It's natural to want our kids to be socially successful. We want them to have friends and to feel a sense of belonging. We might feel pressure for them to act a certain way in public and find ourselves stepping in whenever we sense conflict. The problem is that when we swoop in and take over, this can actually stop kids from building their own social skills. We get to be there to scaffold these skills, but it requires us to give our kids space to reflect, think, and problem solve on their own.

Picture this scenario: Leo is approaching the table where Nina is already playing. Nina yells “No Leo! I’m using ALL the playdough and ALL the tools. These are MINE.”

Now...

 00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to bring you such an incredible guest. I got to hang out with Congresswoman Becca Balint to chat about improving mental health outcomes through government funding. Representative Balint is a mom, a teacher, a progressive leader who comes to Washington ready to fight for working families. Becca's the first woman and openly LGBTQ plus person to represent her home state of Vermont. She's the daughter of a working class mother and immigrant father, and Becca is deeply committed to defending American democracy and protecting vulnerable communities. While the majority leader of the Vermont State...

“I want her to know how to get angry without hitting,” my friend said to me as she loaded her 2-year-old into the car. 

It had been a challenging moment, complete with a full tantrum and hitting because her daughter was frustrated about leaving the park.

When kids don’t know how to handle difficult emotions, they might hit, bite, kick, or scream. Often, we respond to the behavior: we block the hitting and make sure they know it’s not okay to hit. But then, the next time they’re frustrated, they hit again. 

Kids can’t make a different choice if they don’t know how. If they don’t know what to do when their body feels out of control...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and I got to hang out with Claudia Hammond to talk about why kindness matters and how do we teach it. One of the things I've been really into is this difference between being nice and being kind and what is kindness? How does it play out, not just in early childhood, but then down the road? What effects does it have on our mental health and the longevity of our mental health? I was so enriched by her research that it was really exciting to get to chat with her. She has a book out called The Keys to Kindness, and we got to chat about like, what does it look like to be kind to toddlers and to support tiny...

00:00:01    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village and boy, do I have a banger of an episode for you today. I got to hang out with Eli Harwood. She is such a dreamboat. Her Instagram handle, @attachmentnerd, if you're not following already, is a gem. And she wrote the book, Securely Attached. Y 'all, attachment is at the root of how we show up in this world. There is a whole section in Tiny Humans Big Emotions about it because we can't talk about how we interact with kids without talking about attachment, and Eli has an entire book on it and my favorite part of this is that it's a workbook- so she guides you through figuring out what your attachment style is and...

00:00:01    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village. And today your special guest is me! I got to be on the other side of the mic for this one where Rachel Lounder, one of our Seed team members, in fact, our first ever Seed team member is interviewing me to ask me questions that you submitted about Tiny Humans, Big Emotions, my upcoming book. This was so fun to get to dive into, to give the backstory on the book, to talk about how it's different and why we wrote it. Listen, I am here to add value, not noise. And so in writing this book, I really wanted to make sure that that's what we were doing, that there wasn't something out there that we could just send people to...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village and I have such a special episode today. I get to bring you Lauren Stauble. Lauren is the co-creator of the Collaborative Emotion Processing method. And she's my co-author of Tiny Humans, Big Emotions. We got to dive into what the CEP Method is, why we don't believe in a one size fits all approach, and walk you through what does it look like? A little bit in practice, give you insight and really a sneak peek into the kind of stuff that you'll find in the book. We co created the collaborative emotion processing method and researched it across the US. Our research ended in 2018 and we've been working on putting...

00:00:02    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, this is episode 233. I got to hang out with Dr. Ellen Vora. Oh gosh, I love hanging out with Ellen. She is incredible. She wrote a beautiful book about adult anxiety. And let me tell you y'all like we know anxiety is on the rise and we need concrete tools for what to do with it. And when I first started reading her book, The Anatomy of Anxiety, it was one of those things where immediately I was like, yes, yes. Yep, so much yes to this. As a human who once lived with a lot of anxiety and has learned a lot of tools that I get to employ in the day to day to live with less anxiety, I felt like I just felt so seen...

00:00:04    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers and experts come to support one another on this wild ride of raising tiny humans. We combined decades of experience with the latest research to create the modern parenting village. Let's dive into honest conversation about real parenting challenges, so it doesn't have to be this hard. I'm your host, Alyssa Blask Campbell.  

00:00:35    Alyssa

Hey, everyone, welcome here to Voices of Your Village today I get to hang out with Sarah Maclaughlin. She lives in Maine, and we got to meet in real life, which is how this relationship started. I gave a workshop...