitting is so common, why are we all still wondering what to do about it?

There's so much differing advice!

What Are Children Really Saying When They Hit?

Abigail talks about all the quick-tip strategies out there and why they might work at first but why so often they fail in the long-term.

We look at what children might be communicating through hitting, whether it's a (somewhat misguided) attempt at play or as an expression as deep-rooted fear, and Elle admits completely misreading some of her child's hitting behaviors.

Understanding Hitting and other Defiant Behavior

And although we don't encourage hitting, we talk about why parenting the punch itself doesn't actually ease the problem but instead pushes the feelings causing a child to hit to one side. They may disappear for now, but they (and the hitting) will soon be back again.

So, we talk about what parenting the problem and not the punch actually means:

Get wise to why your child hits and how to respond accordingly
How to keep protected and still lean into the hitting
How hitting can offer room for growth and connection as you partner with your child and move past hitting

Listen to Hitting: Parent the Problem, Not The Punch and learn to set limits around hitting and respond in the way your child really needs you to. Because if you truly want to solve your child's hitting, you have to do the least obvious thing first - accept it.

More Resources For Parenting When Your Child Hits

Elle mentioned the post When Your Toddler Hits You in this episode. Read it to discover more about this new perspective around hitting.

We did a podcast with play expert Lawrence Cohen on aggressive play, how to manage it so that it helps reduce a child's aggressive behaviors. Listen to it here.

Learn how to lean into the first stages of aggression with a vigorous snuggle.

You might also like this article on partnering with your child which is what we are really talking about in this podcast,

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Don’t forget to subscribe!

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Register for Abigail's 30-day re-set here and learn more about Hand in Hand's monthly membership

Your Blueprint for Building Better Habits and Good Behavior Dec 04, 2018

So, you want your kids to walk in the door, hang their jacket, unpack their bags, eat quickly and get back out the door, freshly changed, for practice.

But right now you are at, well, walk in the door.

BOOM! Cue screaming, crying, defiance and running in the exact opposite direction that you'd like.

So how do you get from where you are now, to where you want to be with your kids?

This week's podcast was inspired by a mom that worked with Abigail and feels like she can't get her child to do ANYTHING.

Elle sympathizes, explaining that there has been a serious lack of 'tidy up practice' at home that can, at times, have her pulling her hair out.

Your Blueprint for Building Better Habits and Good Behavior

Together we talk about why things might be hard, and the steps we can take to encourage good behavior and better habits in our kids - without losing it.

It can be really difficult to meet your child where they are, but these moments of struggle to master new habits can offer great opportunities to connect with your child at a deep level and bring about profound shifts.

Why Building Better Habits Is An Opportunity to Deepen the Relationship Discover key ideas that you can start doing right now to encourage better habits and behavior - and why you shouldn't expect too much too soon.

Listen to Your Blueprint for Better Habits and Good Behavior, and please let us know how you like these ideas.

More Resources for Encouraging Good Behavior and Better Habits

Learn what it means to partner with your child: In this week's podcast, we talk a lot about meeting your child where they are before moving on. You can read more about this in this post Partnering with Your Child To Solve Their Issues and read one mom's story of how this worked for her.

Work with Abigail Wald: Abigail can show you how to meet your child where they are, and respond in a way that builds connection and closeness in her 30-Day Reset. Sign up to join before her new reset fills.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Don’t forget to subscribe!

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

The Parent Club is our monthly membership where we really put the Hand in Hand Tools to work with our families. Click here to learn more and get the support you need and deserve.

A Love Letter to Parents Nov 27, 2018

If you were to see a job description for a role where non-stop, around-the-clock care was compulsory, and there was no training and no overtime, would you take it?

Probably not!

Yet, it's what we all sign up for when we become parents.

Hand in Hand Parenting exists to support parents in this crazy difficult role, and it's why we make this podcast each week! We love love love you parents for showing up here, united in your care and devotion to raising your kids the best you can. What an amazing community!

And so, this week, Abigail and Elle wanted to celebrate your role as parents and all you do that is seen and unseen. Take this as an inspirational message for parents everywhere.

If you are in need of support, nurturing and community, welcome. Listen to A Love Letter to Parents now and take a minute to pause, reflect and love yourself a little.

Share Our Love Letter To Parents

Please share this inspirational message for parents with those you might know who would like and value the support of our beautiful community. You are the parents who will #changeparenting for the next generation, making it a more supported and understood role.

More Resources To Support Your Role as A Parent

"The way that we relate to children, on the whole, is the most powerful engine for what changes the future," says psychologist Robin Grille, in this stirring interview with Hand in Hand's Roma Norriss. Watch Parents Are the Most Powerful Activists There Are

Hand in Hand Parenting helps parents stop yelling and start connecting. Read how in How Hand in Hand Scholarships Help Parents Stop Yelling and Start Playing

What causes parents to feel isolated, stressed, and overwhelmed? Get Five Revolutionary Tools that will help you relax and enjoy your parenting more. Sign up for your free guide now.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org and don’t forget to subscribe!

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

A Surprisingly Simple Tool You Can Use to Deal With Difficult Family Members Nov 13, 2018

The holiday season is rolling around fast. Whether it's Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, or New Years these festive times exist to bring family together.

And while the holidays can be fun and merry events, for many of us they bring added stress to the package, and dealing with difficult family members can feel disagreeable at best, disruptive at worst.

Like...

...you can't stand the way your mom nags and picks.

...she can't stand the way your kids won't eat their greens.

...you find your dad's way of dealing with your children too harsh.

...he finds the way you deal with your kids too soft.

...Grandpa wants the kids to quieten down

...Grandma wants grandpa to quieten down - and doesn't hold back saying it.

Even families with the most well-meaning of intentions find that coming together requires extra thought, love and patience...and at this busy time of year, where do you get that?

So how can you enjoy your 'time off' around difficult family members?

Discover a Simple Tool That Can Help

What if we told you there was one simple thing you could do to ease the tension, melt the stress and invoke a warmer, lighter atmosphere?

Listen to the podcast today, and we'll show you how changing the way we respond to the triggering behaviors that family dish out will bring transformations sweeter than even the best pumpkin pie.

When you respond this way, you'll forgive more, appreciate more, you'll laugh more, and love more - and actually enjoy holidays with your family. We all deserve that.

Listen to Dealing With Difficult Family Members now

More Resources for Keeping Sane Through Holiday Season

It's virtually impossible to hold space for your kids and your family without someone doing the same for you.

Listen to a Listening Partnership happen in real time: Abigail and Elle talk about the power of the Listening Partnerships and give a demonstration of how to do it in this podcast.

Questions For Bringing Change and Healing Family Tension: Use these great questions to see how you can shift reactions and try-on new responses to avoid falling into usual patterns around family. Read Questions To Heal Family Tensions

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get weekly tips, ideas, and inspiration for your parenting in our Newsletter

Reframing Your Past Could Be The Key To More Confident and Content Parenting Nov 06, 2018

Psychologist and parenting expert Ross Greene coined quite the term when he said that "Kids do well when they can," but isn't exactly the same true of parents?

Reframing your past could be the key to getting there, and becoming a more confident, calm and content parent.

Why?

It's highly unlikely that any of us here set out to be terrible parents, so why do we often end up feeling that way?

This week, Abigail and Elle are looking at trauma and the ways that past traumatic experiences can reverberate in our parenting. Elle asks what exactly trauma is, and we look into identifying trauma and its after-effects.

Past trauma can stall us in our belief and ability to parent consciously, but reframing these experiences can help us heal well and move on. Abigail shares a deeply moving account of her pregnancy trauma and how reframing her devastation transformed it into something positive and warm. Much of this came down to the tools she used after discovering Hand in Hand Parenting.

Listen this week and find out how the Hand in Hand tools can help you retell your trauma story, heal and move on.

Listen to Reframing Your Past Could Be The Key To More Content Parenting.

More Resources on How Hand in Hand can Help Parents and Children Recover from Trauma

This article on Re-writing Your Trauma Story is the one Abigail refers to in the podcast and shares the steps she used to retell her story. We hope that this is useful for you too.

You'll find more ideas about the brain's ability to heal thanks to neuroplasticity and more ideas about using the tools to move on from toxic stress

And in Can Hand in Hand Heal Complex Trauma you can read how the tools help children through traumatic experiences

Watch Ross Greene talking about how kids do well when they can in this video

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get updates on everything Hand in Hand! Sign up for our newsletter and get a free copy of our Tantrums and Indignation eBook

5 Myths About Kids and Sleep Debunked Oct 29, 2018

Sleep. It's up there with eating and tantrums as a stress-causing subject for parents. And isn't there just so many ideas, action plans and tools for change online or offered by well-meaning grandparents, caregivers, friends? We bet you could even ask your pizza delivery guy and he'd even share his opinion about how parents should go about getting their kids to sleep.

Wow! That's a lot of pressure to Get. Things. Right. And a lot of room to feel like you've gotten everything wrong. To really feel like a failure.

And if there's one thing we do know it's that pressure and fear of failure does not make for peaceful parenting or a happy bedtime.

And you shouldn't have to feel like that anyways.

Why We Wanted to Share Five Myths About Kids and Sleep

So - we wanted to take a minute this week to share five sleep myths that seem to do the rounds at parent clubs and playdates - and seem to really rattle parents. Once these five myths are debunked, we can get back to our families and developing a plan that really works. Call it your own, bespoke, family sleep plan.

Listen in to hear five myths about kids and sleep - and why they need debunking right now.

And please let us know if you have any other myths - about sleep or other parenting challenges - that need debunking!

