Since bringing in Conscious Parenting to my coaching practice and my personal life, I have seen a powerful positive change in how I relate to my children. This is why today’s interview with Sandra Fazio is personally so wonderful for me. Sandra not only teaches parents how to begin bringing the principles of Conscious Parenting into their homes, but she also loves it out with her own daughter. Sandra, like many parents, thought she had everything planned out to perfection. As we all learn once we become parents, children rarely align with even the best-laid plans. Sandra found it difficult to relate to or discipline her daughter, and so she turned to Conscious Parenting to end some of the strife in her home. What she unlocked was a whole new way of not just thinking about her child, but about herself too. When the pressure of being a Solo Parent pushes you to a breaking point, Conscious Parenting reminds you to check in with yourself. Self-kindness is easily one of the most powerful tenants of Conscious Parenting, and it’s a step that Sandra has taken to heart. She now encourages everyone to parent through deep connection and open communication. I am thankful to include Sandra’s story and perspective into the Solo Parent Community because she has faced many of the same setbacks that we have as well.          Sandra’s story reminds us to take each day one step at a time. Your relationship with your children is ever-evolving, and it is time to trust that you know how to listen and respond to your children in a conscientious way. More in this episode: Sandra shares her own motherhood story as an older mother. How Sandra got interested in conscious parenting. Tough times parenting her daughter influenced Sandra to stop putting so much anxiety into how her planned parenting. Letting go and living presently enabled Sandra to see how conscious parenting could change her life. What conscious parenting is all about. How Sandra incorporated conscious parenting into time with her daughter. Parenting is an ever-changing, ongoing journey. Children are operating at a much higher wavelength now. Sandra needs to pay attention to her daughter to see how her needs change. How to cope with our own triggered emotions. Parents have to wear many hats. How to say “no.” Resources: Sandra Fazio Facebook - Sandra Fazio Parent Listening Group Solo Parent Life - Coaching

It can be difficult to find moments of peace in the middle of our crazy lives. Sometimes, we feel so overwhelmed and out of our depth, and we simply want to step away from it all. Unfortunately, if you are a solo parent, you can’t always pass the kids along to your partner for 10 minutes of quiet. How can you, as a single parent, cultivate some peace and positivity into your daily life? I have an expert guest with me today that is going to give you incredible, easy tools you can use to take care of yourself and connect with your children. Dr. Laura Markham is a Clinical Psychologist and founder of Aha! Parenting. Laura loves working with parents to help them build mindfulness and peace back into their parenting. She knows how unsupported parents feel as they try to guide and connect with their kids, so she has generated resources and written books that you can use at any time. Her most recent book, The Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook is filled to bursting with exercises that will help you rewire your thinking and build peace back into the day-to-day. Knowing that parents are always busy, and single parents even more so, Laura has crafted her resources to fit any schedule. Today, we are going to chat about how to build up your inner resilience, understand your parenting triggers, and work through difficult situations in a helpful way. Whether the kids are bickering or your child is shouting, Laura’s techniques will help you regulate your emotions and transform high-tension moments into moments of peace. Her skills are founded on coaching principles that focus on positivity, rather than simple survival. You will breathe a sigh of relief once we are done talking today! Peace is possible, and we are going to get you there. More in this episode: Laura tells us about how she works with parents to guide and grow their children in a supportive environment. Connection is everything! We need to be coaching instead of punishing. Parents need to have support to know how to self-regulate and take care of themselves. We need to have emotional generosity. Understand your own triggers as well as your child’s. You can take care of yourself while you are with your kids. Advice for parents who are struggling with self-love. Positivity is building coaching moments. What these techniques are doing to change how your brain thinks. Resources: Aha! Parenting Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook plus all of Laura’s books! Connect with me! soloparentlife@gmail.com

