90. Our Top 5 Parenting Episodes to Help You Stop Power Struggles and Tantrums

Which episodes did parents love most this year — and what can you learn from them to bring more calm and connection into your home? In this special roundup, we’re revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2024 from our weekly podcast, filled with gentle parenting insights that make a real difference.

We’ll reflect on practical ways to strengthen your parent-child connection, use gentle discipline instead of yelling, and try positive parenting strategies for raising confident kids. These short episodes offer support for managing anxiety & emotions, how to get kids to listen, how to stop tantrums, and even stop power struggles with kids — all while keeping a focus on kind and firm parenting that really works.

✨ You’ll hear listener-loved tips on:
• Episode 57: Encouragement from Dr. Jane Nelsen on how positive discipline builds respect and trust
• Episode 46: Gentle ways to respond when your child says, “You’re mean!” (yes, it stings—but there’s a better way)
• Episode 52: Age-appropriate discipline techniques for toddlers that don’t rely on yelling or time-outs
• Episode 53: Why reducing screen time supports calm & peaceful parenting, and what to do instead
• Episode 74: Using affirmations to boost confidence, especially for kids with anxiety & emotions or a neurodivergent child

Whether you’re new here or a longtime listener, these episodes are full of parenting tips & tools to bring more joy and ease into everyday life.

💌 Have a question you’d love answered in 2025? 

Email Flora at sustainableparenting.com to be featured in a future episode! You’ll also get a personal response and a free course on how to stop power struggles with kids — a gift from me to help you keep growing in your journey toward calm, confident parenting.

✨Want more?

✨ Schedule a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting, so we can answer any questions you may have. Together, we'll make a plan for your best next steps to have more calm & confidence in parenting - while having kids that listen!:)

✨ Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen, for strategies that take you out of the "gentle mom - monster mom" cycle, with effective positive parenting strategies.

✨ Sign up for an upcoming LIVE ONLINE workshop with Flora, or purchase a past replay: https://sustainableparenting.com/workshop where you get 30 min. of learning and 30 min. of LIVE Q & A time, with replays sent afterwards.

✨ Buy a 3 session Coaching Bundle (saving you $100) - for THREE 30-min sessions 1:1 with ME, where we get right to the heart of your challenges, and give you small, powerful shifts that make a huge difference fast.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

You're listening to Episode 90 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, licensed Therapist, parenting Coach and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant. It is the new year, 2025, and I am just amazed to think of the things that have occurred in this last year in this podcast community. I wanted to share a few things, and today's highlight is about our top five episodes, so I want to highlight those for you so you can go back and get the very most of our content from 2024 before we launch into the new things of 2025. Exciting new things coming your way. 2025 is number one. You can email me a question and I will answer it in a podcast episode. So email to flora at sustainable parentingcom your questions about parenting and I will personally highlight you in the episode, answer your question and send you an email bonus of one of my free courses about how to avoid power struggles. It's a really quick, incredibly power-packed one-hour course that is going to give you several really tangible strategies and it's oriented to both teachers and parents. So if you are an early childhood educator or a parent, this is a really helpful course for you. If you also would like to get access to that course as a purchased item, I will have that available in the show notes. Second exciting thing in the new year is that I'm going to be offering more highlighted special guests. One in particular starting out next week is Dr John Summers Flanagan, who is a professor at University of Montana and has been a parenting educator for 40 years and is just incredible wealth of information, and I'm so thankful to be able to have him highlighted in this special coming up. And others will be joining us as well. So please keep attending and let's now dive into the highlights of 2024, so that you are able to dive into 25 with us, having gotten all of the best information from last year's podcast episodes.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable Welcome. So the highlights I want to give to you were, first of all, top episode was positive discipline with Dr Jane Nelson. Jane Nelson is the mother of seven kids and many grandkids and has been in this field for 50 plus years just doing amazing work as the co-creator of positive discipline and I just highly respect her so much. I can't believe I was able to interview her and there's a three-part series that we made out of the interview with her, since there were so much we got from being able to talk with Dr Jane Nelson. So that is episode 57. That can start you into the part one of the three-part series.

Speaker 1: 3:50

The second top episode was when a child says you're mean, say this instead, or say this in response. And boy, this has been one of those top issues I've seen a lot in my parent coaching and consulting with preschools this year is what do we do when kids just say you're mean or I don't like you, or even more hurtful things, when you are saying no or setting a boundary? And, friend, I can tell you this is a very normal reaction. It does happen fairly commonly. It doesn't happen with all kids, so that's why it may come as a surprise, but it is something that occurs in more than one child a year that I am connected with. So that episode is episode 46, when a child says you're mean, how to respond? Next is episode 52, mastering the art of discipline with your three nature. So in this episode we went into three key strategies that really help with toddlers. You know there are many different strategies in parenting and you read things overall, but toddlers are a unique, you know creature. They're in a unique stage of life and you're going to get farther faster in trying to redirect or correct negative behaviors if you're using strategies really fine-tuned and focused on toddlers.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Episode 53, the very one after that, was how to get kids off screens and why it's so important. Boy is this a hot topic this year, and we're also going to be having an upcoming episode interviewing the specialist in our local community here of Bozeman who is pushing the efforts towards decreasing phones in schools and promoting a wait till eighth campaign for kids having cell phones even and I'm really excited to highlight this topic in an upcoming January episode as well. But episode 53 is my beginning thoughts on how to get kids off of screens and why it's important. And then, lastly, episode 74, how affirmations can boost your child's confidence. I know this gives me a sense that many parents are wanting to make sure that their kids are gaining confidence.

Speaker 1: 6:10

There's a lot of anxiety and depression that's becoming more and more prevalent in our young children, and so with that comes parents noticing and saying how can I boost their confidence? So, as a response to that seeming depression and anxiety, that's that's on the rise, and so please check out episode 74 for my thoughts on how you can do that with affirmations, and we are going to be talking more about this topic in 2025 as well. Anxiety in kids is something that I'm experiencing on a personal level with my 11-year-olds, and it's something that I'm seeing more and more in my practice, and so I want to give you resources if you also are having a child that's struggling with anxiety. So, friend, these are the highlights of 2024. As I said, again, 2025, I'd love to hear from you. Ask me a question, email it to flora at sustainable parentingcom, and I'll be so excited.

Speaker 1: 7:14

I'm wishing you thoughts of calm, confidence and cooperation, hoping that, as you head into this new year, you're reflecting not so much on like all of these big things you're going to push for and stress yourself out about achieving, but what are the things that would help you to feel more in alignment, more, in a sense of calm, steady boy. I really feel myself standing on my own two feet in my parenting, in my relationship with my partner, in my role as mom or dad. And if you are not quite sure how to get down that road, please reach out to me, because that's one of the things. I hear a lot of feedback from my clients that our work together gives them All right. Friend, we'll see you again soon. Happy New Year.