More Resources for solving kids sleep issues

Does your child fight sleep? This post suggests one question you can ask to help a child sleep better

Fear often sits at the heart of why a child can't sleep. For ways to support your child to sleep confidence, read these Gentle Ways To Get a Child To Sleep

Find out what stops kids sleeping, how to set limits around sleep and how to build your child’s sleep confidence. Learn more about Hand in Hand Parenting’s Helping Your Children Sleep, online class

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get updates on everything Hand in Hand! Sign up for our newsletter and get a free copy of our Tantrums and Indignation eBook

Reprise: The Great Halloween Candy Fight Oct 21, 2018

To celebrate the year since the Hand in Hand Parenting podcast launched - and the treat it's been connecting with a quarter of a million parents all over the globe - Abigail and Elle ring in their one year anniversary with a reprisal of their first episode - handling the Halloween horrors.

That's right - from costume fears and trick or treat overwhelm to sugar highs and candy battles, this episode covers handling the behavioral bumps on Halloween night.

Abigail shares what happens to a child’s brain when they are melting down, and how to respond to children in a way that supports their emotional development. She introduces two parenting tools called Staylistening and Playlistening that help parents avoid having to yell, bribe or take sides, and allows for a peaceful resolution.

Whether this is your first time listening, or you were with us that first time around - we hope you enjoy this episode on handling bumpy behaviors on Halloween.

Why not write in and let us know at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

More Resources for Halloween

Elle mentions two additional resources in the show:

For kids that are scared or fearful: How to Help Kids Face Their Fears with Play
For help setting limits on candy: Loving the Candy (Setting Limits at Halloween)

And you can get a free guide here on Surviving Sibling Rivalry – Every parent with more than one child needs this!

Listen to The Great Halloween Candy Fight now

Stay Connected

For more parenting tips and tricks inline with kids’ emotional needs sign up to the Hand in Hand Newsletter. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram

You can contact Abigail Wald for parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Two Ways To Conquer Separation Anxiety Oct 16, 2018

Changes in routine or surroundings often trigger separation anxiety, and as parents, we often see it play out at daycare or school drop-off. And it's really no secret why. We rush to get out on time, we have our never-ending running to-do list chattering, and on top of that we see other children run off happily to meet friends while our own tearful child clings to our legs crying, and all in front of the teacher.

No wonder Elle says that even the words "separation anxiety" have her breaking out in a cold sweat.

It's also the reason we wanted to make Separation Anxiety our focus on the podcast this week. Abigail and Elle explore how to use Hand in Hand's Parenting tools to ease separation stress. And we talk about two tools that have had helped bring profound changes for kids with fears about separation.

Listen to Two Ways To Conquer Separation Anxiety and get support for when:

Your child clings to you when it's time to leave and frequently resists new things
You are confused what to when separation anxiety hits
You are losing patience with the crying
You've ever had a hard time saying goodbye to your own child

Number 4 is crucial to understanding how separation feels for you and why that might be - as Elle recently discovered.

We'll also be talking about the not so obvious ways that the stress of separation and fear can show up in other areas.

Listen in now, for some immediately actionable tools you can use to conquer separation anxiety in your family today.

More Resources for Conquering Separation Anxiety

This article can be used to lighten the tension of separation anxiety 20 Playful Ways To Heal Separation Anxiety

If you want to learn concrete tools to address anxiety, stop the behavior, and strengthen your child’s relationship this class will help - Say Goodbye to Separation Anxiety

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

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Lying: Why Children Lie And Ways to Respond Oct 09, 2018

Have you ever?

Watched as your child did something and then immediately blame someone else?
Heard, "I have no homework," from your child and then discovered it stuffed at the bottom of her school bag?
Had a parent come to you and congratulate you on your new car / your child's new triumph in soccer or trombone / or to wish you well on an upcoming trip - none of which you know anything about?

This week on the podcast Abigail and Elle are looking at the lies our kids tell and why.

And we discuss practical strategies you can use when you discover your child in a lie - that don't rely on punishment.

Join us this week on the podcast and discover:

Why lies are so commonly misunderstood
Asking and answering the question: Should I ignore lying or insist on the truth or something in between
Ways to help a child that lies without using punishment
How to find lightness in the lies

Listen now to Children Lying: Why Children Lie And Ways to Respond

more resources about children and lying

This in-depth article talks about the different lies children tell and what they can mean with advice on how to help a child who lies to you. Read When Children Lie

This mom responded calmly despite her alarm when she found her son had lied about money in Helping My Son With Lying

Get this eBook How Children's Emotions Work to find out how lying can be a call for extra connection

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get updates on everything Hand in Hand! Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums live call-ins and resources.

Why are we parents so scared of disappointing our kids? Oct 02, 2018

Are you shy of disappointing your kids?

Over the last few episodes, Abigail and Elle have been decoding emotional projects - in part one we looked at noticing behaviors which signal an emotional project, and in part two we spoke about when and how to work on an emotional project using the Hand in Hand tools.

Why it's OK to Disappoint Our Kids

For the last part in this series, we're taking a look at how disappointment is linked to the emotional project, why we, as parents, are so scared of disappointing our kids and why disappointment is both unavoidable and a totally acceptable part of parenting.

If you ever fund yourself torn about saying no to your child or have a hard time setting boundaries with them, listen in as we discuss the plus side of disappointing our kids, it's role in building resilience and - despite all the odds - closeness.

Listen to Why Are We Parents so Scared to Disappoint our Kids? and find out why when we disappoint our kids - and support them through it - we can impart some useful life lessons.

Find out:

Why parents will always disappoint their kids
How to reframe disappointment from a negative to a positive
How we can support kids as they feel disappointment

More Resources About Kids and Disappointment

This post demonstrates how Hand in Hand Instructor Anca Deaconu supported her son through a disappointment Handling Child Disappointments

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Get updates on everything Hand in Hand! Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

Ep 47 Working with a Child's Rigid Behaviors Sep 25, 2018

This week we define how deep-rooted fears cause emotional projects, and how parents experience them as well as children.

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An Entirely New Spin on Kids and Sharing Sep 11, 2018

To share, or not to share, is that the question?

So many parents in our parent groups and The Parent Club come to us with questions about sharing, it's a subject that we knew we had to cover!

Why is sharing such a hot-topic conversation?

Well, sharing brings on big feelings for parents and children and there are so many differing thoughts and views on how to handle sharing.

And sharing can feel unfair, or questionable.

Like when your child demands another child's toy at a playgroup, for instance, it can feel like second nature to make him or her wait. But when another child demands a toy from yours, we often feel propelled to hand it over.

But, what if we went beyond what fair sharing looks like, and into why sharing so often doesn't happen? What if we treated the symptom, instead of the problem?

Try This Entirely New Spin on Sharing

So today, Abigail and Elle share an entirely new spin on parenting, with some concrete tools on handling sharing with the children in your lives.

Join us this week and listen to An Entirely New Spin on Kids and Sharing

More Resources About Sharing

At Hand in Hand Parenting, we're fans of this "I'll be with you while you wait," strategy. This way of listening to a child has multiple benefits for your child's emotional health, and it also stops the back and forth taking turns that can be so frustrating and stressful to put in place.

Find out more about that here It's Mine! All About Sharing

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message about challenges you might be facing in your parenting.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish parenting was less stressful?

Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community.

Growth Mindset, Winning, and Why It's Important for Your Child Sep 04, 2018

How can we help children towards building a positive self-identity? An "I Can!" attitude?

This week Abigail shares the life-changing moment she cracked her tens times tables at 8-years-old, and how this win led to a paradigm shift in mindset - between what she thought she could do and what she could actually do.

A sense of accomplishment and winning can spur a sense of interest, self-directed learning and discovery, but how can we work with a child to help them win at challenging tasks, even when we do not feel good or confident about the task?

And how can that support change in our children's outlook and influence how they view their abilities for the rest of their lives?

One Tool You Can Use To Build Resilience and Confidence

In an age of entitlement, we're talking about why it is still important to cultivate a growth mindset - a mindset that allows us to celebrate our wins, our children's wins and makes space for winning - and losing.

How Can We Foster Growth Mindset with our Kids?

Now, what if your child is not yet attuned to his or her own greatness, even if you are? On the episode, we also examine the ways kids can fight their own abilities, why things feel hard for them and one tool you have to help your child shine.

Join us and listen to Growth Mindset, Winning, and Why It's Important for Your Child:

How to support your child and a sense of self-identity
What notions do we have as parents that might set up roadblocks for our kids as learners and winners?
How can we foster a climate of growth mindset?
What can we do to support a child that resists?
Why failure matters too

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message about challenges you might be facing in your parenting.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Don’t forget to subscribe!

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

Happier Parenting: Why Owning Your Parenting is Key Aug 28, 2018

Have you ever woken up in the morning and vowed to yourself that you are going to make it A GREAT DAY? And then, 10 minutes later, your kids are bickering over who got the best bowl, homework is missing, and you can't find your purse?

And it's like, seriously?!! What happened?

And it continues like that, on a downward spiral, all through the day.

Worrying about getting to school on time, sniping at your children who are sniping at each other, bribing a kid to take a class, threatening a kid to EAT SOMETHING, yelling at a kid to get IN THE SHOWER.

Forget happier, peaceful, supportive parenting! At this point, you don't much like your kids. You don't like the way you handled things so you don't even like yourself. There doesn't feel much to be happy about!

And then you get into bed and wonder - how am I going to face all that again tomorrow?

The Key to Happier Parenting Is This...

But what if you could change that? What if you could go to bed content in being the parent you are, confident in the decisions you made.