Busy Solo Parents often wonder how they are going to get food on the table, let alone make something jam-packed with nutrients that everyone will eat. Life is already chaotic enough! I am here to tell you today that making, simple, healthy, and delicious meals are absolutely within your reach! I’ve brought on a guest today who is going to walk us through the process of creating nutritious meals children will love. As an added bonus, she’s a mom herself who has seen her fair share of struggle. Welcome with me to the show today, Maria Quintana-Pilling! Maria is a functional nutrition and lifestyle practitioner, certified nutrition consultant, and the chef-founder of Urban Spice Nutrition. After struggling with her own health and digestion, Maria found the strength to make significant lifestyle changes, including her diet. She certainly knows how difficult it can be to raise kiddos while your health is failing, so now she is committed to empowering women struggling with similar hormonal and digestive issues with her incredible nutrition programs. I know you are going to find this episode just as helpful as I did. Maria emphasizes that planning your meals ahead of time gives you power over those key nutrients your kiddos need. Today, she will teach us how to be mindful of how we prepare meals, and why balanced nutrition is so important! Our nutrition affects everything from our energy levels to our hormone balance. When we are putting more of what is good for us in, we can only see positive results. Maria believes the key to a healthy future is giving our children the tools and resources they need to make healthy choices for the rest of their lives. What could be a better gift than a legacy of healthy food to power them through life’s biggest moments? More in this episode: Maria explains how nutrition became her second career after a fibroid diagnosis. Nutrition has played an important role in Maria’s continued health through pregnancy and beyond. Good nutrition can keep your hormones in balance! Why you should not be skipping breakfast! Breakfast staples you can use to stock your kitchen. Plan dinners a week ahead of time! Your freezer is your friend. Maria chimes in on detoxing, and how to make it yours. Advice for Solo Parents tackling nutrition. Resources: Co-Parenting Resource Solo Parent Life Urban Spice Online Maria@urbanspicenutrition.com Squash Soup Recipe Maria’s Breakfast Challenge

One of the biggest fears many parents face is the fear that we are not preparing our kids for the “Real World.” Life skills are difficult to teach, but they are so important for our children to be successful. The official name for this vital skillset is “Social Emotional Intelligence,” or the ability to navigate social problems with empathy and self-respect. I am excited to begin to dive into this topic with Jennifer Miller today. Jennifer is the founder of Confident Families Confident Kids, an online compendium of resources all about parenting children with a high Social Emotional Intelligence. She is quite the expert on the topic, and today she will share practical examples as well as encouraging stories showcasing exactly why we should be prioritizing Social Emotional Intelligence in our parenting. After realizing there really was not a simple, research-based resource for parents on Social Emotional Intelligence, Jennifer set out to create one. She used her own personal struggles as well as her informed perspectives to write articles and offer up tips for parents. When her son was very young, Jennifer noticed she had quite an emotional response to his misbehaviors. Rather than being content with these feelings and challenges, Jennifer armed herself with knowledge and changed her parenting to model and reflect Social Emotional Intelligence. I think Jennifer’s approach is admirable, and I know you will be encouraged by her stories. Rather than hiding the struggle, Jennifer embraces the process of slowly developing the skills that will set her son up for an incredible future. You do not have to be ruled by the fear of failing your children. Thanks to Jennifer, you have resources at your disposal to help you develop Social Emotional Intelligence with your kiddos. Listen today to find out how to get started! More in this episode: Jennifer shares everything about her family and why she is passionate about Social and Emotional Intelligence. Jennifer wanted to write on her blog to intentionally help parents develop social and emotional skills for everyday life. Get a good definition of Social Emotional Intelligence. We can take cues from our emotions and respond in ways that does no harm. Learn the 5 Competency areas of Social Emotional Intelligence. We work inwardly first, so then we can begin the outward work. Step back and reflect on our responses as a parent. Teaching self management is about demonstrating them ourselves. Your history as a parent will come up. Intentional practice can be a part of playtime. Tips for parents with older kids. Tools and resources for you to use right away! Links Confident Parents Confident Kids Family Emotional Safety Plan  NBC Parent Toolkit

Parenting your pre-teens and teenagers has its own unique set of challenges. While there might not be any more diapers to change or tantrums to manage, older children still need a specific kind of love and attention. Most of the time, parents end up frustrated! This phase of life can often be isolating for Solo Parents. Without carpool lines and trips to the park, it can be difficult to find a place to commiserate with fellow teen parents. This is exactly the kind of thing that my guest, Vickie Vann, is trying to fix! Vickie is a fellow therapist in the area who loves to work with adults and families. She has a teen son and felt she was missing a safe place to express her concern, get advice, and vent a little. After finding there were no opportunities for parents of teens to connect and support each other, Vickie cofounded with Deb Blum parent support groups at her son’s high school. The groups have taken off, and many parents are finding comfort and confidence through genuine connection with one another. Vickie is going to share just how powerful communities really are. She’ll dive deep into the mind of a teenager, and come up to bat for the dreaded “helicopter parents.” She is a wealth of advice on everything from scheduling sleepovers to pushing through homework blocks. If you are a teen parent, you are definitely going to want to give this show a listen! Parents of little ones, this episode is a glimpse into what’s coming for you in just a few short years. Pre-teens and teenagers require parenting in a different way. Don’t be afraid of these challenges! Instead, Vickie encourages us all to seek out opportunities to shape your children into the adults they will become. Deny it all they want, these teens still need mom and dad. We promise! More in this episode: Vickie loves working with parents by creating discussion groups and support networks. Understanding the teenage brain. Our kids are exposed to so much so early, they seem more mature than they are. Parenting gets more intensive when your children get older. We can help our children develop and grow by “lending them” our frontal lobes. Letting our kids fail is not always the best method to teach them. Move out of negative thinking and into positive change. Stay in the game! Find your common ground and get into their world.

It is a busy time of year, isn’t it? With kids out of school, gifts to buy, and relatives to see, the pace of the holidays feels hectic, even more so for a single parent. There are some seasons of life when you feel all the weight of responsibility on your shoulders. Seasons come and go; some are wonderful, and some more difficult. Today, I wanted to highlight just how important it is we keep this in mind during times that are more hectic or troubling. I think this is something my guest, Kelsey Baldwin, knows well. Kelsey is the owner of Paper +Oats, an online business that has seen a lot of success in recent years. Kelsey is also creating incredible online content including e-courses for budding business owners. On her blog, she often writes about how she manages a business as a single mother. Especially since she is pretty much the whole show at her business, I wanted to pick Kelsey’s mind about how she finds a balance between work and life. She maintains that balance well but acknowledges that it hasn’t always been easy. Keeping in mind the seasons that come and go, Kelsey moves her life in a direction that benefits both her and her daughter, Poppy, in a positive way. This is a sweet and compassionate interview that will resonate well with those of us who are walking through a difficult set of circumstances. Let Kelsey’s story fill you with hope, and give you a few ideas for how to enter into this next phase of life. More in this episode: Kelsey shares all about herself and her online business, Paper + Oats. The story behind how Kelsey became a single parent. The baby was a place for Kelsey to celebrate during the early days. We chat about how the grieving process really never ends. How to find the work/life balance with small children. Kelsey’s personal strengths that allow her to run her business on her own. Dealing with the pressure of everything falling on you. Parting words of wisdom for those of us in the middle of difficult seasons. Resources: Paper + Oats https://www.paperandoats.com/ Join our Facebook community for my weekly Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/DrRockettSoloParentLife/

How can we all work together to build a community that supports our children? Our school-aged children spend most of their week at school, so our job as parents is to support and cooperate with the teachers they are spending that time with. Ideally, this process would be as collaborative and compassionate, but sometimes those teacher relationships can be challenging. This is why I am excited to have Dr. Arina Bokas with me today. Her book Building Powerful Learning Environments: From Schools to Communities is directed towards teachers but applies to everyone. She is going to talk about her book, her experiences as both a teacher and a parent, and then give us some strategies to use as our children grow and learn at school.                  Building a good relationship with our teachers is essential for supporting your children through the school years.  Any good communication you can set up early will help pave the way to success. Dr. Bokas encourages us to approach communication with compassion and curiosity. She has such useful tools to share with us today, with wisdom directed at Solo Parents, who sometimes feel even more pressure to be involved in their child’s education. You definitely do not want to miss out on this excellent interview! I certainly got a lot out of my conversation with Arina, and I know you will too. More in this episode: Hear all about Arina’s experiences with school communities. The book was built around a need. There was a breakdown in communication and understanding, which leads to a divisive nature in our ability to teach our students. Parental concerns v. Teacher concerns. Understanding the whole child means we have to work together. The conflict between adults in the child’s life can affect them. Be proactive. Connect with your teacher at the beginning of the year. Teachers need to know you are a single parent. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Organizing time, allowing your child to struggle. Show curiosity in what your child is learning. Assisting students who are older. How to communicate what your child needs to your teacher. What happens when things don’t go the way you want them to. Don’t go over the teacher’s head to the principal. Be careful about our language. We can collaborate without playing the blame game. Resources: Kids Standard Magazine: http://www.kidsstandard.org/ Dr. Arina Bokas http://culturesofpartnerships.com/ Twitter @ArinaBokas Link to buy Dr. Bokas’ Book: Building Powerful Learning Environments

