Suze Orman Show on what happens to overindulged kids when they grow up. (Hint: It's not pretty.)

Suze Orman provides a lot of great resources for women and money, including her book by that name, just out in paperback, which I recommend. Even though Suze does not have kids herself, she is usually right on target when it comes to the psychology of women, money, and parenting.

Last Saturday's show, January 23 2010, has one of the most striking examples I've ever seen of what happens to helicopter parents and their overindulged kids in the long run. I dare say it makes the case for both of my books, Courageous Parenting and Mojo Mom, in stark terms.

The Suze Orman Show is now available as a free, full-episode podcast, so you can check it our for yourself. Here's a link to the show's podcast list, and it is also available free through the iTunes podcast directory.

Suze's first segment on her show with the theme, "People First, Then Money, Then Things," clarifies that when Suze says "People First," she means taking care of yourself first, not taking care of everybody else, as some people misinterpret it. Suze's first guest is a woman named Donna, who is 43 years old and in conflict with her 24-year-old son. Her son is taking complete advantage of her, and as the details come out, the story just keeps getting worse. Her son is living in Donna's home, rent-free. He got into credit card debt, and made a "settlement" with the credit card company, but guess who paid off the settlement? Mom and Dad. And now her son has stopped paying Donna back, and is telling HER that "he doesn't like her attitude" when she ask him to pay her.

And there's more....Donna earns $1600 a month. Her son makes $3500 a month. He's just asked his girlfriend to marry him. He bought her a $5000 engagement ring...paying with a credit card.

Suze tells Donna that she has to kick her disrespectful son out of house to make it on his own. Donna has given her whole life away to her son, she's subsidizing her high-earning yet irresponsible adult son to the point where has no savings and no retirement account for herself. Suze believes that the rest of Donna's life cannot turn around until Donna stands up for herself and gains back some power, self-respect, and respect from others.

Donna admits that she's spoiled her three kids rotten all their lives. She stayed home with her kids and she's struggling to learn how to "take care of Mama now." I intuit that she is not sure who she is anymore without her mothering role. She seems unable to make the switch between a mother's role to care for her child, to an adult-adult relationship, holding her adult son accountable for himself, and holding herself accountable for her own well-being.

Suze says, "It's not about saying yes. It's not about giving always. It's about taking care of yourself first....You, like every woman out there, you really think the definition of a good mother is to make sure that the kids have everything...even if that means it renders you powerless. They're not bad kids. You weren't a bad mother. You just didn't think you mattered."

That's a powerful statement. Let's remember that we matter, and build the structure of our lives around that fact. I had already been thinking a lot about the fact that self-care is not indulgence, it looks a lot more like discipline. If taking a candle-lit bubble bath once in a while would solve our problems, they would have been solved a long time ago. I'll be writing more about this in my next blog post so stay tuned.

Kidpower founder on How to Respond to Verbal Put-Downs

Kidpower founder Irene van der Zande shared ideas of how kids can respond safely to verbal put-downs, standing up for themselves while de-escalating the situation. Another great segment on The View from the Bay.

Irene is a chapter contributor for my forthcoming anthology, Courageous Parenting. You can sign up on MojoMom.com to receive a free electronic download of the new book when it comes out.

Close encounters with Carol Brady, Mom-in-Chief, Mojo Mom and a Literary Mama

After I left Berkeley last week and headed down to Santa Cruz for the rest of my trip to California, I had very poor internet access, so I am sorry I was not able to blog sooner about what happened backstage at The View from the Bay.

If you remember, Jamie Woolf and I were there to talk about our upcoming anthology Courageous Parenting, but behind the scenes we were also trying to meet pop-culture icon Florence Henderson, Carol Brady herself, who was also on the show that day.

Jamie got up close and personal with her! Don't they both look great?


Florence was being whisked by while I was in the chair getting my makeup put on, and I just couldn't jump up to go meet her. But I could see her and Jamie in the mirror. Jamie was nice and bold and gave Florence a copy of her book Mom-in-Chief, which Ms. Henderson accepted with enthusiasm. She really seemed nice and embraced her lifelong role as Gen X's Mom.

But even though I missed out on that, not only am I proud of Jamie for getting right out there, but we also had the treat of running into Caroline Grant backstage. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the wonderful Literary Mama website, and she was on the show to talk about a reading list of recommended books for kids ages 3-12. There was some drama about a mistake in the schedule and whether she'd get on, which she wrote about with good humor in her blog. But we had a nice chat backstage and I have to say Caroline took it all in stride, and she did get on and was very poised in her segment.