Happier, because you own your parenting?

That's what we're talking about on the podcast today. Owning your parenting means making decisions based on your own family's needs, and feeling empowered not powerless when moments get sticky.

Owning your parenting means, ultimately, being a happier parent and in this episode, Elle and Abigail talk about how to get to that point.

We find out:

How false expectations can wreck our parenting experience
How to love the kids you have not the kid you wanted
How to feel happier about yourself as a parent even when things don't go as planned
Getting past the "I shoulds," "I coulds," and "I bet other people are..." comparison parenting

Parenting is tough, but when we can own parenting, we can remain strong, sure and secure when our kids put us through our paces.

And when we own our parenting, we can love them fiercely, no matter what.

What could be happier than that?

More resources on Happier Parenting

Hand in Hand Parenting isn't a one size fits all approach. Instead, the five tools can be used and adapted for all of your parenting challenges as you need them. Read more about them here in Learn Five Tools That Will Transform The Way You Parent In One Week

The book Listen: Five Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges is available now in paperback, ebook or audio and lists hundreds of ways real-life parents use the tools.

Listen to a section of the audiobook here

Read What if Parenting Is an Emotional Practice?

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message about challenges you might be facing in your parenting.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish parenting was less stressful?

Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community.

How Do You Respond To Your Kid's Questions? Aug 21, 2018

Abigail responds to a mom who has difficulties answering her young daughter's questions - most likely because it feels like answering will confirm her child's worst suspicions!

And Elle admits finding some of her kid's simple questions difficult - especially when they ask her if she's leaving for work.

Even when she's half out the door, she admits, she doesn't want to 'fess up and just tell them she's going.

What's going on?

Avoidance!

Getting Honest about Honest Parenting

This week on the podcast Abigail and Elle get honest about answering children's questions honestly.

Abigail talks about how children pick up on avoidance, and the science of how the brain perceives what you see and feel, plus the confusion that ensues when presented with a different picture.

The hosts also reveal why some parents do feel uncomfortable with some questions and not others, and how to lean into questions, rather than make judgments about what a child is feeling, or simply run away!

If you've ever felt put on the spot and not wanting to answer your child's questions, join Abigail and Elle for an honest discussion on why, ultimately, it pays to answer kids questions honestly whenever possible - and how to do this in a way that will actually bring you and your children closer!

In this week's Episode:

Why don't we want to answer our kids' questions anyway?
How we can send our children tracking signals off if we avoid their questions
How being honest where possible sets kids up well for the future
Why we can better respond when we attempt to uncover the why behind questions
How to make answering questions about curiosity and connection, not battles and stand-offs

More Resources for Answering Your Kids Questions Honestly

Here's the e-book on decoding How Children's Emotions Work that Elle mentions, and this article talks about answering kids' core questions well.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message about challenges you might be facing in your parenting.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

A Four-Point Plan for Getting Back to School With Less Stress Aug 14, 2018

Summer is winding down for Abigail and Elle. That means it's almost time for their kids to head back to school! So this week the hosts ask:

How do YOU feel?

That's also the first step Abigail and Elle outline in a four-point plan for getting back smoothly into the school routine.

Join us for a Back to School Connection Plan

We hear a lot about how difficult life is for our children going back to school, but what we hear about less is how difficult it can be for parents too! So this week we're asking:

What if you like a more laid-back routine?
What if you worked and felt you missed out on the holidays?
What if you have big issues making the school lunch, getting out early or battling over homework?
What if you just can't wait for school to start (like, yesterday!!)

Our feelings can have a lot to do with how our children react when school starts.

Add to that the fact that many children can react to the transition back to school with big feelings, whether that shows up in crying and meltdowns, or rigidity and defiance, and need us to anchor them more than usual.

If you need tips for dealing with all of these challenges and more, listen in as we share a four-point plan for getting back to school feeling less stressed and with fewer battles!

More Resources for a Less-Stress Transition Back To School

This extensive post details what children experience starting school and how you can work together to really boost connections and keep it strong: Starting School Part 1; How to Pack the Backpack

This post is also very helpful How to Keep Calm on School Mornings

If you find the Hand in Hand podcast helpful in your parenting, consider joining our Parent Club for even more help and support for your parenting. Click here to find out more and get a free 30-day free trial.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

A Little Lite Listening Partnerships Demonstration Aug 07, 2018

A lot of parents ask us about our tool for parents, the Listening Partnership, about how they should run and what they should sound like, so this week on the podcast Elle and Abigail give a demonstration of the tool.

New to Listening Partnerships? What Are They Anyway and How Do They Help Parents De-stress?

Listen Partnerships are one of Hand in Hand's five parenting tools and is the only tool to focus on parent self-care. These sessions can really help lighten the load!

Parents can use the tool as a space to air their confusions, stress or parenting challenges, with a parent who listens without offering solutions, for a set amount of time, before switching turns.

The tool is an excellent resource for parents, and allows them to clear blocked thoughts and emotions so that they can return to their families with renewed energy and enthusiasm for the tough role of parenting!

Abigail and Elle have both come to value the immense effect Listening Time can have on helping them in their parenting.

What Does a Listening Partnership Sound Like?

But lots of parents wonder about how LIstening Time really works or what a Listening Partnership "should" sound like. So, this week, Elle and Abigail switch listening time, with each focusing on parenting through the summer. Join us as we:

Set up the listening partnership turns and timing
Decide who records the time
Share our feelings on summer
Wrap up the Listening Time with a question for one another

If you've been reluctant or nervous to begin a Listening Partnership, or you've had doubts or worries about "doing it right," we hope you'll enjoy hearing to how this listening time unfolds and feel inspired to dive in.

More Resources About Hand in Hand's Tool of Listening Partnerships

Read about how Listening Partnerships can reduce stress and transform parenting

Get tips for your own Listening Time in Establishing Good Listening Partnerships and Knowing When to Move On

If you'd like to find a Listening Partner, join our Parent's Support Group on Facebook where lots of parents post looking for Listening Partnerships.

Learn the science behind why this kind of listening is so effective in this online class on Building a Listening Partnership with Hand in Hand founder Patty Wipfler. Find out how to select what topics will serve you best, and how to listen and respond well to a Listening Partner. Over 25 video and audio examples take you through the process step by step.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message at podcast@handinhandparenting.org

Don’t forget to subscribe!

Get updates on everything Hand in Hand! Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

Sibling Rivalry: Abigail and Elle Talk Soothing Sibling Battles with Evie Granville Jul 30, 2018

This week we're replaying a wonderful podcast we recorded on sibling rivalry with Evie Granville of Modern Manners for Moms and Dads.

Join us as we decode what's driving the behaviors between Evie's two children, and share with here how to approach Sibling Rivalry from a Hand in Hand approach.

On this special guest podcast, you'll learn:

What to do when your kids won’t share
How to handle aggressive behaviors
And ways to prevent sibling rivalry before it even starts

Listen in to lots of anecdotes and real-life situations about brothers and sisters, battles and squabbles, love and connection in this episode!

More Resources for Easing Sibling Rivalry

This bumper guide to sibling rivalry has many solutions to help ease battles between siblings: A Hand in Hand Guide to Sibling Rivalry and if you want to add in a little humour, try these 15 Playful Ways to Solve Sibling Rivalry

And here is the link to our podcast on Brain Science that Abigail talks about.

Go to http://www.evieandsarah.com/ to listen to more of Evie's podcasts.

What To Do When The Kids Go Wild! Jul 24, 2018

Imagine this. Your kids are on a playdate. Everything is fine. There are a few giggles. Some stomping. The next minute? The kids are laughing manically, and the house is so trashed it looks like it has seconds until it falls down around you.

The kids have gone wild.

What To Do When The Kids Go Wild!

This episode on the Hand in Hand Parenting Podcast we're talking about those moments kids seem to lose all control. Why does crazy happen and what can you do when it hits?

Ever felt like, as a Hand in Hand parent, you should be the playful parent, the one encouraging play? And then you find yourself standing in your kitchen being sprayed by the kids from outside by a water hose? That's what happened to one mom who came to Abigail asking, "How can I reign things in when my kids go wild!"

Abigail and Elle talk about the need for limits and how helpful they are, and how you can set good firm limits and STILL BE PLAYFUL!

Join us this week for a lively chat and discover:

What are the differences between being a playful parent and a permissive parent?
How to monitor behavior boundaries
When to step in and set a limit
How to step in when the child is not your own
Playful strategies to get everyone listening, on board with your limit and STILL having fun.

More resources for coping when kids get crazy!

This video Seven Ways To Help Kids Get Along gives you seven tools in seven minutes to help solve squabbling.

Keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message about challenges you might be facing in your parenting.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

"Am I a Useless Parent?" Why There's no "pass" or "Fail" in Parenting Jul 17, 2018

Am I doing ok in parenting?

Am I failing in this thing that matters so much?

Did I mess this whole thing up?

If you come in search of answers in parenting and you find an approach that speaks to you, do you feel a higher pressure to "succeed" - in the approach and in your parenting?

So many of us ask this! And, from reading your thoughtful posts and comments, we see many of us worry that we are failing in Hand in Hand, or failing in parenting as a whole.

Well, we have news for you, beautiful parents.

You are failing nothing!

Counting Wins not Fails in Parenting

This week Abigail and Elle are talking about how we should be counting our wins differently, creating a mindset that asks why, and that can be celebrated.

We talk about finding the magic in good parenting tools - and then feeling lousy when we don't or can't use them well:

What if you know it helps to listen to your child calmly when they whine but instead you get filled with rage?
What if you know it helps to set limits closely but you still yell them out from the other room?
What if you know that play helps you connect but you are just too darn tired?

