The Whole Parent Podcast

What if the biggest threat to your child's development isn't screen time, social media, or even the dangers we're constantly trying to protect them from? What if it's the fact that we're not letting them do anything on their own?
Today, I'm joined by Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free-Range Kids movement, president of Let Grow, and the woman once labeled "America's Worst Mom" for letting her nine-year-old ride the New York City subway alone.
We're raising what might be the most supervised generation of children in history. Kids are expected to perform academically at younger and younger ages, yet we're increasingly reluctant to let them walk down the street, play outside without an adult, or solve their own problems.
And Lenore believes we're paying a serious price for it.
In this conversation, we explore how parental fear has transformed childhood, why independence is essential for developing confidence and resilience, and why simply taking away our kids' phones won't solve the problem.
We also talk about the surprising research on what kids actually want to do with their free time, how our obsession with safety can create entirely different risks, and what parents can do TODAY to start raising more capable, confident, independent kids.
Because our job isn't to eliminate every possible risk from childhood. It's to raise children who can navigate the world without us.
Resources mentioned:
Let Grow: https://letgrow.org — Free resources and programs to help families and schools give kids more independence.

Lenore's Book: Free Range Kids 
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If parenting has felt hard lately… you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Inside The Parent Lab, I’ll help you understand what’s actually going on underneath your child’s behavior — and give you simple, in-the-moment tools that actually work in real life.
You’ll get access to my full course library, live coaching calls with me, practical workshops, and our 21-Day Sibling Challenge designed to help reduce the fighting and build better relationships between your kids.
If you want support, tools, and a clear plan instead of just guessing your way through parenting… come join us inside The Parent Lab.
CLICK HERE to Try the Parent Lab Today

Other Links to help you and me:
Get Jon’s Book Punishment-Free Parenting 
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Want to know if your kid is an HSK? TAKE THE QUIZ 👇
https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/66676edb5288b4a99ab96f52

Have you ever watched your child completely fall apart over something that seemed incredibly small?
You said "maybe" instead of "yes." Their teacher corrected a spelling mistake. Plans changed. And suddenly, you're dealing with a full-blown meltdown.
It's tempting to think your child needs to toughen up, learn to handle disappointment, or stop being such a perfectionist. But what if you're misunderstanding what's actually happening in their brain?
In this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast, I'm sharing two real conversations from our Parent Lab group coaching sessions about kids who struggle with uncertainty, frustration, and the fear of making mistakes.
We'll talk about why highly sensitive kids can experience seemingly minor disappointments as enormous emotional threats, why what looks like perfectionism might actually be a fear of failure, and how to build real frustration tolerance without dismissing your child's feelings or intentionally overwhelming them.
You'll learn practical strategies for handling the dreaded word "maybe," helping kids become more comfortable with mistakes, giving them the autonomy they desperately need, and teaching them that disappointment isn't something they have to fear.
Because the goal isn't to raise kids who never get frustrated. It's to raise kids who know they can handle frustration when it comes.
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
If parenting has felt hard lately… you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Inside The Parent Lab, I’ll help you understand what’s actually going on underneath your child’s behavior — and give you simple, in-the-moment tools that actually work in real life.
You’ll get access to my full course library, live coaching calls with me, practical workshops, and our 21-Day Sibling Challenge designed to help reduce the fighting and build better relationships between your kids.
If you want support, tools, and a clear plan instead of just guessing your way through parenting… come join us inside The Parent Lab.
CLICK HERE to Try the Parent Lab Today

Other Links to help you and me:
Get Jon’s Book Punishment-Free Parenting 
Preorder Jon’s Children’s Book Set My Feelings Free
Follow Whole Parent on Instagram, 
Tiktok, 
Facebook,...

“You know how to do this, so why can’t you just do it?” That sentence haunts a lot of ADHD kids and the parents who are trying their best. I sit down with Kim and Penn Holderness, award-winning creators and bestselling authors, to name what’s actually missing: executive function, working memory, and the brutal reality that starting can be the hardest step.

We get practical fast. We talk why chores and hygiene can feel harder than creative work, how boredom can feel like physical pain, and how shame builds when adults moralize mess or assume disrespect. Kim and Penn share the thinking behind their playful picture book, Get It Done And Have Fun: ADHD Hacks For Awesome Kids, including how their character Squeaky McGee helps kids feel less alone while learning real strategies.

We also go deeper into the emotional side of ADHD that rarely gets airtime: emotional dysregulation, “flooding,” and how school experiences can shape identity for years. We hold the nuance of “explanation, not excuse,” and why connection before correction changes everything when big feelings hit. Along the way, you’ll hear doable ADHD parenting tools like body doubling, timers, music, reducing friction in the home, and knowing when medication versus behavioral interventions makes sense.