So there we are, three writers in our own right. I felt like I was in an alternate universe, since I used to live in the Bay Area, and here Jamie and Caroline were talking about writing groups and other cool events, and I thought that if I still lived there I would love to spend more time hanging out with them, and Joan Blades, co-founder of MomsRising.org, who was gracious enough to host me while I was in town.

All in all it was a really fun day, and I hope you'll check out the video of our Courageous Parenting segment.

Courageous Parenting on The View from the Bay

I just have time to post the video of Jamie Woolf and myself talking about Courageous Parenting and "Four Easy Steps to Stop Over-Parenting" on The View from the Bay.

It was great to come to San Francisco and get to be on the show with Jamie, and talk to hosts Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang.

More details to come....

Dr. Phil show today -- Parenting Styles, from overparenting to Free-Range Kids

Just a quick blog post this morning to let you know that today Dr. Phil has a show about parenting styles hat I am very interested in because it speaks to my new anthology Courageous Parenting.

And, Mojo Mom blog reader Lori, whom I got to know through Free-Range Kids, is on the show! Lori made the news when her ten year old son was picked up by police while walking to soccer practice on his own. I hope she'll write in and tell us more about her experience with Dr. Phil.

Here's the show blurb. Unfortunately I won't be able to watch it live because I'll be headed to the airport for a trip to California...more on that shortly!

Tuesday - January 5, 2010 Dr. Phil Show

New Parenting Styles

Are you a parent who is over- or under-involved in your child's life? Dr. Phil talks with a self-proclaimed overprotective mother, a Free-Range mother and two experts to help you find a happy balance while raising your kids. First up, you won't believe what happened to Lori when she let her 10-year-old son walk to soccer practice by himself. Next, meet two moms with opposite parenting approaches: Kristen lets her kids walk to friends' houses on their own and make their own mistakes, while Beckie says she can't imagine letting her kids walk around the neighborhood or even to the school playground unattended. Find out what Dr. Phil has to say about these parenting styles. Then, Linda Murray, editor-in-chief of BabyCenter.com and Dr. Michele Borba, a parenting educator and author, weigh in with the pros and cons of different parenting styles. And, Dr. Phil checks in with Teresa, who became known as America's Most Over-Protective Mom. Find out if she and her daughter, Ashlee, who's now 18, are getting along better.

Practicing The Art of the Possible

We're entering the final stages of Courageous Parenting manuscript editing, and I have to say that there are few things that will make you (ok, not you, I mean me) as crazy as book editing. You start to try to divine meaning in every comma, versus dash, versus parenthesis. For a really good illustration of how meticulous the process can be, look at this photo of my Mojo Mom manuscript from last December, as we went through the final edits. This was after many rounds of work, when you would think it was already done, but each post-it tab represented another change that still needed to be made.

But, as we've gone through this stressful process together, my 14 anthology contributors, my editor Lacey, my project manager Patty, and myself, I have hit upon a really useful concept. To fight back against perfectionism and stress I am telling everyone that we are practicing the art of the possible. What we already have is good and solid, and we only need to work on it to the best of our ability. We can get it as polished as we can in the amount of time we have to work with, and we can then sit back and be happy with what we've created, and not worry about whether we could have moved everything 1% closer to perfection.

Part of the fun of this book is that we are drawing from blogging experience--we're writing quickly and getting the book out there while the ideas are fresh on our minds. The book won't sit in pre-publication for a year or two as books often do! In March, you'll be reading ideas that we are still putting on paper today.

And as we know, blogging doesn't have to be perfect. It's value is that it is timely, fresh, original, and opinionated. It's a contribution to a dynamic conversation that keeps going online, and we hope to do that with Courageous Parenting as well. We know that a book captures a snapshot of opinion and events, but through online conversation, blogging, and podcasting, we can keep the dialogue fresh and evolving.

But the idea of practicing the art of the possible resonates with me as a mother as well as me as a writer. I think we tie ourselves up with unrealistic expectations of ourselves from day one. And believe me, those expectations can evolve for years and still manage to stay unrealistic! We Moms can be very hard on ourselves, focusing on the things that we aren't doing well and lose sight of our generally successful big picture. The problem sticking out like a sore thumb and capturing our attention can obscure the fact that we still have nine perfectly healthy and happy "fingers" that are doing just fine.

