Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis

You've decided to get a divorce. Now what? When do you tell the kids? How much do you share? What do you say about the other parent? And what if you're already worried you'll get it all wrong?

Divorce is one of the most common experiences families go through, and also one of the hardest to talk about with our kids. In this episode Carol sits down with pediatric psychologist and parent coach Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart to figure out how to do it with care.

We get into how and when to tell your children, why telling them together matters, how much to share and what to hold back, and how to build a healthy co-parenting relationship even when you and your ex can barely be in the same room. Dr. Lockhart explains why a changed family structure is a loss that kids grieve, how to keep them out of the middle, and she offers a powerful script for any parent who feels they got it wrong and wants to reset. It is an honest, practical conversation you can use right away.

Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart is a pediatric psychologist, parent coach, and author of Love the Teen You Have.

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💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
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How do you raise a child who wants to read? Award-winning educator Alvin Irby has a simple answer, and he found it in a barbershop.  In this episode, Carol talks with the founder of Barbershop Books, the national nonprofit that places books in barbershops and inspires Black boys to read for fun.

Alvin's approach: ask Black boys what they like to read, then give them those books. He explains why the titles children actually love, like Captain Underpants and No, David! rarely appear on book lists created for Black boys, and how well-meaning curation can trap kids rather than free them. You’ll hear why he advises parents to replace the word "or" with the word "and," affirming what a child already loves while introducing something new.

Carol and Alvin also explore how children can build their reading identities and find literacy assets hiding in plain sight, on cereal boxes and in the bathroom. They talk about the reading trauma many adults carry, and why giving children agency over how and where they read can help us raise the next generation of readers.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

What can sisterhood teach us about raising children? In the first episode of Ground Control Parenting Book Talk, Carol explores this question with award-winning journalist Deborah Roberts, author of Sisters, Loved and Treasured: Stories of Unbreakable Bonds.

One of six sisters, Deborah draws on both her own family and the many women she interviewed to share the honest, sometimes complicated truth about sibling relationships. She and Carol dig into the patterns every parent will recognize: comparison, labels, and favoritism. They each candidly reflect on the labels that stuck in their own families, and on how being seen as "the favorite" can be both special and burdensome. Deborah also opens up about the close bond between her daughter Leila and stepdaughter Courtney and the journey to it. You can't force closeness between siblings, but as she and Carol discuss, you can nurture and protect the conditions for it.

Stay tuned for more episodes of GCP Book Talk, a new recurring feature in Season 8, where we look at great books through a parenting lens.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Boomer, Gen X, Millennial. Three moms, three generations, one question that divides mom group chats: how do you discipline in the age of gentle parenting?

In this episode of GCP: On The Ground, Carol sits down with Keisha and Jen to wrestle with the parenting issue so many of us are living through right now. They move from the research linking spanking to worse outcomes, onto the harder question underneath it: does gentle parenting reject the way Black families raised us, or does it evolve it?

This conversation ranges from spanking to its alternatives, from talking back to respect, from societal expectations to the realities Black parents carry as they prepare their children for a world that too often judges them differently. The moms also take on a listener's question about second-guessing your own values when family weighs in on how you discipline, and they get honest about the role grandparents, aunties, and uncles play, including why kids seem to respect a whole different set of boundaries depending on who's in the room.

GCP: On The Ground is a recurring segment, new this season, where Carol and two other moms dig into the issues we're all talking about around the kitchen table.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

What does it mean to raise children when your family's life is a matter of public record? Maryland's First Lady Dawn Moore knows that tension intimately,  and she's navigating it with clarity, humor, and grace.

First Lady Dawn Moore was one of the architects of the historic 2022 campaign that elected her husband, Wes Moore, as Maryland's 63rd governor and the first African American governor in the state's history. As First Lady, she champions children's mental health, military families, and women's economic empowerment. But in this conversation, she's a mom, figuring out the same things we all are, under a much bigger spotlight.

Carol and The First Lady talk about protecting kids' privacy in the age of social media, keeping children grounded when misinformation is about their own parents, and the values Dawn is passing down from her Queens upbringing to her kids. The importance of being kind. And why belonging in every room has nothing to do with your last name.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis