Talking About Kids
Talking About Kids is a weekly podcast for parents, educators, and direct service providers that explores the latest information on issues impacting children and adolescents, from preventing bullying to unlocking creativity. Hosted by R. Bradley Snyder, author of The 5 Simple Truths of Raising Kids, each episode presents a new topic and introduces listeners to authors, academics, and visionaries from around the globe.
Episodes
Traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, are injuries that affect how the brain works, and they are a major cause of death and disability in the United States. Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable, both in terms of sustaining a TBI and experiencing debilitating, potentially lifelong effects. The topic of traumatic brain injuries is so important to kids that I have decided to dedicate three episodes to it, each with a dif...
Sex Education has been in the news a lot recently, and it has me thinking about my favorite sex education series: The Midwest Teen Sex Show. It aired new episodes on YouTube from 2007 to 2009. Nikol Hasler, my guest for this podcast, was one of the creators of the show, as well as its host and writer. After the show, Nikol wrote two sex education books. Sex: A Book for Teens came out in 2010, and a revised and expanded version o...
In the U.S., we have started to make real progress towards decreasing juvenile suicides by promoting mental health and reducing the stigma around suicidal ideation. However, practical concerns remain. What should a kid do when they are feeling suicidal? What should a parent, teacher, caring adult, or even a friend do when a kid they know is in crisis? I know it takes substantial resources and a concerted effort to put the correc...
Over the years, many teachers, administrators, and parents have asked me about restorative justice in schools. It is an important topic, but one that I am a little confused about myself, which is why I am so glad to be joined by Akiva Liberman. Akiva is a friend and colleague with whom I have discussed restorative justice many times. More importantly, Akiva has studied responses to youth misbehaviors for over two decades – much of ...
In this mini Labor Day episode, I discuss labor and new evidence of the power of being a caring adult in the life of child. Links to the research I cite can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com. Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return next week (September 12, 2022).
As parents, teachers, and direct service providers, we are bombarded with products and services that claim to help kids. Many of them are quite expensive. We want the best for the children and adolescents in our lives, but resources are scarce. My guest to help all of us understand how we can discern whether an app, a curriculum, a program, etc., might actually work is Eric Hedberg. Eric is an Accredited Professional Statistician a...
Dominique Roe-Sepowitz joins us for this episode. Dominique is the Founder and Director of Arizona State University’s Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research and the Clinical Director of Phoenix Starfish Place, a Federally funded supportive housing program for sex trafficked women and their children. Dominique has devoted her professional life to the heartbreaking topics of human trafficking and sex trafficking, and there ...
My guest for this episode is Chandra Ghosh Ippen. Chandra is the Associate Director and Dissemination Director of the Child Trauma Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco. She also is the author of a series of storybooks for young children that are written to support emotion regulation and healing after stressful or traumatic experiences. Titles from the series include Holdin Pott, You Weren’t With Me, and O...
My guest this episode is Melinda Gulick. Melinda is the CEO of First Things First, which is an organization created by Arizona voters to help young children be ready for success in kindergarten and beyond. Melinda took over the helm of First Things First in March of 2022. As an award-winning public administrator with a breadth and depth of experience, Melinda is uniquely poised to advance First Things First’s mission, and I am exc...
My guest this episode is Steve King. Steve is the Superintendent of the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District in Arizona. For over 28 years, Steve has been experimenting, exploring new ideas, and reforming schools to support those students with the most significant needs, because he believes that supporting them affords the best opportunities for all students to succeed. I happen to think that Steve is an innovator. This interview w...
This episode was recorded in front of a live audience on July 19th, 2022, at the Child Abuse Prevention Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. My guest is the keynote speaker, Corey B. Best. Corey is the founder of Mining for Gold, a project that curates community members’ experiences with systems of oppression and utilizes that information to rebuild child- and family-serving systems. Corey is thoughtful, challenging, and generous, and...
My very special guest for this first episode of Season 2 is the venerable Dorothy Espelage. Dorothy is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education; she is the author of numerous books on bullying, including Bullying Prevention and Intervention: Realistic Strategies for Schools; and she is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Amer...
In this final mini summer episode, I discuss some new research about the effectiveness of fostering in kids a "synergistic mindset approach" to stress. Links to the research I cite can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com. Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return next week (July 18, 2002) with a very special guest.
In this third mini summer episode, I use the occasion of Independence Day (and my friend's birthday) to talk about kids and the dangers of fireworks. A link to the research I cite can be found at TalkingAboutKids.com. Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return in late July with very special guests to help you prepare for the new school year.
In this second mini summer episode, I use the occasion of Pride week to address how LGBTQIA+ kids are treated in school and what can be done to support them and all students. Links to the research I cite can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com. Once again, full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return in late July with very special guests to help you prepare for the new school year.
In this first mini summer episode, I expose truth of the so-called "achievement gap" between Black and White students and briefly introduce a strategy for supporting all kids as scholars and resilient human beings. Links to some of the research I cite can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com. Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return in late July with very special guests to help you prepare for the new school year...
My guest for this episode is Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon. She is Iñupiaq and a research scientist in the Youth Development program at Child Trends. Heather’s work focuses on Indigenous youth, families, and Elders and the topics of colonization, historical trauma, and culture as a protective factor. Together, we explore the what, why, and how of anti-racist approaches to supporting the Native and Indigenous kids in your lives. We als...
In this episode, I talk with Gina Godbehere, one of the founders of Speak Up Stand Up Save a Life, and Annie Middlemist, the organization’s Executive Director, about their conference’s approach to promoting mental health and reducing suicides, bullying, and substance abuse. I encourage you to listen and evaluate whether the Speak Up Stand Up Save a Life might benefit you or your work. I hope that this episode might also inspire you...
It is difficult to overstate how terrifying it can be to try to leave an abusive relationship. In this episode, Michael Hughes, Chief Operating Officer, and Kathy Di Nolfi, Chief Program Officer, at A New Leaf – one of the Nation’s premier service providers – explain what domestic violence (or “DV”) services are available in communities and what happens at every step in the process. We hope that this information will make it easier...
My guest this episode is Tracie Afifi, Professor in the Departments of Community Health Sciences and Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and an Associate Editor of the journal Child Abuse & Neglect. Tracie’s research advances our understanding of adverse childhood experiences and protective factors by examining, on a macro level, what makes an experience positive or negative and looking for other experiences that fit those...
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