Part of my reason for starting the website, and later, this podcast, was because I didn’t see families like my own — an usually amicable post-divorce family with co-parents living next door for years — reflected in mainstream media. When she was growing up, my guest for this episode, Paulina Lagudi, had a similar experience comparing her own family to the ones she saw on TV and in movies. Well, today she’s able to do something about that. Paulina is a filmmaker who has created a movie called “Mail Order Monster” or “M.O.M.” for short. The film tackles grief, blended family and step-parenting in a way that puts a modern and perfectly imperfect family in a positive light.
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At dining room tables and homework desks all over the place, math can be the source of a lot of drama and frustration. Approaches to math curriculum have shifted since we were in school, complicating our efforts to help our kids when they get stuck. The new math? The new new math? I’m not sure which we’re on now, but it does seem as though kids are may be missing some of the basic building blocks that help them tackle some of the trickier concepts and equations. To help us sort this all out, I’m delighted to welcome my guest Vanessa Vakharia back to the show today. Vanessa is the founder of a unique tutoring facility called The Math Guru here in Toronto. She’s a teacher with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Masters in Mathematics Education, and she’s a leading expert on engaging kids with STEM topics. She’s also now the author of a wonderful new math workbook for kids Math Hacks: Cool Tips + Less Stress = Better Marks.
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There are few among us who are aren’t plagued by a feeling — at least some of the time — that the pace of life is a little out of hand. You probably experience this to some degree whether you’re raising kids or not. But if you’re parenting you’re doing so during a period where raising kids is done in a more time-intensive way than ever before. Between 1975 and today, mothers have nearly tripled the quality time they spend with their kids (while dads have more than doubled theirs). And this is happening at a time when — more than ever before — both parents engage in paid work. My guest for this episode has made major shifts in her life to address the harried nature of life with her husband and two kids. Brooke McAlary is an Australian writer and the woman behind the popular Slow Your Home blog. Between her blog and her great podcast The Slow Home Podcast, McAlary has become a leader in the slow living movement. She’s the author of two books, the latest of which is called SLOW: Simple Living for a Frantic World.
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It’s said that something like one in five people will be affected by some level of mental illness at at least one point in their lifetime. There have been times when I’ve wondered if that figure might not be a little low. In many cases, family history plays a part, and that was certainly the case in the family of my guest for today’s episode, Lindsay Wong. Lindsay is a writer with a distinguished academic career including an MFA in literary non-fiction from Columbia University. But as you’ll learn in our discussion, the road that got her there was am extremely bumpy one, complicated by her elder’s unorthodox approach to the mental illness that ran in their family, and their deep distrust of Western medicine. Lindsay writes about this in an at once page-turning and darkly comedic new memoir called The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons and My Crazy Chinese Family, which is out this month.
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For a lot of us, there are some tricky dynamics around schoolwork, with parents often in an unfortunate role of homework police. Many of us can relate to frustration that our kids are capable of much more if they’d only get organized and apply themselves a little. My guest for this is episode has an insider’s track on what makes the difference between kids who do well in schools and others who don’t manage to achieve to their full potential. (Hint: It’s not that the kids with great grades are geniuses; they’ve just mastered some habits that get results.) Ryan Thompson is an educator and entrepreneur with an expertise in science and math. He’s been a high school physics and math teacher 15 years, and has in-depth knowledge of the challenges teens face in order to become academically successful. He runs a virtual program for teens and their parents on how to develop the study skills needed to do well in school.
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