I was talking to PunditMom Joanne Bamberger yesterday about Courageous Parenting and we both grooved on this idea, The Art of the Possible. It was so soothing and reassuring. It felt like a soft place to fall, a reminder that if we give it our best shot will be great even if it's not perfect, and we should celebrate that.

So, I posted this note on my computer monitor. What's amazing is that even as I am finishing up this book, and thinking "why did I get myself into this?" (which, I am convinced, every author/editor says at some point during every book's creation!), I also started thinking, hmmmm, maybe there is another book idea in there....



See what becomes possible when writers collaborate when the new anthology "Courageous Parenting" comes out in March 2010. Sign up on MojoMom.com and we'll send you a free copy of the e-book version when it's released. A paperback edition will also be available from Amazon.com.

Mojo Mom Podcast will return in the New Year

This week we are rocking and rolling with the final edits of the new Courageous Parenting anthology, and I am putting the finishing touches on the parts that I have to write.

So, I am not doing too much blogging right now...but I am writing behind the scenes!

I have also had to take a break from podcasting for a few weeks, but the plan is to come back with new shows on Fridays in the New Year.

You'll give me January 1 off, right? Look for a new episode of The Mojo Mom Podcast to post online on Friday, January 7th.

Thanks for reading and listening!

Find out what the fuss is all about by signing up now to receive the new book free when it comes out! Sign up now on the MojoMom.com home page to receive a free e-book of the new Courageous Parenting anthology when it is released in March 2010. You'll receive a PDF file that you can read on any computer, or print out. No dedicated e-reader is required.

What the Party Crashers Can Teach Us About Personal Safety

Everyone is abuzz about the White House Party Crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi. Some of the media coverage has been way overblown--former FBI Profiler Clint van Zandt just about blew a gasket on The Today Show last week talking about the unlikely, extreme things that could have happened. But whether you write this off as a reality-show publicity stunt, or consider it to be a serious breach of security, this incident does provide a great example that we can learn from in order to prevent real-life wrongdoing "party crashers" from crossing our own personal boundaries.

You see, the Sahalis got in by acting and dressing and acting the part--dressing to the nines, in fact. Michaele looked gorgeous in her formal bright red sari. I think that the fact that she had on such a specific dress for the state dinner to welcome the Indian Prime Minister really helped them get in. Most Caucasian, American women would not have such an outfit already hanging in their closets, so she clearly looked like she belonged at this specific event. By dressing so appropriately and distinctively, she was hiding in plain sight!

What else helped them get in? Today Maureen Dowd's column says:

"The Washington Post reported the Secret Service guard waved in the Salahis, breaking the rules, because he 'was persuaded by the couple’s manner and insistence as well as the pressure of keeping lines moving on a rainy evening.'"

This is how gate crashers and boundary crossers operate. If someone means you harm, if they came running at you with a gun, you would see them coming from a mile away and get out of there.

But if they follow a cultural script, they can not only get close to you, they can also get you to commit to the early stages of interaction. Once you have committed to the interaction, it's harder to reject the person later. Think about the steps leading up to a date-rape scenario. If a woman accepts a man's invitation to go out on a date, has dinner and drinks, maybe he's even paying, when they get to her door at the end of the night and he wants to come in and she doesn't want him to, it's harder for her to say "No" to him if he's persistent about coming in, because through her actions she's already committed to being with him up to that point. It's more difficult to turn him away, but not impossible, and this is exactly why we each need personal safety training, because predators count on their ability to twist cultural scripts and use them against us. We have to be prepared to abandon the "polite" script and ditch our previous "commitments" to change course when someone wishes to harm us.

Irene van der Zande, founder of Kidpower, says “In our Kidpower personal safety workshops, we tell our students that they already know how to be nice and polite, but that they are safest if they make being nice a conscious decision rather than an automatic habit. We have them practice imagining that they are not sure a situation is safe even if the other person is very friendly, and then leaving or setting boundaries rather than getting involved with this person.”

Then there is what I think of as the moment of confusion, which the Salahis created by showing up looking so good and insisting that they belonged, all while there were many other people waiting in line behind them. So the Secret Service waved them in. When we are busy, distracted, emotionally triggered, inconvenienced, or not sure what to do, that moment of confusion can leave us vulnerable to doing things we ordinarily wouldn't do. Most of the time, when we aren't sure what to do, it serves us well to do the nice and polite thing and go along with what everyone else is doing. But this convenient mental shortcut can be used against us, as predators deliberately create the moment of confusion to create an opportunity to hurt a victim.