Well, what if you started asking why those things felt wrong, or hard, or odd for you? And what if you could count that as your win instead?

Because, guess what? You are never failing in parenting!

Join Abigail and Elle this week as they talk about addressing feelings of stress and failure in parenting, and how you can work past them. There's even a song about those horrible, no good, very bad days from Abigail!*

More Resources When You Feel You are Failing As a Parent

Get this free guide with Five Ideas That Make Parenting Less Stressful

Get a listening partner! We can't say this enough! Listening Partners are the place where you can go to get relief when you are filled with doubt and worry, have questions and want solutions. This is the place you figure out your parenting journey. Learn more about Listening Partnerships here.

Did you know our book Listen: Five Simple Tools To Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges is available on audio? Take five minutes out and listen to a sample here

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Getting Past a Child's Perfectionism: What Drives Children's Rigid Behaviors? Jul 10, 2018

Have you noticed that sometimes your child just becomes rigid?

Say he is building a tower and decides the next block for the tower "has to be" the red block. The one after "has to be" blue?

Or, he wants the cars all lined up the "exact same way"

Or she cannot allow any cups on a table while she is coloring?

This week we're looking at the times a children's behavior becomes rigid and what's at the root of a child's "perfectionism."

We look at how these behaviors form. How the brain perceives and codes danger and how this plays out in a child needing to do things in a very.exact.way over and over again and how placating this can propel the behavior.

On this week's Hand in Hand podcast:

Sorting rigid behavior from particular behavior
Why we end up walking on eggshells when behavior gets rigid and how we can avoid this
We talk about two tools you can use to re-write those codes
Supporting the child through the feelings they have about a situation and letting them know if life turns outside differently.
Establishing a growth mindset and modeling resilience yourself around your child rather than teaching it
What messaging about mistakes are your passing down, and how can you get past your own perfectionism?

When a child decides that things have to be perfect, there are often big feelings lurking behind. Getting to the point where the code is revealed can also help it get rewritten. Listen in this week and get ways to help your child past the perfectionism.

Listen to Getting Past a Child's Perfectionism here

More resources for Getting Past a Child's Perfectionism

Here's the video from Carol Dweck on growth mindsets and building resilience.

This e-book on How Children's Emotions Work helps you understand your child's emotional life and shares practical solutions for support

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Don’t forget to subscribe!

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

"Let's NOT talk about the kids": What Can You Do When Parenting Feels Lonely Jul 03, 2018

How did you feel when you found the Hand in Hand Parenting approach? Most of us feel a sense of relief when we try one of the tools and have a positive outcome. We read the blog posts, listen to the podcast. Try a few more tools. We see changes.

That's exciting! Things feel pretty good.

You can't wait to tell the people you love most that you have found a breakthrough in your parenting.

Except, when you try, they don't want to know.

Your partner has no time for listening to a child cry. Your friends don't understand why you'd want to devote time to Special Time. Your parents have no idea why you want to understand what's behind your children's whining, when you could issue a timeout and send them to their room.

These are generalizations, of course, but very often we can feel removed when we are parenting differently.

And that's when parenting can feel pretty lonely.

On this week's episode, Abigail and Elle discuss those times and the practical tools you can use to overcome parenting loneliness:

How to make space for your feelings and take the heat off your relationships
Why accepting how we all come to parenting with our own stories can help us gain a better understanding of why others may be resistant
How you can use Hand in Hand's parenting tools in new ways to involve others (without them even knowing!)
Why noticing what is going well helps you come to relationships with a sense of warmth

When you use these tools, you can feel less lonely in your parenting.

Listen to "Let's NOT talk about the kids": When Parenting Feels Lonely now

More resources on what to do when parenting feels lonely:

Listen to this replay of a call-in with our instructors When Friends and Family Don’t Understand Your Parenting

Read Parenting from Different Pages

Get this download on 5 Revolutionary Ideas That Make Parenting Less Stressful

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

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You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Wish Parenting was less stressful? Join Hand in Hand’s Parent Club for support and community. Your own Parent Club with moderated forums, live call-ins and resources.

Celebrate Your Microwins: Learning to Let Your Kids Win a Little When You Set Limits Jun 26, 2018

The title of this podcast is Celebrate Your Microwins: Learning to Let Your Kids Win a Little When You Set Limits

But what's a microwin?

Although this sounds like a good piece of business advice, the art of the microwin is a nuance of Hand in Hand's Setting Limits tool, and can make the tool even richer when you set limits with your kids.

Taking Setting Limits to New Heights

Hand in Hand comes from the stance of being on your child's side when you set a limit, and you can read more about this listen, limit, listen approach to setting limits here.

Despite this, we parents often find ourselves becoming "limit agents" - we take the limit's side to ensure whatever we want to see gets done, get's done.

What's the problem with that?

Immediately, we're in conflict with our child, and that is not a climate that sets a child up to win. It's not a climate that lets them succeed at the limit.

Join us this week as Abigail reveals a new approach to limits that does set a child up to succeed in getting things done. Together.

Learn how to use the microwin, and let your kids win a little when you set limits.

Celebrating the Microwins:

Join us on Celebrate Your Microwins: Learning to Let Your Kids Win a Little When You Set Limits and find out:

How to shake up the usual perspective on setting limits
How to approach a limit with your child
How to reset a limit gently
Why a child flushes out feelings that helps them achieve the limit
How to listen as your child expresses those feelings
And how to handle negotiation calmly

Abigail shows how the art of the microwin works using a recent stand-off Elle found herself in with her child as a model and that proves very revealing.

And we discuss why limit setting can bring up big feelings for us as parents as well as for our children.

Listen to: Celebrate your Microwins now

If you've ever been stuck about setting limits that kids listen to, if you find it hard to keep calm when you set limits, or get confused when your child tries to negotiate a limit, this episode will help reveal a useful technique for helping to keep you and your kids close and connected while setting limits.

Come listen and learn how to set up and celebrate your microwins!

Yay! If you want to celebrate your microwins you can print this microwin certificate as a PDF

More About Setting Limits the Hand in Hand way:

Here is the self-guided online course on Setting Limits and Building Cooperation that Elle mentions.

You can check the full list of Hand in Hand online courses here

This post talks about the different limits you can set with children and when to use them

https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2017/03/types-of-limits-kids-need/

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Your online parenting village! Join Hand in Hand's Parent Club for support and community

Kids and the Art of Travelling With Them Jun 19, 2018

Packing Schedules Meltdowns New foods, new people, new places, new things

Traveling with kids brings a whole suitcase full of the unexpected!

It's easy to forget how special traveling with kids can be, amid the chaos and confusion of going away, so much so it can feel easier to say "we'll just stay at home."

Yet it's these times away that can prove so special. They can really come to shape a family and bring parents and kids so much closer.

So how can parents prepare for traveling with their children?

Listen to: Kids and the Art of Traveling With Them

This week on the podcast Elle and Abigail talk about practical tools and strategies you can use with your kids before going away and while you are on the road.

From helping children express their big feelings about traveling to what to do about parent judgment, Abigail and Elle talk about the big causes of upset when families travel and how to handle them smoothly.

If you are venturing beyond the front doorstep even once this summer, we hope this podcast will be useful.

More Resources for Kids and The Art of Traveling With Them

This article explains why kids lose it when they are having a good time offers an insightful way to approach upsets on holidays Why Does My Kid Lose it When We Are Having the Best Time

And here's a great idea for Keeping Connections Strong on Vacation

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Handling Parenting Stress: Why You Can't Give What You Didn't Have Jun 12, 2018

No matter how well we try and prepare for parenting, this role does lots to point out what feel like failings. We might not be able to comfort our kids as we imagined we would, we might find ourselves yelling, or stressed and in moments of complete overwhelm.

This happens to all of us from time to time. Even child therapists, teachers and nannies and child carers can find themselves lost in handling their parenting challenges with their own kids.

This week on the podcast Elle and Abigail talk about why.

Why You Don't Always Have the Right Map

And the answer is simple: You can't give what you didn't have.

When we butt up against something in our parenting it's most often because there are gaps from our own childhoods when it comes to that challenge.

If you weren't allowed to cry, how can you know how to listen well when your child cries. If your parents were permissive, how can you set effective limits? If your parents shouted at you, how do you learn how not to yell, even when you really want to?

Finding new ways to handle these challenges can feel incredibly hard when you have no past reference to get you there. No guide, no roadmap, no community, no support.

Why You Can't Give What You Just Didn't Have: Finding and Filling the Gaps

This week, Elle and Abigail tell stories about the gaps they found in their parenting and they show you how you can pinpoint what you didn't get in your childhood and how to change it.

Because if there's one thing we do know, once you parent the way want, intentionally, you imprint a whole new set of skills to your children to use in life and as parents.

If you have stressors in your parenting and aren't sure how to find new, workable ways to deal with them join us this week talking about why you can't give what you didn't have.

Find Your Parenting Village Online

It goes without saying that our website is chock-full of resources for learning new ways and leaning into them. Please use search to get tips on just about any parenting challenge.

Here is some great information on Listening Time and Partnerships:

Welcome to the Club!

And here is everything you need to know about finding your online village with the Hand in Hand Parent Club.

With private group moderated by instructors, weekly call-in live sessions and a lively community you can get the support you need every month to be the parent you want to be.

Opening June 19th, 2018.

Get your Special Introductory Price.

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Angels Away, Hellions at Home: Why Do Some Kids Save Their "Bad" Behavior for Home? Jun 05, 2018

Has anyone ever told you what an angel your child was? A school teacher, a parent after a playdate?