Are you feeling a little anxious about The Dating Talk? My kids are still very young, but I am already beginning to think about how to have conversations about healthy relationships. So often we think of words like “consent,” and automatically go to sex. Consent is about more than physical intimacy; it’s also about respect and boundaries. The more our children understand their boundaries and needs, as well as the needs of others, the better they will be when things like sex and dating come up in their lives. We often get a little stuck on all the heavy emotions around dating and romance, so I wanted to bring to you a resource to help you navigate tricky moments. My guest today is Mike Domitrz, the author of May I Kiss You? And the founder of The Date Safe Project. Mike has created amazing resources for parents and kids to use together to have healthy conversations about relationships. Most important to Mike is that both adults and kids understand true consent requires more than permission to touch. It’s also about wanting that intimate contact. Consent comes down to communication, and you and I both know how tricky it can be to communicate with pre-teens and teens. Luckily, Mike has for us today some easy ways to have conversations that make the whole thing feel less icky and personal. Do you want your kids to be able to respond well when their peers start joking about sex? What about sexting and pornography? Mike is going to share with you today the tools and skills your kids will need to know in order to navigate these tricky social situations. In the end, I think these conversations are an avenue to really connect deeply with your older kids. You do not want to miss out on all this information today! More in this episode: Mike never planned to be speaking on sexual health and consent, but a family circumstance showed him his calling. Understanding consent in the healthy and the legal way. Clear communication with boundaries is key, and it won’t “ruin the moment.” Teaching consent starts with ourselves. How we can open the door to conversations about consent. Issues of consent crop up even without the issues of dating and sex. All about Can I Kiss You? And who it will really reach. There’s no age limit. Reading body language is a power trip. How to talk to your kids without making it personal and emotional. Giving kids skillsets to deal with all the hormones and feelings. Kids have information available to them online, so we can be a resource instead of their other sources. Dealing with sexting and giving them skills to handle moments with friends. How to have a goofy or a serious moment to connect with your kids. Resources Mike’s Online Home https://www.datesafeproject.org/ Reach out to me to join one of our listening groups! soloparentlife@gmail.com

What can you do when your child is acting out? There is a lot of information out there about discipline, behavior modification, and diagnosing the root of your child’s behavior. Some of us have come from traditional, disciplinarian homes. Others have problems setting up boundaries. Have you ever taken a moment to reflect that these moments of acting out are a chance for you and your child to grow closer together? Before you lose your cool entirely, give this interview with Lori Petro a listen. She truly has some great recommendations and resources for parents who might be struggling with everything relating to discipline. Lori is the mind behind Teach Through Love, a wealth of online resources for parents, solo or not, that serve to build up communication and enhance emotional intelligence with your kids. When your child is acting out, it is usually in response to an inability to express what they are thinking or feeling. We as parents have a huge opportunity to teach our children how to express themselves and then listen to what they have to say. Lori is going to show us today some ways that we can begin to build trust with our kiddos. We can build emotional intelligence starting with our own responses to behavior. It truly is as simple as learning to listen. More in this episode: Lori created Teach Do Love to help parents understand their children. The big struggles most parents face as far as behavior is concerned. What are we saying to ourselves when our children are misbehaving? Lori sees conflict as a way to grow and develop our brains. Kids need to know it is safe to make mistakes. Lori uses her own childhood experiences to inform the resources she creates for parents. Forget whatever goals you are trying to work on, and work on building that relationship. Give your children an outlet for their feelings. Feelings are a part of life, and if we stuff them, they come out in different ways. We are really building emotional intelligence. Resources Teach Through Love: http://www.teach-through-love.com/

Have you given much thought to the legacy you want to leave behind? As Solo Parents, we have a great capacity to fill our children with memories of our lives and theirs to empower, inspire, and reassure them during times of hardship or uncertainty. No one understands that better than Melanie Vetter, and that is why I am so excited to start our conversation about legacy today. Melanie’s work with Legacy Letters is incredibly interesting, and the fact that she’s my neighbor makes this conversation an extra treat.                   Melanie Vetter is a writing instructor and legacy advisor, but really she helps people use their personal stories to build connections, resilience, and personal legacy. Melanie is passionate about the power of our personal stories and is dedicated to teaching and empowering others to celebrate document, and share a purpose-filled life using fun and joyful tools and techniques. She is an attorney, a certified Legacy Advisor, and a Certified Senior Advisor, and holds a certificate in Guided Autobiography Instruction from the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies. Melanie and I had a chance to chat in-person, which is such a gift, let me tell you! As we enter this season of thankfulness and family, this episode will help you cultivate the gratitude and excitement you need to have these conversations with your family. You’ll be amazed! This is a powerful episode filled with so many incredible resources you do not want to miss. More in this episode: Melanie shares how she became involved with Legacy Letters. Ways Melanie’s family have been using the letters to grow closer together. Tools that Melanie teaches her guided autobiography classes. Autobiography is a powerful way to gain a new understanding of yourself. The hidden power of the thank-you note. Tips for Thanksgiving, sharing stories, and legacy. Resources: Melanie’s Website www.wellfleetcircle.com Contact her at melanie@wellfleetcircle.com Melanie’s Thanksgiving blog post: http://wellfleetcircle.com/thanksgiving/ Link to sign up for the Free 5 Questions to Ask at the Holiday Table guide http://wellfleetcircle.com/5-questions-ask-holiday-table/.  Melanie’s SMILE Guide for writing thank you notes with ease and joy: http://wellfleetcircle.com/smile-ebook/ Legacy Letters Blogs: http://wellfleetcircle.com/category/legacy-letters/ Legacy Letters Examples: http://wellfleetcircle.com/legacy-letters-and-legacy-books/