If I asked you whether you'd go to a private location with a stranger who approached you in a parking lot, what would you say you would do? You wouldn't go, right? Not in a million years, you might think. But what if a man came up to you, frantic, pleading, "Help me! My baby isn't breathing!" and ushered you to his car in a remote area? This is a powerful lure. In the moment of confusion, you respond to the idea of an emergency and the emotional trigger of a baby in distress, and if you don't stop to think about it, you might immediately follow him, especially if he emphatically and convincingly rushes you into it.

Now I am NOT saying that you should not ever help a person in distress, but I am saying that you should be aware of your surroundings and never lose sight of the context of what you are doing. In a moment of confusion, think about hitting a "pause" button in your mind. It can be a brief pause, but it can allow you to collect yourself, analyze the whole situation, and think about your response. You have choices: Can you call 911, or go to a populated store for help, or get mall security, rather than blindly rushing into a potentially dangerous, isolated situation? You can assess the environment: is this day, night, near other people or sources of help? What are your potential vulnerabilities and options? For young kids, by the way, I stand by the idea that adults should not ask kids for help. If this parking lot situation happened to a kid they should go find safety, such as a store, and tell the store employees what has happened. Then those adults can follow up and call 911 either because a baby really needs help, or there is a man luring people with a false story.

The moment of confusion does not always look so dramatic. It can be simple and fast. When I traveled to France this fall, I kept my awareness about me, especially when visiting major tourist sites that are known pickpocketing venues. We were in Notre Dame Cathedral one day, a crowded environment full of people milling around, and a situation where I knew to keep a firm hold on my purse, when a French woman approached me and asked me in French whether people had to pay to tour the church. I answered her quickly and kept moving to make sure I didn't get separated from my family. Later, I realized this could very likely have been a pickpocket set-up, with her working to divert my attention while someone else went after my purse, or my husband's wallet as he was distracted, too, making sure we did not get separated in the crowd.

Why do I think this was a deliberately staged moment of confusion? Because why would a French person ask an American tourist what to do in this situation. I was the one who should have been "lost." Also, everyone else in Paris took one look at me and immediately addressed me in English (even though I was trying to speak French!). In Notre Dame we were not in a situation where there was a ticket taker visible, and we weren't even near the entrance; we were well inside looking up at the stained glass windows. I'll never know for sure what this nice-seeming woman's intentions were, but I do know that her actions evoked that moment of confusion feeling in me. Fortunately, I did not allow myself to get too sidetracked, and I stayed with my family and we all held on to our belongings, too.

Personal safety expert and author Gavin de Becker talks about developing one's intuition and the key is to not only listen to your intuition, but to also ACT ON IT. If you don't have a good feeling about your date, the time to draw the line is early on, before you get in a private, more vulnerable setting. Gavin de Becker's books talk about early warning signs of trouble to watch out for. For example, if your date fails to hear the word "No" in any situation, that person is trying to control you. Knowing that, if your date pressures you to accept a drink you said you don't want, you can see that not only should you refuse the drink, but you can take that as a sign to end the date early.

As parents, the action part is incredibly important. If you have a bad feeling about a babysitter, coach, or any person who has a major and controlling role in your child's life, it is really important to take those intuitions seriously and follow up on them by getting more information about what is going on, if possible, and removing your child from that situation if necessary, even if it's embarrassing or inconvenient for you.

Most people are good and most of the time acting nice and polite serves us well and keeps us on the right track. But the White House party crashers remind us that just because someone looks the part, acts nice, and insists that they belong, that does not automatically mean that they deserve an open door into our lives.

Sign up now on the MojoMom.com home page to receive a free e-book of the new Courageous Parenting anthology, edited by Amy Tiemann and featuring a chapter written by Kidpower founder Irene van der Zande, when the book comes out in March 2010!

I feel like Forrest Gump walking through the history of Overparenting

Remember how Forrest Gump walked through famous scenes in history, perhaps not even realizing it at the time? That's how I feel after reading Nancy Gibb's Time Magazine cover story about The Case Against Over-Parenting.

I was happy to see the article since I am hard at work editing the forthcoming anthology Courageous Parenting that aims to give parents the background and skills they need to reverse the tide of overparenting. I agree with some of Nancy Gibbs' analysis, but disagree with other significant aspects of it. Since I have a lot to say on this topic I'll write a series of blog posts. But I want to start by considering my relationship to the recent history of overparenting.