And you thought? Huh??? An angel? Certainly not at home!

This week on the Podcast we are chatting about why our children can be hard to deal with at home even when he or she is seen as an angel outside.

Why the screaming, defiance and tantrums?
Why the backtalk, squabbling, and drama?
Why is all this anger and fire coming right at you?

Why, oh why, oh why?!

Why Kids Save Their Big Feelings and "Bad Behavior" for home?

Abigail and Elle talk about why kids save their big feelings and "bad behaviors" for home, and how hard it can be to see all these behaviors when no-one else does. Plus they reveal secrets to turning things around so that you can enjoy and appreciate your kids as much as the teachers and other grown-ups in their lives that praise them.

During the episode we chat about:

How to see the good in your child daily - even when the going gets tough
Embracing your kid's wilder side as part of their whole self
Finding ways to check your boundaries and as a parent to keep a balance on behaviors

Join Abigail and Elle for this week's podcast to find out why kids might be angels away even if they are hellions at home, with tools and advice to help find your peace when kids save their big feelings just for you!

More Resources on Kids That Lose it At Home

This week Elle mentioned this awesome Setting Limits and Building Cooperation online class. The awesome news is you can also get it free when you join Hand in Hand's new Parent Club.

Find Your Parenting Village Online! Join the Hand in Hand Parent Club. With private group moderated by instructors, weekly call-in live sessions and a lively community you can get the support you need to be the parent you want to be.

Opening June 19th, 2018.

Get your Special Introductory Price.

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

How Much is Too Much? Tools to Help Children that Need Constant Attention May 29, 2018

How much attention does your child need?

Have you ever heard the phrase "You can't pour from an empty cup?" When we spend time with our children, do Special Time, listen and care for them, we naturally fill their cups with warmth and love. When a child has a full cup of your warmth and attention, they are less clingy. They are connected and confident.

Attention-seeking kids have "Leaky Cups"

Except for a child with a "leaky cup". These are the children that, no matter how much time, how much love and how much attention you seem to pour in STILL NEED MORE. Their cups are always leaky!

They want more of your love. More of your attention. Or else you'll know about it!

They need everything to go their way. They become rigid and controlling when it doesn't. They will whine, they will cry, they will throw themselves down on the floor in tears. They may become aggressive.

Pretty soon, life can become a riddle of trying to divide time between all you need to do, and all they need to feel good.

Exhausting? Yes.

Everlasting? No!

Tools for a Child Who Needs Lots of Attention

There are things you can do to love these kids just the way they need it, to teach them how to fill their own cups, and for you to have enough energy for your other kids, family members, and even, yourself.

If you have ever wondered:

How much attention is too much attention?
How to help my child become more confident and resilient
How to balance out my time and emotions in parenting
or just screamed (silently or otherwise) "I can't give anymore!"

Join Abigail and Elle this week for some lively banter and good solutions for attention-seeking, leaky cup kids and their families.

More Tools for Attention-Needing Children (and stressed-out parents!)

Read more about kids and attention-seeking behaviors in When Your Kids Will Do Anything to Get Attention

You can find out more about the Listening Partnerships that Elle and Abigail mention here Building a Listening Partnership: Easing the Stress of Parenting

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message. If you are familiar with Hand in Hand Parenting and your children are 10 or under join our Hand in Hand Parents Support Group on Facebook for daily support

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

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Rethinking Tickling: Why You Might Want To Rethink Tickling Kids May 22, 2018

Tickling seems like a good, reliable route to laughter and fun, so why might we suggest rethinking it?

Today on the podcast the Elle and Abigail talk about Hand in Hand's approach to tickling and how they tackled it in their own families.

Elle remembers the good and the bad of tickling in her house when she was a child and Abigail recounts times her sons begged her to tickle them, and how they found good alternatives. They also discuss power play and boundaries in the #metoo era.

Why Do we need to Rethink Tickling?

Listen in for this lively and light-hearted chat around tickling. Find out how Hand in Hand Parenting views tickling, and get tools for when:

You want to laugh with your child without turning to tickles
Why your child might ask to be tickled and how you can respond
When tickling has been a connecting force between you and your kids but now you'd like to transition
Your child begs to be tickled and you aren't sure what else to do

More Tools and Resources Around Laughter and Tickling

Get more understanding about Hand in Hand 's approach to tickling from founder Patty Wipfler in Tickling Kids Can Do More Harm Than Good

And hear how one, real-life mom moved on A Mother Graduates from Tickling to Listening

Want to make the most of play with your child, get all you need to know about Hand in Hand's Playlistening tool and learn the art of taking the less powerful role to promote laughter with our Playlistening PDF

Get closer with your child and build their confidence through rough-housing and horseplay with this audio collection: The power of laughter: connecting through play collection. Download and listen right away.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Raising Boys and Girls Differently According to Brain Science May 15, 2018

Today Elle and Abigail are talking to New York Times bestselling author, neuro-biologist and family counselor Michael Gurian. We're talking boys, girls and their differences, and raising boys and girls so each thrives.

All over the world boys in schools are failing and girls are succeeding, why?

Why Boys Need Special Attention

On the podcast today, Michael sheds some light.

Known as "the people's philosopher," he breaks down the fascinating differences in how boys and girls brains process information, and what boys need more of in class.

Michael addresses the commonly distorted gender paradigms that we as a society have come to believe about what boys and girls need and shares practical strategies to set girls up to do better in STEM subjects and boys to excel in reading, writing and speaking.

We also take a look at how Michael's work with The Gurian Institue dovetails into Hand in Hand Parenting through playlistening, roughhousing and Staylistening.

On today's episode:

The four elements of difference between males and females
How boys and girls process information differently and why schools need to teach according to these brain differences to help both sexes
Why schools need to move away from verbal-centered teaching towards styles that activate the brain's visual and spatial-kinesthetic centers
Mother's raising boys: What male emotional intelligence looks like

Join us for a fascinating talk into raising our boys and girls to thrive.

More Tools and Support for Raising Our Children According to Science

You can read more about Michael and his work at www.michaelgurian.com and The Gurian Institute.

The two books mentioned in this podcast are Saving Our Sons: A New Path for Raising Healthy and Resilient Boys and The Minds of Girls: A New Path for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Successful Women

You might also like to read the science behind the Hand in Hand Tool of Staylistening and if you'd like to find out about all of our five tools you can read our book Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges or take the Hand in Hand Starter Class online or in-person with an instructor over 6 weeks.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Why Telling Your Birth Story Can Help In Your Parenting May 08, 2018

This week Elle and Abigail are telling their birth stories...

Now, why would they want to do that?

Birth can engulf us with emotions that linger way beyond the time our children are babies, but we rarely have an opportunity to talk about the feelings we had. And what we felt then, how it shaped up to our friends' experiences or our own expectations, can often linger and impact how we find parenting, and even how we relate to our children.

Why Telling Your Birth Story is Important for Your and The Relationship You have with Your Child

Talking about your birth story, from pregnancy, and right into the fourth trimester - can unlock real insights into the issues we find challenging as parents.

Listen in, as Elle and Abigail talk about their own experiences having babies, and how those early experiences impacted their parenting.

In this episode, find out:

How the birth of your children can trigger rushes of feelings later on in your parenting
Why telling your birth story can help you find new and creative ways to handle your big parenting challenges
Why should you tell the story of your child's birth, even if you have a teen now
How your birth experience can affect you today and the relationship you have with your child

More Resources for New Parents

Here is the self-guided course on Building A Listening Partnership. Learn how to set up and share listening partnerships that help you melt your parenting stress

Elle mention's our book Listen: Five Simple Tools To Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges.

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

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Tips and Tools for Tackling Transitions Apr 30, 2018

One thing we hear a ton about in parenting is transitions - partly because they can be so draining and deafening!

This week Abigail and Elle are tackling transitions and what we can do to make them smoother.

Top Tools for Tackling Transitions

We're talking games and other connection tools you can use to help navigate your days in and out with less yelling and less tantrums.

And we look at what's going on for a child when we, as the parents, require a transition, and why they seem to have such BIG FEELINGS about them. Why do children have trouble putting the brakes on and changing gears?

If transitions bring on battles and tantrums in your house

Before an outing
At dinnertime
Before Bed

Or any other time, join Abigail and Elle for tools and tips that will help you decode your children's difficult behaviors and tackle transitions.

Resources to Help With Transitions

Here's your guide to playful parenting through any challenge

Enjoy this chapter about the wonderful tool of Special Time from our book

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

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Parenting Consistently: A New Approach That Actually Works Apr 24, 2018

Have you ever felt bound by the need to be consistent in your parenting, and then felt the failure when you couldn't be?

We're often told that when we are consistent around schedules, eating, playing, tidying, sleeping, then all will run smooth. Yet, so often that isn't what we see. And that can feel mighty stressful! We fight and cajole to keep consistent, but we often see anger flare and tears. Precisely the opposite of the ideal we were trying to uphold!

A New Approach to Parenting Consistently

This week Elle and Abigail explore the idea of letting go of consistency of action in favor of consistency of connection. Of looking beyond what's not happening to why it's not happening, and then treading a new path.

Find the Resources We Talk About

Here's the article Elle mentions: How to Help Your Child Sleep Through the Night

This self-guided course, Helping Your Child Sleep, gives you support and strategies when all those rules you read about consistency around bedtime just don't seem work.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

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Listening to You: Real-Life Stories From Parents Using Hand in Hand Parenting Tools Apr 17, 2018

This week's episode is a very special one - we're listening to you!

