Confessions of a Parent Coach
Welcome to Confessions of a Parent Coach, the podcast where you'll learn that even parenting experts like me, Ann Kaplan, mother of four, and your host won't have all the answers. I believe that once you realize there's no such thing as a perfect parent, you can achieve fabulous behavior and amazing relationships with your kids.
Episodes
If "discipline" makes your stomach drop because it feels synonymous with mean, this episode is for you. This conversation is for parents who care deeply about connection — and are quietly worried that setting limits might damage it.
Ann makes the case that loving limits aren't just about better behavior. They're about helping kids develop securi...
If you've ever sworn, "It ends with me," and then immediately watched yourself get weirdly intense about something small… hi. This episode is for the parents who are doing the work—and still getting ambushed by old feelings in brand-new moments. We're talking about what actually breaks generational cycles (spoiler: it's not just "doing everything diffe...
How many times have you told someone what you want and then been frustrated when nothing changes?
Whether it's a parenting conversation (put your coat away when you get home from school, please.) or a request of your partner (please don't leave your toothbrush dripping all over the counter.) or any other attempt you've had to get people to change their behavior, chances are nothing changed. Am I right?
...
Do you find yourself impatient to experience the transformations you're working on?
Whether it's upleveling your parenting skills, managing your temper, getting a project across the finish line, experiencing less stress or anxiety....once we can tell what is going "wrong" now and what "right" looks like, it's normal to feel a sense of urgency about making it happen ASAP.
It's almost like you have a litt...
Do you remember when things changed in your home from "baby is boss" to "The grownups lead the way"?
I have a very specific memory of the exact moment this happened in my life with my oldest child and this week on the podcast I'll share it with you, and talk about this paradigm shift that is fundamental in setting up healthy parent-child dynamics.
It's a shift that happens only partially or doesn't happ...
It's not working!
I hear something like this from clients every week. When we're trying something new, we want results quickly to confirm that what we're doing is working, right?
But, sometimes looking for that result is the very thing stopping our efforts from "working"! When we don't see the outcome we want quickly enough, we can end up pivoting too soon, making knee-jerk changes without thoughtful ev...
No resolutions for me this year, thanks.
Are resolutions the healthiest, most life-affirming way for us to pursue growth? Maybe for some, but for many of us they are either unnecessary or painful. Why not explore the ideas of intention, attraction, and openness instead?
Listen to this week's episode to learn more about the difference between resolution and intention, to hear a few examples of what that ...
Stillness.
The winter solstice happened a few days ago, and in this week's episode of the podcast, I'm inviting you to do something about that...or actually, I'm inviting you to do nothing about it.
Listen to the episode to explore the ideas of reflection, rest, warmth, nourishment, light, love, and celebration that this time of year offers.
I hope your Winter season includes all of these things, and t...
The reasons we avoid stuff that would make life better...
We all have them. We can tell we're stuck in a rut or that the way we're showing up is problematic. We even have some ideas for what we could do to improve things, but our brains come up with a million reasons not to do them. The most common response I get when these opportunities to try something different: "I can't. I don't have time. I'm too bu...
Have you ever received a compliment but still didn't believe it on the inside? Same. The truth is that external praise can't really change the way we feel about ourselves. So why do we keep using it to improve our kids' disposition, self-esteem, or confidence?
When our kid puts themself down, it makes perfect sense that our instinct is to leap in and replace the negative with positive. "You're not dumb, ...
Parts beget parts. Self begets Self. This is a common expression you might overhear in circles of Internal Family Systems practitioners.
Essentially, we're saying that when we take time to connect with our True Selves, two things happen: we're more likely to engage in life from our True Self, and we're more likely to receive the True Self of the people we're interacting with. (Self begets Self).
And, co...
Tis the season...to nag our kids about gratitude nonstop.
It's Thanksgiving time, and that means lots of kids will be the beneficiaries of even more generosity than usual and will be expected to be grateful for their blessings. Remember when we were kids, and our parents nagged us about saying 'thank you' or writing thank-you notes, or told us stories about how good we had it compared to others?
How muc...
Why are some kids at their worst when they're with their parents? You may have heard it's because they are comfortable letting it all hang out when they're with their parents, which is a piece of the puzzle, but far from the whole story.
The bottom line is that kids (and all humans) crave energy, intensity, attention, and interaction from the people around them, and when kids get that negatively (in the ...
Have you ever done the "right thing" even though it felt like torture? Of course! We've all been in countless situations where we knew what we should do, and we were able to make ourselves do it, but it sucked. Telling the truth when it would have been easier to lie, staying calm with our kiddo when, inside, we are seething, holding a boundary when we wish we could just cave... It's so normal!
But what i...
How much of good parenting is actually doing stuff? The answer is almost none.
A beautiful conversation started with a client a few months ago and has continued to unfold for me in various spaces. This week on the podcast I share it with you.
Listen to the episode to hear two stories that demonstrate that:
If we put our focus on our way of being - elevating our consciousness and addressing the internal...
But how do you really DO this IFS stuff?
I just came back from facilitating the October retreats with incredible women surrounded by gorgeous Fall colors and beautiful growth moments. Internal Family Systems (IFS) was a big focus of our work this year, and we discovered quickly that we could spend a whole morning learning and discussing IFS without ever actually DOING any of it! A quick pivot helped us d...
Blame v responsibility | When something goes wrong, is your first reaction to figure out what caused it and who's to blame? If you said yes, you are in very good company. It is the most common reaction to anything in our lives, even the good stuff! Who gets the blame? Who gets credit?
And our minds tend to equate blame with responsibility. Makes sense, right? If you break something of mine, you should be...
What even is the ego?
If you've listened to even one of my podcast episodes, you've heard me use the E word thousands of times 😝 But what does it mean?
Usually, an official definition only confuses us even more:
"the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity." (Only moderately helpful, in my opinion)...
What am I supposed to DO with the Enneagram?
Last week, you heard me discuss the levels of development and integration that exist within the Enneagram. The most common question I get after teaching these concepts is, So what? What am I supposed to do about it?
It's really helpful to see that we struggle with certain personality constraints, or that we are hanging out in the less healthy range of integra...
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