A theme that has defined and will continue to define my life is that I am on the leading edge of Gen X. Born in 1968, I have come to accept my fate playing Jan Brady to the Baby Boomers' position as Marcia: the Boomers are older, more popular, and certainly more powerful. They get there first and set the trends, and we Gen X often get caught in their wake. Overparenting may look largely like a current Gen X phenomenon but I think it has roots in Boomer parents due to their incredible power as a market. When Boomers were teenagers, being a teenager became not only cool, but the lucrative youth market was born. When Boomers started having kids, the market for new baby products and parenting advice took off as well.

Pamela Paul's book Parenting Inc. does a great job of shining a light on the billion-dollar baby-industrial complex, but you only have to walk the aisles of any baby store to see how many gadgets and safety devices there are.

Hard to believe that thirty of forty years ago we didn't even have car seats!

My encounters with modern parenting started even before I had my daughter. From 1996 to 1999, I taught high school in San Francisco, and many of the kids were children of high-achieving Boomers. Teaching was a fantastic experience, but there were definitely signs that parents expected the best for their kids. I was pretty surprised to see that seniors were applying to a dozen or more colleges, when ten years earlier, we typically applied to a handful. The goal went from getting in somewhere good to having a huge array of options to choose from. Some parents were also clearly overinvolved with being their kids' friend and didn't always know how to set the necessary limits for their teens.

Even before then, I had a near-brush with one of the burgeoning trends in parenting. As a Stanford neuroscience graduate student, I was doing research into brain development and I was very interested in critical periods of learning. This became popularized in "zero to three" interventions. Around 1995 I even considered creating a video series that would have predated Baby Einstein. Inspired by the very cool work of neuroscientist Patricia Kuhl, who investigates early language acquisition, I thought about trying to create a video series that would teach babies and kids languages that were very different from their own, such as Japanese for English speakers or vice versa.

On the one hand, maybe I missed out on a multi-gazillion dollar industry, but considering the fact that the Baby Einstein videos didn't actually work, I am not too sorry about taking a different path. I will say though, that being a scientist I would have tested the results to make sure that the products worked! In the meantime, if you want your baby to learn another language I'd recommend hiring a babysitter who is a native speaker.

So, I do believe that marketing is an underlying root cause of overparenting. As our lives were actually getting safer, we were being sold new "problems" in order to sell us new "solutions." By the time we were being sold the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System, I started to pull my hair out, as I wrote about on my CNET blog, (Parent.Thesis) This marketing of overparenting is not only ridiculous, it's offensive to me. There are so many true problems facing families that it is a shameful waste of time, money and attention to try to give your kid a "head start" in the womb. Hopefully one good outcome of the current recession is we can let the most ridiculous stuff go.

In addition to overt marketing messages, this decade's rise of 24-hour news media on cable and online meant a rise in selling fear. CNN.com is one of the worst major news offenders in my experience, in that they sometimes post a story in a headline position which is not new news at all, but rather a scary story from the archives that they are revisiting. I am talking about stories along the lines of this CNN.com post from yesterday, with Nancy Grace talking about a cold case from 1989, Cold case: Toddlers vanish from park. But sometimes CNN.com posts this type of story in a headline position on the home page without clearly labeling it as a cold case. Doing so is irresponsible. Child abductions are fearful occurrences of mythic proportions. They can't help but pus the anxiety buttons and get any concerned parent's adrenaline flowing. But the truth is that THANKFULLY, these incidents are much rarer than you would think based on how heavily they are reported. With genuine new tragedies such as Shaniya Davis' recent rape and murder shining a light on human trafficking, I really wish the news media would stop dredging up decades' old cases for sensational purposes. When I think about web site clicks I can't help but think of lab rats conditioned to push a lever, and I will admit that I am as conditioned as anyone!

So we have consumerism and the marketing of problems and solutions, news sensationalism, and what else...oh yes, the Decade from Hell. Let's face it, the past ten years have been scary and anxious. Terrorist attacks, resulting wars, the economic meltdown...we haven't had much of a break from fear and anxiety. And for eight years, the Bush administration manipulated our fear as consciously as any marketer or news producer.

We're only now waking up from that nightmare, if we're lucky, and as parents it's crucial that we wake up. We need to become conscious of the effect that we have on our children. If we are fearful people, our parenting is going to get out of whack. I believe we're seeing that already, as we limit our kids' exploration of the world to the point where they are missing out on important developmental experiences. I want my kid to be able to walk the neighborhood, to go to a slumber party and summer camp, to spend time with other families and get to know other people. [For ongoing conversation on this topic, check out Lenore Skenazy's Free-Range Kids blog.]