Abigail recorded the real-life "before and after" stories of parents using Hand in Hand Parenting's tools, and they are encouraging, inspirational, extraordinary.

Real Stories From Parents Using Hand in Hand

On this episode of the podcast, you'll hear:

"Before Hand in Hand, my life was a rollercoaster..."

"Before Hand in Hand, I felt at an ultimate loss..."

"Before Hand in Hand, I had no relationship with my daughter..."

We listen to your amazing stories of change getting from those "before" stories to these: "Everyday, I'm so grateful, there's joy in my house."

Still seeking your story?

Parenting is always a work in progress, but if you have challenges and want to see your own transformation consider reaching out to a Hand in Hand Instructor.

We have over 100 instructors worldwide, running classes and consultations. Seek them out if you need support!

And if you want to share a story we'd love to hear from you!

Your gift will help us reach 80,000 families

We create and teach resources that reach parents and change lives. This year we want to reach 80,000 families and as a non-profit, we could use your help!

Your gift helps us keep making podcasts and articles. It helps us offer scholarships on our parenting classes. It provides grants for our instructors to work with parents in prisons, on reservations, in schools and community colleges, and in underserved communities.

If our podcast has lightened your mood, touch you, inspired or uplifted you, please consider giving and passing that support forward. You can give at www.handinhandparenting.org/29yearsofchange. Even a small donation helps.

Go to www.handinhandparenting.org/29yearsofchange and help us #changeparenting for even more parents.

The Politics of Parenting: Feeling Good About Your Role as a Parent Apr 10, 2018

If you read the title of our podcast this week and thought, "Huh? What does politics have to do with parenting," you aren't alone!

Elle asks this too after Abigail gets an email about parenting feeling "radical."

Do we mean marching for rights, or championing parenting causes? Not exactly.

We are talking about the change you are making in the world every day. Through parenting.

What Does My Parenting Have to Do with The World?

Did you ever feel life got, kind of, small, after you became a parent? Elle and Abigail talk about how easy it was for them to get caught up in the daily grind of parenting - the cutting up the quesadillas, the back and forth between school and activities, the constant tidying toys and checking schoolbags - and the negative impact that can have on us as parents.

What changed all that for them was realizing that when a parenting approach fits with our true selves, our ideas and philosophies, we can marry our before-parent selves with our now-parents selves. That does seem a little, well, radical!

But there's more.

In showing up, day after day, in allowing your child's feelings, in responding with empathy, and in making decisions for and with our kids, our role as parents can have a bigger footprint. For sure, it starts small, in the playground, or at the park, when another parent notices you responding playfully, or sitting quietly supporting a child as they cry, but it soon moves out.

Perhaps it's your child next time that sits with another while they cry, and then later, it's your child sitting with their child, your grandchild, and their friends noticing. The circles spread.

That, to us, feels like making a difference, making an impact.

All the small decisions you bring to raising kids can have a big, good impact - and it's an idea worth remembering the next time you slice a quesadilla.

Join us this week and feel brighter about your everyday role as a parent.

Help Hand in Hand Make Positive Change For 29 years, Hand in Hand Parenting has inspired change. Please help us keep that change going. Your gift today helps us provide free resources, programs, and support to parents in communities that need it most. The 29 stories Elle mentions today are here - also the place you can give a gift too! Join the Hand in Hand Community

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Embracing Aggressive and Risky Play Helps Us and Our Kids Mar 27, 2018

Taa-daa! Today we are celebrating our first special guest on the podcast, the wonderful Dr. Lawrence J. Cohen, psychologist and the author of Playful Parenting, The Opposite of Worry and co-author of The Art of Roughhousing.

Talking Play

Talk on this episode turns to two of Larry's favorites styles of play - aggressive and risky play.

If you've ever seen your child thrash a toy to pieces, order you locked in jail or speed down a steep slope on a skateboard you are probably aware of these play types and the stress they can cause us, as parents!

Is our child too aggressive?
Will they grow up aggressive?
Shouldn't we be learning something?
What if they get hurt?

The Play is a Symbol

When we can see these ways of playing as symbols of what's affecting a child, we can embrace them, because, as Larry says, when a child is laughing and engaged in aggressive play, we can be sure deep work is happening.

But these can be the trickier bits of play to navigate. Larry helps us address the issues that come up when our children play aggressive or risky.

What can we do with own fears when our children play aggressively?
Why we should be joining our children in play
How we can trust our children with their own risk management
How we can stop saying "be careful," and start reflecting and wondering around play (or taking risks ourselves!)
Evaluating when you need to step in

The episode ends with some ideas of games to try with your children since play, at its heart, is all about connection.

More Tools and Support for Handling A Child's Aggression

You can find Larry at Playfulparenting.com and on his Amazon page. There's a review here of how one mom used Larry's book The Opposite of Worry With Children on the Spectrum (a guest book review)

If you are interested in the risky play organization Larry mentions at 14.24 you'll find it at www.Anjiplay.com

We bumped up the playtimes post to 15 Quick Games You Can Use When Kids Challenge Your Parenting

Learn more about what causes aggression and what you can do in this class, Helping Your Child With Aggression

Join the Hand in Hand Community

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

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How to Keep Calm When Your Kids Make You Crazy Angry Mar 20, 2018

Aggression, anger, yelling... Abigail and Elle talk about the times when parenting their kids made them crazy angry - and there are lots!

They go back to the very start of early years parenting and what set them off, right through to the cocktail of feelings that has emerged parenting tweens.

And they ask, what happens when you find yourself afraid of your feelings of rage, becoming the parent you never wanted to be?

How Can You Keep Calm When Your Kids Make You Crazy Angry

On the podcast this week, the two moms talk about the strategies they used to find calm and repair when anger set in.

Tapping out
Walking away
Unwiring destructive thoughts
Marking our boundaries as parents
Deeper work: Where and how to get support with others
The power of using "battery out," "mommy puddles," and "safe words" when we are angry with children.

If you'd like to take down your yelling, feel less angry and more connected to your kids, join us and listen.

Support for Keeping Calm When Parenting Makes You Feel Angry

Discover how Hand in Hand Parenting's Listening Partnerships can help you calm your parent anger and find out how you can work one-on-one with a Hand in Hand Instructor

Grab the last spot in Abigail's 30-Day Family Reset!

Get more tips: Taming Parent Tantrums: 8 Keys to Quieting the Storm

Join the Hand in Hand Community

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Talking tweens (and their tantrums) Mar 13, 2018

This week on the podcast talk turns to tweens and what it takes to parent through what can be turbulent times.

With Abigail parenting a double tween household and Elle raising a 10-year-old, there’s plenty of personal stories about the various trials (and joys) of having tweens at home.

We look at some common behaviors you might have noticed in your tween, as well as the gender codes coming into play. And we discuss the unexpected tantrums that can happen during the tween years, what causes them, and how the Hand in Hand tools can be adapted to this age group.

If you are parenting tweens now, or will be soon, find out what to expect and get practical ideas you can use to keep connected as your child gets older.

More Support for Parenting Tweens

Join our Facebook Group for pre-teens, tweens, and older kids

Here are our classes for parents with teens and pre-teens

Read this article on how Special Time looks with older children

keep connected

We’d love to hear about your parenting challenges. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

Get details on Abigail's webinar with Julia Storm on Tech+Tweens and then find out about her 30-Day Family Reset here.

Sign up and get tools, tips and support in our Monthly Newsletter

Children's Aggressive Behavior Comes Down to this One Thing Mar 06, 2018

Hitting? Pinching? Kicking?

Most children act aggressively but it can be very tough to see and understand.

When a child is aggressive our instinct is often to shut it down - "Don’t hit," we say, or "I don’t want to hear those things."

Looking at A Child's Aggressive Behavior in a New Way

While we can and should set limits about the behavior, what happens if we can listen to what that behavior is telling us?

In this episode, Abigail tells about a time her son genuinely scared her with his aggression and how they worked through it. She discovered a root cause actually stemming from his reputation as a “good guy.”

And Elle talks about the differences in her two children’s aggression - and her own - as well as how difficult it can be coping with regular aggressive episodes.

We talk about the one emotion that results in aggression, and how you can respond in a way that supports your child's development.

If you are seeing aggression in your house, and want to understand what drives it, this episode is for you. Aggression is tough to see, harder to talk about, and is one part of parenting that deserves the biggest support.

parents resources

Packed with resources for supporting yourself and your child through aggressive behavior: Get your Guide for Helping Your Child with Aggressive Behavior

This is the self-guided course Elle mentioned that will help you understand the root causes of aggression. Take Helping Your Child with Aggression and get solutions to support aggressive behavior in your house.

Get information about Abigail's webinar on Tech and Tweens and sign up!

keep connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for Hand in Hand Parenting's Monthly Newsletter for more tools, tips and support

Rebuilding Hope When We Are Shocked or Scared by World Events Feb 27, 2018

Hand in Hand Parenting Podcast for Parents, Episode 17: Rebuilding Hope When We Are Shocked or Scared by World Events

When shocking events or natural disasters leave us raw and overwhelmed parenting can feel tougher than usual. Today Abigail and Elle share Hand in Hand's ideas for caring well for ourselves and our children when events rock us.

We talk about how much to share with our children about these events and why pulling together will be, in the end, what pulls us through.

Lack of Control

One feeling that's common following a shocking event is of losing control. This episode talks about the idea of focussing on the present moment with our children as a way to nourish and restore our sense of good and security in our immediate world.