If you’re raising an ADHD child (or realizing you might have ADHD too), this conversation will help you trade blame for understanding and build systems that actually work. Subscribe, share this with a parent who needs it, and leave a review with the one ADHD “stuck point” you want help solving.
Get "Get It Done And Have Fun" HERE 
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
If parenting has felt hard lately… you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Inside The Parent Lab, I’ll help you understand what’s actually going on underneath your child’s behavior — and give you simple, in-the-moment tools that actually work in real life.
You’ll get access to my full course library, live coaching calls with me, practical workshops, and our 21-Day Sibling Challenge designed to help reduce the fighting and build better relationships between your kids.
If you want support, tools, and a clear plan instead of just guessing your way through parenting… come join us inside The Parent Lab.
CLICK HERE to Try the Parent Lab Today

Other Links to help you and me:
Get Jon’s Book Punishment-Free Parenting 
Preorder Jon’s Children’s Book Set My Feelings Free
Follow Whole Parent on Instagram, 
Tiktok, 
Facebook,...

What do you do when your five-year-old won’t stop hitting? Your three-year-old keeps biting? Or your older kid has discovered that getting their younger sibling in trouble is apparently the funniest thing on earth?
For episode 100, I’m doing something different.
I’m bringing you directly into one of my live Parent Lab group coaching calls: real parents, real problems, and my real-time answers.
We talk about why a child who knows not to bite may keep doing it anyway, what to do when one sibling deliberately pushes another sibling’s buttons, why hitting can sometimes be a sign that a child needs a healthier way to experience power and autonomy, and how to respond when sibling teasing finally ends with yogurt smeared across the kitchen.
But underneath all of these questions is one bigger idea:
Your kids are not competitors. They’re teammates.
The goal isn’t just to stop the hitting, biting, teasing, and fighting today. It’s to build the kind of sibling relationship where, decades from now, your kids still know: We’re on the same team.
This is parenting advice for what happens in actual homes, not hypotheticals.
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
If parenting has felt hard lately… you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Inside The Parent Lab, I’ll help you understand what’s actually going on underneath your child’s behavior — and give you simple, in-the-moment tools that actually work in real life.
You’ll get access to my full course library, live coaching calls with me, practical workshops, and our 21-Day Sibling Challenge designed to help reduce the fighting and build better relationships between your kids.
If you want support, tools, and a clear plan instead of just guessing your way through parenting… come join us inside The Parent Lab.
CLICK HERE to Try the Parent Lab Today

Other Links to help you and me:
Get Jon’s Book Punishment-Free Parenting 
Preorder Jon’s Children’s Book Set My Feelings Free
Follow Whole Parent on Instagram, 
Tiktok, 
Facebook,...

Today on the Whole Parent Podcast we bring back friend of the show Dr. Shafali to talk about about why she wrote Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters right now and why the parenting crisis is being intensified by algorithms that target kids at the level of biology. 
CLICK HERE to get Raising Conscious Sons
CLICK HERE to get Raising Conscious Daughters
We break down what boys and girls are up against and how we can respond with conscious parenting that builds real competence, real safety, and a stronger inner self:

• why a documentary on adolescence triggered two fast-tracked books 
• why parenting is about changing ourselves, not controlling kids 
• how algorithms exploit neurochemistry differently in boys and girls 
• what testosterone drives in boys and how it gets misdirected 
• how social media magnifies perfectionism, comparison, and body dysmorphia in girls 
• why boys go quiet, miss initiation, and get pulled toward the manosphere 
• what healthy rites of passage can look like in modern family life 
• practical tips for young kids: movement for boys, emotional safety for girls 

If it did, there's a couple of things that you can do that would really, really help me out. The first one is to go right now and subscribe to my channel at Whole Parent on YouTube. The second thing that you can do is actually go to the link in the description... find the link for the Parent Lab. The third thing that you can do... is to share this episode or this podcast in general with people in your life. 

Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
If parenting has felt hard lately… you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Inside The Parent Lab, I’ll help you understand what’s actually going on underneath your child’s behavior — and give you simple, in-the-moment tools that actually work in real life.
You’ll get access to my full course library, live coaching calls with me, practical workshops, and our 21-Day Sibling Challenge designed to help reduce the fighting and build better relationships between your kids.
If you want support, tools, and a clear plan instead of just guessing your way through parenting… come join us inside The Parent Lab.
CLICK HERE to Try the Parent Lab Today

Other Links to help you and me:
Get Jon’s Book Punishment-Free Parenting 
Preorder Jon’s Children’s Book Set My Feelings Free
Follow Whole Parent on Instagram, 
Tiktok, 
Facebook,...