Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Craig Knippenberg reads from his new book:Shame-Free Parenting . Building Resiliency in Ties of Hardship, Guns, and Social Media
Feeling the weight of parenting pressures? You're not alone. Join us as child and family therapist Craig Knippenberg, LCSW, M.Div and co-host Sydney Moreau unpack the life-changing approach of Shame-Free Parenting. With a blend of wisdom from my nearly forty years in practice and fresh perspectives from Sydney, we take you through the art of building resilience in your children without carrying the heavy burden of guilt.
Whether you're wrestling with the digital dilemmas of our time or the alarming gun culture, this episode offers a compassionate view on navigating these challenges with your sanity intact.
Let's face it, sometimes the best thing you can do for your kids is to take a step back. But how do you strike that perfect balance between being present and giving them the room to grow? For those hungry to dive deeper, my book, "Shane Free Parenting" by Craig Knippenberg, LCSW, M.Div is just a click away, ready to continue guiding you towards confident and compassionate parenting.
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where imperfect parents build resilient kids and families. A place to learn real solutions based in brain science to fit your unique parenting style. We show you how to tackle today's challenges for children and teens. Remember, when it comes to raising kids, you just have to be this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg. I've been a child and family therapist for nearly 40 years. I'm the business owner of one of Colorado's largest private practices, bestselling author and father of four. In my fathering world, I've been a birth death, a single parent, a step parent, an adopted parent, a parent of exceptional students and a grandparent of two. By my side is Sydney Moreau, our production manager and mother of three ages, preschool through 18. Together, we bring you a guilt-free parenting perspective with solutions that actually fit into your real life. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, along with our producer, sydney Moreau.
Speaker 1:Today's a special edition of Legit Parenting. It's going to be a book reading from my new book Shame Free Parenting Building Resiliency in Times of Hardship Guns and Social Media, and it is out now on Amazon. I've climbed a couple hundred in the rankings and still waiting to get the reviews. Fortunately, now that I've put a review on Amazon, you have to buy it through Amazon to be able to post a review. Now I will tell you for our listeners. I'm about to do the most nerve racking thing that I could possibly do. It's something that just fills me with great anxiety, which is reading out of a book in front of others. Being a kid with dyslexia or who is in the turtle reading group, my entire school experience was filled with fear, every day that the teacher would ask me to stand up and read in front of the class. I have so many traumas from that and experiences that were not positive, so I avoided it all. Wish me luck. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. As Dr Russell Barkley says, parenting is about you shepherding children, not engineering them. I decided to start a podcast called Legit Parenting during the pandemic. It includes 10 tips for XIV and COVID which I've published in an article for the Washington Post in the spring of 2020. Those initial episodes, along with tidbits from additional episodes, form the basis for this book Shame Free Parenting Building Resiliency in Times of Hardship, guns and Social Media. In it, you will find timeless parenting and family strategies that help the world during COVID and will help your family be more resilient through future tough times.
Speaker 1:Currently, my biggest concern for parents today is the social media driven frenzy about how you have to be concerned with almost everything you do with your children so as not to damage them or interfere with their successful trajectory in adulthood. As you'll see in chapter 1, where I address modern parenting myths, this couldn't be further from the truth. While reading this book, I hope that you, as a parent, can let go of some of your stress, let go of guilt and past parenting decisions, and let go of any parenting shame you might feel from others around you. As for the mental health of our children, it's not that today's parents are doing a horrible job. I see scores of parents every day who are doing an amazing job. My first big concern for the well-being of our children and teens is electronics and social media, which I address in chapters 4 and 5. While some parents are concerned about specific library books that might have a negative impact, children and teens are given access to some of the most heinous parts of human nature with a tool that can fit in the palm of their hands. Not only are they learning about these realities virtually, but many social media sites also teach your children or teen how to participate in the same behaviors. So leave the librarians alone and focus on social media companies. My second big concern is the culture of guns in the United States, which I write about in chapter 6.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I didn't grow up with electronics or social media, but I did grow up with guns. Like the majority of dads in our Midwestern neighborhood, my father was a sportsman. We hunted small game and went target shooting and trap shooting. I received my first shotgun at age 10. My father taught gun safety to my two brothers and I, as well as how to shoot a gun, how to clean a gun and how to store ammunition away from the guns. Never once did I hear my father talk about his guns existing for personal or home protection or the idea of using a gun against another person. I did the same thing with my son. As I inherit guns from my father, my son will inherit mine. I couldn't be prouder of that. I've also had many great adventures with my son when we've gone out to the local range. We once paid $7 a bullet on Father's Day to shoot a.50 caliber machine gun. It was truly an amazing experience.