What To Expect of Ourselves and Our Kids

Elle mentions the ways that shock and fear can play our for children in less obvious ways, in clinginess, defiance or bravado, and Abigail talks about how their behavior might trigger us because of the feelings we hold around an event. Making space to let them cry and heal, or to go a little gentler in these times can help, they decide.

The podcast ends on a note of hope, with suggestions for pulling together as a family, rebuilding hope and closeness through action. As parents, we can be the change that stops events dividing people, Abigail says, a place we can listen to others even when we disagree.

Get More Support

Please use and share these posts if you or a loved one needs support

On audio: Helping Children Face an Uncertain World

An Open Letter (of Hope) to Parents Around the World

Helping Children Exposed to Shocking Events

Talking to Your Child About Disasters

And if you like the ideas in this week's podcast, Patty's book Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges has many more for the tough times in parenting. You can get it here, online, or on audio

get in touch!

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Staylistening Surprises: When Things Don't Go As Planned Feb 20, 2018

If you've discovered the simple and seemingly radical tool of Staylistening - of staying and listening through your child's upset - you may have been amazed by how your child recovers from that tantrum or meltdown and returns to brightness and easy co-operate.

Or, you may have not!

Surprise!

Staylistening doesn't always go the way we parents expect, and there can be many reasons why. On the podcast this week Elle and Abigail look at some of the different ways Staylistening can look.

Children may not go immediately to upset, they may go to anger and that may restimulate us as parents - or vice versa
They may also tell us to "go away," leaving us worried about whether to stay close or not
They don't want any kind of touch, or even for you to look at them
How Staylistening looks at different ages

Abigail talks about a technique she uses when her son wanted space called "drive-bys" and gives some insights to Elle into how to her son might be feeling when he changes the subject in the midst of a big upset. They finish on what happens if Staylistening moves to hitting and violence.

If Staylistening has given you one or two surprises, listen in as we decode what could be happening.

More About Staylistening

Here's the science behind the Hand in Hand Tool of Staylistening

Not sure what to say during Staylistening? Read this!

Mixed feelings about when your child tells you to go away?

We'd love to hear about how Staylistening looks in your house. Does your child do the "classic" staylisten, or have you found yourself moving into unknown territory?

$100 off the Hand in Hand Starter Class

If you want to work with a Hand in Hand Instructor and are interested in the Starter Class Elle mentioned, you can find the details of it here. If you put 2018SUPPORT in at checkout during February, you’ll receive $100 off. (You don't have to take the class this month - anytime this year is fine!)

Here's the podcast we mention with Dr. Dan at Parent Footprint.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations, and learn more about her 30-Day Family Reset here.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

What's Going Well in your Parenting? Feb 13, 2018

That's right! What's going well?

It's easy to tear yourself apart over parenting, questioning what's going wrong, and becoming overwhelmed with doubts and disappointments. But this week Abigail and Elle - and right in time for Valentines - look at the value of taking a moment or two to see what's going good for you and your family.

What's Going Well?

Find out how to train your brain to notice more about what's going well in your parenting. See more good in your kids, and yourself in this episode with Hand in Hand's Elle Kwan and Abigail Wald.

Abigail and Elle give a quick rundown on what's going well for them and then talk about how easy it is to get focused on specifics in our parenting, from potty training and sibling rivalry to your child getting good grades at school. When these don't live up to our expectations we can feel bogged down, and they can become sticky points for us. When you have a few of these issues going on at one time, it's easy to begin to set yourself up to notice nothing but negatives.

Searching for the good, even in the dark times, breaks that pattern and can give a real boost that keeps you going.

Join Abigail and Elle this week as they delve into the good times in parenting and find out how we can condition our brains to notice and delight more of these good times.

$100 Off the Hand in Hand Starter Class

If you want to work with a Hand in Hand Instructor and are interested in the Starter Class Elle mentioned, you can find the details of it here. If you put 2018SUPPORT in at checkout during February, you'll receive $100 off. (You can take your class anytime this year).

There's a link here if you want to know more about the Reticular Activating System Abigail talks about.

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations, and learn more about her 30-Day Family Reset here.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Brain Science and Parenting! Say What? Feb 06, 2018

What does brain science have to do with parents and the way we raise our kids?

When we come from a gentle parenting perspective, we try to respond to our children in moments of upsets rather than react to them with harshness, we try to come at each situation with empathy and compassion. We try to set limits warmly and to listen in times of anger, need or distress.

But that can be really hard in the moment!

How can we keep calm and respond well when our children have legs and arms flailing? When they are about to hit the cat or pull a sibling's hair? Or howling at the dinner table?

We can when we understand what's happening with their emotions. That happens when we look at what happens to the brain when upsets kick in.

How Does the Brain Affect Behavior?

In this podcast episode, Abigail gives a good rundown of the parts of the brain and how these factor in what you and your children experience when tensions rise at home.

Using Dan Siegel’s hand model to describe what the brain looks like when a person "flips their lid," and the flight, freeze, flight responses that follow, Elle discovers her response is to "possum" and Abigail talks about what we can feel and what our children feel when we meltdown, so that we can start to resolve the issues we have when situations begin to feel out of control.

Why Calm Equals Co-Regulation

The hosts finish by talking about how when we as parents move in with calm we can actually help co-regulate our children when they are having hard moments, moving away from power struggles and into partnership, and they talk some ways to achieve this.

Come listen in and learn how brain science fuels our behaviors and how by understanding it, we can create calmer, more contented households.

Get Your Freebies!

Learn more about what happens when your child cries and how to support them best in these moments with Hand in Hand's Crying e-Book. Just for you podcast listeners it's free when you put GETCRYING in at the checkout.

Do you want to learn how best to apply Hand in Hand's tools with your own family? You can work with an instructor and a small group of like-minded parents to apply to the tools to your own challenges over 6-weeks in our Online Starter Class. Through February you can get $100 off when you put 2018SUPPORT in at checkout. Don't worry if you can't take the class in February - as long as you buy this month, you have a year to take your class.

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations, and learn more about her 30-Day Family Reset here.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Brain Science and Parenting! Say What? Feb 06, 2018

What does brain science have to do with parents and the way we raise our kids?

When we come from a gentle parenting perspective, we try to respond to our children in moments of upsets rather than react to them with harshness, we try to come at each situation with empathy and compassion. We try to set limits warmly and to listen in times of anger, need or distress.

But that can be really hard in the moment!

How can we keep calm and respond well when our children have legs and arms flailing? When they are about to hit the cat or pull a sibling's hair? Or howling at the dinner table?

We can when we understand what's happening with their emotions. That happens when we look at what happens to the brain when upsets kick in.

How Does the Brain Affect Behavior?

In this podcast episode, Abigail gives a good rundown of the parts of the brain and how these factor in what you and your children experience when tensions rise at home.

Using Dan Siegel’s hand model to describe what the brain looks like when a person "flips their lid," and the flight, freeze, flight responses that follow, Elle discovers her response is to "possum" and Abigail talks about what we can feel and what our children feel when we meltdown, so that we can start to resolve the issues we have when situations begin to feel out of control.

Why Calm Equals Co-Regulation

The hosts finish by talking about how when we as parents move in with calm we can actually help co-regulate our children when they are having hard moments, moving away from power struggles and into partnership, and they talk some ways to achieve this.

Come listen in and learn how brain science fuels our behaviors and how by understanding it, we can create calmer, more contented households.

Get Your Freebies!

Learn more about what happens when your child cries and how to support them best in these moments with Hand in Hand's Crying e-Book. Just for you podcast listeners it's free when you put GETCRYING in at the checkout.

Do you want to learn how best to apply Hand in Hand's tools with your own family? You can work with an instructor and a small group of like-minded parents to apply to the tools to your own challenges over 6-weeks in our Online Starter Class. Through February you can get $100 off when you put 2018SUPPORT in at checkout. Don't worry if you can't take the class in February - as long as you buy this month, you have a year to take your class.

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations, and learn more about her 30-Day Family Reset here.

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Are Natural Consequences Actually Punishment? Jan 30, 2018

What role do consequences play in your parenting?

On this week's Podcast for Parents Abigail and Elle talk about when consequences become punishments.

Are Consequences Punishment?

Natural consequences sound like a good idea - and can be wonderful - but often when we, as parents, get involved in issuing consequences they can get skewed and become a punishment. We talk about the differences between natural consequences and the leap it can take to handle them calmly and consequences that become punishments and why they aren't as helpful.

Join us as Elle and Abigail delve into their own choices around consequences and how they discovered what worked and what didn't!

Covered on the podcast this week:

How do well-meaning consequences turn into punishments?
Using consequences that partner with your child
Deciding when we need to set a limit on behaviors and not allow the consequence
How can we make our parenting peace with actual natural consequences?

get your freebies!

If you want to set limits calmly and playfully, Hand in Hand's Setting Limits & Building Cooperation self-guided class will help. You'll get instant access to three weeks of video instruction, where we share proven ways to set warm, firm limits in a way that connects you and your child.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Do Our Kids Manipulate Us? Jan 23, 2018

Do Our Kids Manipulate Us?

When Abigail and Elle pose this question they thought they'd answer with a resounding "Yes!" - until they stopped to think about. And then, they went down the rabbit hole...

"What does manipulation even mean?" Abigail asks

Together they trace the times they've felt manipulated as parents and come across some interesting answers - a lot about feeling manipulated has to do with us!

Abigail mentions some moments where her son actually is very cute in his manipulation, while Elle remembers manipulation feeling a lot darker.

They realize that manipulation could actually be a measure of where a parent is at that moment.

Come along for the exploration into manipulation, kids and what it feels like in the family.

reach out!