Now in order to do so, she'll need skills, and I need the skills to teach her, and that's what we're addressing in Courageous Parenting. In the meantime you can check out the websites of Kidpower for real-world safety training and resources and iLookBothWays.com for online safety training that I highly recommend.

As far as waking up and being conscious of our effect on our children, I have been blessed with a daughter who has been my greatest teacher from day one. When she was a baby I swore she was a Yoda-like Zen master (but much cuter). Then, she taught me how to be in the moment. Now that she's older, she has an almost psychic sensitivity to what is going on in my mind, what I am thinking about and worrying about. When I am stressed and worried, it is mirrored in our relationship and her behavior. It amazes me that she will often voice worries that are currently on my mind even if she and I haven't talked about them yet. So my personal experience has shaped my world view on parenting. There are challenges to face and things to be fearful about. True fear requires attention and action, as author Gavin de Becker has taught so well. But unfocused worry is toxic static that pervades our lives.

It's time we start thinking about the costs of overindulging ourselves and our kids even as we overprotect them, and adopting worry as a destructive habit. My hope is that in our new decade we can turn a fresh page in parenting. I'll be doing that both metaphorically and literally and I invite you to join me.


Sign up now on the MojoMom.com home page to receive a free e-book of the new Courageous Parenting anthology when it comes out in March 2010!

Our "Courageous Parenting" team of experts, ready to help you move beyond "helicopter parenting"

I had already been planning to announce our final roster of Courageous Parenting anthology contributors, and today turns out to be the perfect day to do so, as this week's new Time Magazine cover story by Nancy Gibbs puts an exclamation point on the idea that it's time to end the age of over-parenting. Authors including Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids have been pioneers advancing this trend. Our goal with Courageous Parenting is to expand the conversation by not only providing inspiration to raise independent kids, but also the skills and strategies that parents need in order to do so.

The new Courageous Parenting anthology will be published in March 2010 in paperback and e-book form. If you sign up on MojoMom.com now, we will send you a free copy of the e-book as soon as it is released. How's that for a deal?

My highest vision for this book is that it will improve families' lives. In Courageous Parenting, we show you ways that you can become prepared for your children's growing independence, both by investing in your own personal development, as well as learning parenting tools and strategies that help you reach your parenting goals. This is parenting in the big picture: your kids will not wake up on their 18th birthdays magically transformed into capable, competent young adults. Their development is an ongoing journey! We parents need to learn how to lay that groundwork in small steps that promote increasing capability, responsibility and independence along the way.

It is such a privilege for me to work with these authors. Here is what we will be talking about in Courageous Parenting:

Introduction by me, Amy Tiemann, Ph. D., author of Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family and creator of MojoMom.com

I. The Courage to Invest in Your Own Development

The Transformative Power of Self-Care by Renee Peterson Trudeau, author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life, creator of Personal Renewal Groups for Moms and writer for The Journey.

Tools for Career Reinvention, Kella Hatcher and Maryanne Perrin, co-founders of Balancing Professionals consulting.

II. Developing Your Courageous Parenting Style

The Courage to Let our Kids Solve Their Own Problems by Maya Frost, author of The New Global Student, creator of Smart Education Design.

The Courage to Become Your Own Parenting “Expert” by Melissa Stanton, author of The Stay-at-Home Survival Guide, writing online at StayatHomeSurvivalGuide.com and Real Life Support for Moms.

The Power of Personal Significance for Kids of All Ages by Amy McCready, founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, offering local and online parent training.

I’m Worried I Worry Too Much But How Do I Stop? by Jamie Woolf, author of Mom-in-Chief, creator of Mom-in-Chief.com

III. Real World Safety Skills for All

Kidpower: Skills for Safety, Skills for Independence by Irene van der Zande, founder of Kidpower, Teenpower, Fullpower International.

How to Say “Yes” to Your Kids’ Online Activities, by Linda Criddle, internet safety expert, author of Look Both Ways, Help Protect Your Family on the Internet, and the founder of iLookBothWays.com

IV. Finding your voice and raising it for the community

PunditMom on Mom Bloggers Raising Their Political Voices by Joanne Bamberger, author of the PunditMom blog.

