Most parenting books tell you what to fix. This one tells you why it’s broken.
In this deeply grounded episode, I sit down with Richard O’Keefe: father of six, grandfather of 23 (!), great-grandfather of four (!!), and author of 9-1-1: What Is Your Parenting Emergency?. Richard teaches parenting skills to incarcerated fathers through Utah State University and has created a simple, powerful framework based on four core emotional needs every child has.
We talk about how unmet emotional needs in childhood often lead to incarceration, addiction, and relational breakdowns in adulthood and what every parent can do now to stop that cycle.
This episode is calm, clear, and rich with lived experience. It’s not about shaming or strategy overload, it’s about understanding what makes a child feel whole, and what happens when they don’t.
🧨 In This Episode, We Talk SHIFT About:
00:00 – The four core emotional needs all children share
03:10 – 15 parenting skills that meet those emotional needs
05:50 – Richard’s breaking point (and the mashed potatoes incident)
08:20 – Why most parenting books overwhelm and overcomplicate
10:40 – Teaching incarcerated fathers how to reconnect with their kids
13:35 – Why most people in prison didn’t have their emotional needs met
16:15 – The power of teaching values (and how it starts at dinner)
20:42 – How traditional masculinity shuts down emotional connection
23:00 – The "fixer" instinct vs. emotional attunement in relationships
27:15 – Parenting as a team (even when co-parenting is complicated)
31:20 – Why his students should be motivational speakers
33:05 – What led Richard to write 9-1-1: What Is Your Parenting Emergency?
35:20 – The iceberg metaphor of behavior and emotional needs
38:00 – What it means to make “positive deposits” with your kids
42:20 – Raising boys into men as a single mother
45:00 – The values his students wish they’d been taught
47:00 – Anger management and the “upstairs/downstairs brain”
50:00 – How Davina’s own parenting moments led to repair and growth
54:00 – Helping dads raise children from behind bars
57:10 – What to do when only one partner wants to do the work
59:30 – Why we weaponize emotional growth in relationships and how to stop
01:02:00 – Unconditional love, earned trust, and realistic expectations
👋 Connect with Richard O’Keefe:
📘 Book: 9-1-1: What Is Your Parenting Emergency? (Available on Amazon)
🔗 Ready to SHIFT with Me?
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