Speaker 1:Sadly, we now live in a country where scores of teens and adults are settling scores with firearms and millions of others are obsessed with assault rifles for personal and home protection, aren't even being prepared for armed insurrection. That fear is constantly being reinforced by our politicians, traditional media outlets and social medias. Others continue to extend the tragedy of Columbine High School by shooting more innocent children I've listed in. Children talk about their fears of school shooting or about the other mass shootings that are happening almost every day in our country. I truly believe that our founding fathers returned over in their graves and they learned how many Americans were being shot down by their fellow Americans. While COVID was tremendously difficult and other ills such as racism and climate change are also very tiring, it is social media and the proliferation and use of firearms that is tearing apart the fabric of our children and teens.
Speaker 1:Mental health, the crossroads of shame-free parenting. Consecually, resiliency really stands at a crossroad where three streets come together. The first street is your unique, imperfect child or teenager who has their own strengths and weaknesses and their own brain-based development. We have children with great impulse control and those with poor impulse control. We have emotional, even kids, anxious kids, angry kids and depressed kids. We have children and teens who struggle with eating social cues and those who are social butterflies. We have students who use their empathy to build harmony with others, and those who use their social abilities to attain power and control. This is all part of normal child and teen development. At the second street in the crossroad, is you, the parent. Your unique, imperfect parenting style includes your strengths, your weaknesses, your emotional responses and how you choose to exercise your parental freedoms.
Speaker 1:According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey called Parenting in America, while 80% of parents felt parenting was rewarding and enjoyable, two-thirds also said it's harder than they thought it would be, including one-third of mothers who said it's a lot harder than they expected. Today's parents spend more time and money on their children than previous generations and feel pressure to be more hands-on with their children. Sadly, many mothers felt judged for their parenting by other parents and friends. Third street is our modern culture. Prior to COVID, our culture was struggling with excess social media usage, increased suicide rates for teenagers in 2019, school shootings, addiction to gaming, academic stress, worries about climate change and online pornography. The social isolation of COVID spurred academic backsliding and record high levels of anxiety and depression among our children and teens. It created a mental health crisis we are still trying to climb out of these newer realities. Sit atop historical cultural issues like teen sexuality, drugs, alcohol, fighting, racing cards and bullying, then you can add to the normal life and death transition for many issues of poverty and racism.
Speaker 1:The basic preception of this book is that you don't have to be a perfect parent at the point of all the crossroads. Perfect parents do not exist. There is no perfect parent. In the words of English pediatrician and psychoanalyst DW Winnicott you are good enough, he believes, as do I and the sound instincts of normal parents, as you'll hear throughout the book, you have to be just this side of good enough, if nothing more. I hope this book will help you relax and remember that you don't have to do everything for your children.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed the reading. I thought I'd make a comment real quick before we tune off the last point about you don't have to do everything for your kids. To be honest, I was giving the book launch like first launch lecture a couple weeks ago and I said some of the best developmental experiences your children will have is when you're not around. Your kid needs to be away from you so they can explore and grow and connect with their friends and figure out some life on their own with their companions Not that you don't matter, though, however, and you'll have some great times with your kids, as I always have as well. So if you're interested in the book, you can go to our website, legitparentingcom, or go to Amazon and look up Shane Free Parenting by Craig Nippenberg and Nippenberg is with a K. That's always a hard one. I hope you enjoyed this special edition. We'll be back again in the near future, thank you.