Activist Parents: Challenge and Progress Through the Eyes of MomsRising.org by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder of MomsRising.org

It Takes a Motherhood by Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann, founders of TheMotherhood.com

I have spent years developing relationships with these talented experts. Each and every one of them has changed my life in a significant way, and they have the potential to so for you, too!

Sign up now on the MojoMom.com home page to receive a free e-book of the new Courageous Parenting anthology when it comes out in March 2010!

I've been in the hive not in a cave... And, here is why we need Courageous Parenting

It's Friday, again, already? Hard to believe. I know my blogging has suffered from infrequent-itis lately, but I wanted to tell you it's because I've been as busy as a bee in a hive, not hibernating like a bear in a cave.

What's been keeping me so busy behind the scenes? The new Courageous Parenting anthology, of course. I am working with 14 talented contributors, and now we've brought on board our intrepid editor Lacey, working with me and my loyal project manager Patty, to pull this whole thing together.

I am so grateful that I don't have to do any of this alone! Lacey and I are really getting into the heart of the book, working on individual chapters as well as creating a coherent whole.

I'll reveal the whole roster of contributors on Monday, but today I keep thinking about why we need Courageous Parenting. We live in a disproportionately fearful time, although our children and families are actually growing up in quite a safe era. We live in an overly child-centric society, yet our kids eventually need to grow up and become independent. They aren't just going to wake up as capable and competent young adults on their 18th birthdays: we need to give them skills and life experience to be prepared to be independent.

Courageous Parenting aims to give parents those skills and strategies they need to grow up independent kids, and also the courage to work on our own development. Because for our kids to feel good about leaving the nest, it helps to know that we have our own lives and are not totally dependent on motherhoood to create our identities and happiness.

I am a big fan of Sarah Haskins and her Current TV show Target Women. This week's parody is not only funny, it's a brilliant dissection of the way we are sold fear on a daily basis.



In Mojo Mom, I wrote about unpacking our guilt and examining it, looking for the true signals that indicate there is something we need to change, and discarding the rest as unhelpful baggage. It's time we do the same for worry and fear. True fear signals are vital signs to listen to, but our society has become overrun with a constant static blast of worry, much of it broadcast in the style of those Broadview Security ads in the Target Women video.

In Courageous Parenting, we aim to give you solid information, inspiration, and skills that will increase your family's capacity for joy and exploration, without so much worry getting in the way.

Sign up on the www.MojoMom.com home page to receive a free e-book of the new Courageous Parenting anthology when it comes out in early 2010!

Mojo Mom Podcast, Positive Parenting Solutions and Courageous Parenting

It's been a very busy week so I haven't blogged, but I did get a new Mojo Mom Podcast ready for you. It's a good one -- Positive Parenting Solutions founder Amy McCready and I had a lot to talk about, and we really got into the heart of several key positive discipline strategies.

I hope you'll listen in:



This week Amy Tiemann continues her series of conversations with "Courageous Parenting" anthology contributors, talking to Amy McCready, founder of Positive Parenting Solutions.

Amy McCready's training gives parents valuable tools that prevent behavior problems from arising in the first place, as well as teaching parents strategies to respond constructively and effectively when problems do arise.

Today Amy and Amy delve into the substance behind the recent headline, "For Some Parents, Shouting is the New Spanking," and talk about the themes of personal belonging and significance, why this is important to kids, and how to develop these qualities within your family.

Sign up on MojoMom.com to receive a free e-book edition of "Courageous Parenting" when it is released in March 2010.

Mojo Mom Podcast, TheMotherhood.com and Courageous Parenting

This week I am kicking off a series of Mojo Mom Podcast interviews with my Courageous Parenting anthology contributors. The goal of this book is to give parents the skills and strategies they need to raise independent kids, with courage and confidence rather than worry and fear.

On the podcast we can have further conversations about Courageous Parenting. The angles explored by each author are so different that there is plenty to say! Check in next week for the announcement of the final list of contributing authors.

So listen in to this week's Mojo Mom Podcast with Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann, founders of TheMotherhood.com, the most intelligent, creative and friendly social networking site for Moms:



On The Mojo Mom Podcast, this week Mojo Mom is joined by the founders of the social networking site for Moms, TheMotherhood.com, Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann. This dynamic duo returns to the podcast to talk about how community support can empower us all to be more courageous, and how they plan to transform a chat we had about Courageous Parnting at TheMotherhood into a chapter for the new book.

You can register to receive a free e-book copy of "Courageous Parenting" by signing up to receive the MojoMom.com newsletter and Party Kit, so stop by and sign up today!

