In this episode Smart Family Podcast co-host Dr Rob Meeder tackles common questions about behaviour and mental health. With over 20 years experience as a pediatrician, and now with a practice devoted solely to families and children dealing with behaviour and mental health issues, Dr Rob is well-equiped to talk about topics like behaviour, stress, trauma and resilience. Plus find out more about common mental health diagnoses such as anxiety, autism and ADHD, the role of medications, and why a diagnostic label might sometimes be less useful than we think.

When you tell your child, "Don't let me catch you doing that again!", will they stop? Or will they just try harder the next time to make sure they don't get caught! That's one of the issues our parenting expert Alfie Kohn uncovers as problematic in the conditional parenting approach. He advocates for an approach to parenting that values children for who they are and not simply how they behave. Kohn argues that the conditional approach sends a message to the child that they are loveable when they do the right things and not loveable when they don't. Although conditional parenting is quite ingrained in our culture, the research shows it has a less than ideal impact on forming moral character. It raises the question: what do you really want for your child's future?

The paradigm of understanding behaviour is shifting. Where we used to just see positive and negative reinforcement as our only options to address misbehaviour, we are now urged to consider how stressors lead to stress behaviour. Join us in this extremely informative episode as we talk with Dr Stuart Shanker about reframing the behaviour we are seeing in our children (and everyone else too). He will tell us how we can begin to help our children and ourselves self-regulate, allowing children to develop to their full potential. This is one you do not want to miss!

If you want to know more about how to support your infant, child or teen's development in the context of the underlying neuroscience, this interview with an expert Infant, Child and Teen Psychiatrist will shed welcome light. Dr. Clinton combines her decades of clinical psychiatry practice with her passion to serve as a knowledge translator of the advances in neuroscience to offer practical and impactful advice for parents and educators. She keeps the emphasis on what parents can manage: the goal is progress, not perfection. Dr. Clinton also stresses that you need a community as a parent; don't go it alone.

Has stress over finances taken a toll on your relationship? Today's guest, Stephanie Sims, has drawn from lessons learned over many years of personal and client experience to establish her life's calling: helping others manage their finances and make progress toward debt-free living. In this episode, Stephanie shares invaluable insights and perspectives that will help you see budgeting, for example, not negatively but in terms of what you are making possible through your choices. We talk about the most common arguments or pitfalls around money and strategies to overcome them.

In any given year, 20% of adults will be struggling with mental illness. That means a lot of marriages are impacted at some point during the marriage. Sometimes it can destroy a marriage when we see only the illness and not the person we once knew and loved. Or perhaps the burden is too much for the supporting spouse. How can partners help each other during these hard times? What if there are kids involved? What if one spouse refuses to get help, or is actually harming himself or others in the family? Then what? We tackle all of these questions in this episode with Dr Charity Byers. As a clinical psychologist who has helped couples sort through this she has so much valuable wisdom to share.

Technology can be wonderful and it has made our lives easier in so many ways - even in the current pandemic. Yet it is also the "fire of our times" and a real flashpoint for many families. Why is that? Child Psychiatrist and author Dr Shimi Kang talks about this from a brain science perspective and explains how the various neurochemicals in our brain are impacted by technology use, even to the point of addiction. She describes some very practical ways we can shift our tech diet from "junk food" to "health food". Afterwards access her free resources in our shownotes.

Limit setting with your child can feel like a parenting task that creates distance between you and your child. Jennifer Kolari is a child and family therapist who created a therapeutic model that encourages parents to treat kids with compassion while supporting behavioural change from the inside out. She teaches a method with the acronym CALM, which she explains in this conversation with Toni and Dr. Rob. These teachings along with mirroring and her overall philosophy of bringing out the best in both parents and kids have resulted in wonderful changes in the families she's worked with.

Do you feel like you are always walking on eggshells to prevent a blowup at home? Does a child's behaviour come out of the blue? Child psychologist Mona Delahooke explains all of these things to us. Delving into Polyvagal Theory and past over-simplified "checklist" behavioural medicine, Mona urges us to see behaviour in a deeper and more holistic way. Once we understand where a child's behaviour is coming from, then we can start to address it in a meaningful way. The science of children's behaviour is shifting and it is vital we grasp this if we want to help children grow up to be resilient and empathic, and live meaningful lives.

Are you feeling stuck, overwhelmed or disconnected in your marriage? Worried how this is impacting the kids? Do you wonder if maybe splitting up is better than continuing on? Then this is an episode you won't want to miss! Toni and Carey Nieuwhof reflect together on how a marriage can become empty, and offer practical advice on how to turn it around. As a family law mediator and former divorce attorney Toni shares her insights in her new book Before You Split. This honest and open conversation will instil hope - no matter where your marriage is at.