If you want to understand more about the ways your child behaves, Elle mentions this booklet, How Children's Emotions Work. Enter the code EMOTION for your free copy. The fascinating insights will help you decode your child's behavior and respond to it more calmly.

Remember, if you'd like to start working with a listening partner, our Facebook Parents Support Group is a great place to look for one. Ask to join if you are familiar with the tools and your children are under 12.

keep connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for Hand in Hand's Monthly Newsletter

Finding Your Tribe: Shouldn't I just Know How to Parent? Jan 16, 2018

Did you ever think you'd need help in your parenting?

Elle and Abigail figured they might need help initially, but never years and years into their parenting. This week they discuss the moment they knew they needed help, how they reached out, and what differences they saw when they found their parenting "tribe."

Elle talks up the value of support in a shared community, and Abigail champions finding a mentor. There should be no embarrassment or shame in asking for help, but yet it's something both hosts admit is hard to do.

Join us this week to talk about the moments when parenting feels hard, and how to find the support you need.

Reach Out!

Elle mentions two active discussion groups, Hand in Hand's Yahoo email group, and the Facebook Parents Support Group (for parents only, and actively using Hand in Hand tools). We'd love to have you join us!

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Special Time: Great for Kids, Difficult for Adults? Jan 09, 2018

Do you make time for Special Time? Don't fret if you don't...yet!

We know that spending just a few minutes putting aside distractions and letting children lead play can boost our relationship with them, but that doesn't stop us running away from this type of Special Time.

On this week's episode Abigail and Elle look at the times they put off Special Time, and the ways they try to "cheat" the tool by using shortcuts. Abigail admits this tool is her weakest as well as the (unlikely) reason it feels hard, while Elle says she skimps on setting up the time properly!

They look at what causes parents to squirm around Special Time:

Declaring Special Time
Resisting the timing element. Is that mean?
Bargaining at the end of Special Time
Not wanting to listen to a child's upsets when Special Time ends

If you find yourself wanting to do Special Time while NOT wanting to do Special Time this episode is for you!

Get your freebies!

Watch these videos on why Special Time is so incredible for you and your child and get a checklist to help run it (without cheats!)

Our non cheatsheet is here for you whenever you need a nudge. And it's printable!

Keep Connected

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Making Changes: New Year’s Resolutions That Actually Succeed Jan 02, 2018

It's 2018 already! Happy New Year! This week's podcast has a New Year's flavor as Elle and Abigail talk about bringing change to yourself and your family.

What is the secret to making habits stick?

Abigail reveals she's big on studying on how habits work and reveals the three-step process she's used to help keep resolutions in the past. This is great news to Elle, who is less adept at adopting new ways that last beyond February!

They talk about the pressure we pile on when we devote ourselves to doing something new - especially when it comes to parenting.

Powerful Ways To Bring Change in Your Family

The moms introduce some small habits that could bring powerful change to parents and the way their family connects. Join Elle and Abigail as they talk about their own parenting habits, their wins, and their fails.

Discount on our book Listen - until January 9th!

Elle mentioned a discount on Hand in Hand Parenting's ultimate resource, the book Listen, Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges by Patty Wipfler and Tosha Schore. To get 20 percent off put Newyear in at the checkout when using the link. Offer is good through to January 9th and is available for the paperbook and ebook copies. The book is filled with hundreds of real-life examples from parents using Hand in Hand Parenting. Enjoy!

Get in Touch!

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Sign up for Hand in Hand's Monthly Newsletter here

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realt imeparenting.com

The Power of Rituals and Bringing Your Family Closer Dec 19, 2017

It's the season to be...making rituals?

What is a Ritual Anyway?

Elle asks this week are rituals the same as routine and is implementing them just a lot of extra work? Abigail mentions some family rituals that may already be in place in a family and that will become meaningful even if they are (currently) under the radar.

We look at what rituals are, at their heart, how rituals can be so very connecting for family, and how Special Time can be viewed as a regular family ritual through the holidays and beyond, to build long-lasting bonds and closeness between adults and the children they care for.

This week's podcast ends with a powerful story of a ritual created one Christmas season many years ago, which has come to define a family's holidays.

Come join us and listen to some soothing stories and support in your parenting.

Elle and Abigail wish you all well for the holidays.

Giveaways:

Elle mentioned two giveaways this week, and the details are right here. In time for the holidays, we're giving you a free download to the chapter on Special Time from Listen, Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges.

Click here for Free Chapter on Special Time

If you have to Listen already, try this video series on Special Time as “10-minute Tool” which also comes with a checklist you can use to keep your Special Time on track.

Get in Touch!

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Elle and Abigail would love.

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

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Beat Off-Track Behavior with this Secret Ninja Parenting Tool Dec 12, 2017

This week on the podcast Abigail introduces a counter-intuitive ninja parenting tool!

We talk about how offtrack behavior looks early on, what it signals, and why this tool responds where reasoning doesn't.

Both hosts talk about the times they've used this tool with successful outcomes, even though it feels completely counter-intuitive at first.

Please drop by and listen in if you:

Have a hard time curbing your child's whining or unwanted behavior
Are bored of yelling, bribing and offering consequences that don't work
Would like a tool that works even when your child gets aggressive

If you are struggling to handle a child's aggressive behavior, this video series will help - with plenty of wisdom and practical, accessible tools to learn why it happens and what you can do. Get Video Tips To Help Stop Your Child's Aggressive Behavior

Get in Touch!

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Elle and Abigail would love.

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Forgiving Ourselves: When We Feel Like We Messed Up Parenting Dec 05, 2017

The podcast starts today with a question: Is it too late to change how I parent? If not, how can I forgive myself for things i’m not proud of?

Abigail and Elle share a few parenting choices they made and feel less than proud of, as well as some inspiring ideas about how they made peace with their parenting, and how you can too.

Listen in if you've ever:

Yelled or been forceful with your child and regretted it later
Wished you'd found a more peaceful parenting approach earlier
Are struggling to align old approaches with a new gentler one

This podcast lets us know why guilt feels good for no-one in the family and offers some uplifting words that we should all remember in our darker moments.

This Guide is for You!

This free guide for listeners is available now: 5 Revolutionary Ideas That Make Parenting Less Stressful

Get in Touch!

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

Also find us on Stitcher and Podbean

Bedtime: Handling "Go To Bed" Battles Nov 27, 2017

Teeth-brushing, clothes changing and bathtime refusals, followed by endless requests for drinks, food, and "one more story." Yes, this week Elle and Abigail are talking sleep... or why kids don't want to!

Abigail admits to her own bedtime battles. She got so tangled up in her kids "needing to sleep," that she lost it time and time again when they refused until she reframed their pleas.

Tools for a Bedtime Transition

The two moms share tools parents can use to overcome these challenges, including Elle's current favorite, "The Squishes," before talking about handling that tug most of us get: Wanting our "own" time at night, as our kids ramp up desire to be with us.

How to Turn Bedtime Battles into A Time for Connection

Listen to the podcast and find out

How to lean-in to bedtime even when you are busy
How to interpret what your child is saying when he says "I won't go to bed"
Fun ways to connect at bedtime

Download a bedtime games cheat sheet to help you all laugh away the tensions of the day before dream time.

If you want to read up on some fun ways to play at bedtime read The Benefits of Laughter at Bedtime

Get in Touch!

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message.

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

What Helps Children Feel Gratitude Nov 21, 2017

What are you grateful for now? That’s the question Abigail poses to Elle this episode.

We’ll be talking about how we feel about being thankful during the thankful season, what happens if it feels difficult, and how we can inspire gratitude rather than demand it from our children?

Feelings about gratitude are often triggered around the holidays. In this episode, Abigail and Elle share ideas for:

Promoting true gratitude in the family
Making space to see and hear your child as they are and monitor your connection
How to let children offload trusting they will go back to center

Special Time is a great tool for promoting gratitude. Find out how it works or deepen your knowledge with this free chapter on Special Time from our book Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges.

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Listen up, Kids! Getting Children to Listen Nov 14, 2017

Elle and Abigail are talking about ways you can get children to listen and respond to your requests, without resorting to yelling or punishments.

Elle shares a story that happened that morning about her son refusing to come to the breakfast table and how they worked their way through the hurdle before he missed the school bus. Elle has an enlightening moment about her childhood breakfasts and how they might impact how she handles breakfast refusals. Meanwhile, Abigail recalls the time her son, as a 9th-month-old, gave a low growl that meant HE WAS NOT GOING TO EAT THE SPINACH PUREE, and reveals a more hopeful story.

Practical Tips and Tools for Getting A Child to Listen

They talk about why so often parental requests seem to go unheard, and what parents can do to avoid resorting to shouting, bribing or coercing action.

Why “shoulds” make requests to hard to give, hard to hear, and annoying when they are ignored
How tracing your triggers helps you decide which battles to fight going forward
How to blend your parental wisdom with your child’s innate desire to do things
Ways to connect so that more of your requests get heard

Listen as Abigail and Elle share parenting tools that can be applied to almost any situation, from setting screen time limits to getting out the door on time.

Free gifts, links and mentions…

The giveaway that Elle mentions about Listening Partnerships is wonderful and can be found here.

She also mentions the post What If Parenting Is an Emotional Practice?

We’d love to hear about the issues affecting you and your family. You can follow Hand in Hand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Be sure to drop Elle and Abigail a message

You can contact Abigail Wald about parenting courses and consultations at realtimeparenting.com

Sign up for our Monthly Newsletter

You can listen to this episode and every episode on iTunes. Don’t forget to subscribe!