Three chats on TheMotherhood.com--Join me tomorrow!

I'm one of the co-hosts for a live chat on TheMotherhood.com tomorrow from 1 to 2 pm ET to discuss our new Courageous Parenting anthology. TheMotherhood.com founders Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann are going to use this chat as the basis for their chapter and we would love to hear your thoughts about what Courageous Parenting means to you.

Their three talks this week are so great I wanted to share them all. I love Rosalind Wiseman's work. She is a colleague of my recent podcast guest Rachel Simmons on issues affecting adolescent girls.

And on Thursday, the chat about Growing Up Online will feature none other than my former Mojo Mom Podcast co-host Sheryl Grant in her new role as a Director of Social Networking for the Digital Media & Learning Competition, supported by the MacArthur Foundation.

So I encourage you to consider participating in one or more of these chats. Just sign up as a member on TheMotherhood.com and then follow the links at the chat time to join in.

TheMotherhood Talks this week!

TODAY at 1 pm ET: Rosalind Wiseman - author Queen Bees & Wannabes
We're talking about mean behavior, in our lives and our daughters' and how hurtful it can be. Join the conversation here.

Wednesday at 1 pm ET: We're writing the chapter of a book together, live.
Be a part of Amy Tiemann's anthology on Courageous Parenting! Share your life experiences, thoughts and tips! The book comes out in March 2010, and contributors receive a copy. We're talking here.

Thursday at 1 pm ET: Social Media and Our Kids
Join the MacArthur Foundation and The Online Mom to talk about our kids growing up online - your approaches, experiences and fears. We'll all take away great information and ideas on how to deal with our kids online. Join us all here.

We look forward to some GREAT conversations. See you there!

Emily and Cooper

The chats are also archived, so if you can't stop by during the live event, you can come back later to follow the links, see how the conversation unfolded, and add your comments.

Sign up for my e-newsletter on www.MojoMom.com to receive a free e-book of the new Courageous Parenting anthology when it comes out in early 2010!

What's next for Mojo Mom? A new anthology and free e-book giveaway!

Mojo Mom sets her sights on new horizons....

The time has come for me to ask "What's next?" Now that Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family, has been released in its revised second edition, that book really and truly feels complete. So what's next for me?

As my daughter grows up through her tween years, I myself am moving beyond the questions of new motherhood to the next phase of discovery for my life, and my parenting questions have become more focused on her growing independence.

So I wanted you to be the first to hear that my next big project is a new anthology written on the theme of Courageous Parenting, to be released in paperback and e-book form next March. We'll explore from many angles how we can live our lives with courage rather than fear. To enable our to kids grow up and away from us, rather than hovering too closely as "helicopter parents," we may need to develop some new knowledge and skills to approach our kids' growing independence.

I am the editor of the project and I had the pleasure of inviting the anthology contributors who will serve as our expert guides along the way.

This is a really cool opportunity to bring together many of my favorite authors into one book. You've heard them as guests on The Mojo Mom Podcast: Maya Frost of The New Global Student, Melissa Stanton of The Stay-at-Home Mom Survival Guide, personal safety expert Irene van der Zande of Kidpower, and Jamie Woolf of Mom-in-Chief, to name just a few.

Next week I will announce the complete list of anthology contributors here on the Mojo Mom blog.

But in the meantime I wanted to let you know that we'll be kicking off the book announcement with a live online chat next Wednesday, October 21, from 1 to 2 pm ET on TheMotherhood.com

Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann are the co-founders of TheMotherhood.com and they'll be writing a Courageous Parenting chapter based on this chat, which will bring in their community members and I hope, YOU.

All you have to do to participate is to sign up as a user on TheMotherhood.com and then click on this link at the chat time to join in:

Courageous Parenting: We're Writing the Book Chapter Here!

You can drop by any time between 1 to 2 pm ET to add your voice to this conversation and tell us, what does Courageous Parenting mean to you?

There is one more really exciting thing to tell you about the anthology: thanks to the gift of modern technology, I can offer every member of the MojoMom.com community a free copy of the e-book version of Courageous Parenting. By signing up to receive the free Mojo Mom Party Kit and Quiz on MojoMom.com, you'll also receive an invitation to claim a copy of the e-book when it comes out. New people who sign up to join the MojoMom.com community before the book is released will also be eligible. This is my way of saying thank you for your interest in my work. Your support has meant a lot over the years as I have grown into a writer!