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The "You're Doing it Right" podcast aims to combine research and everyday realities, using empathy and grounded expertise to debunk parenting myths and provide practical, evidence-based tools that can work for busy families. Through this study, we are recruiting a group of Canadian parents and caregivers of children aged 2-10, to provide feedback on the podcast and complete questionnaires on their family wellbeing. This study's first aim is to assess how "You're Doing it Right" impacts family wellness and parenting confidence, based on results from pre- and post- podcast-series questionnaires. The study's second aim is to determine the acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness, and reach of "You're Doing It Right" and its related social media accounts, through post-episode surveys and social media engagement.
Welcome to You're Doing It Right, the parenting podcast where science meets real life. Hosted by two psychologists, this is a space for honest conversations about the joys, challenges and beautifully messy reality of raising kids today.
Across this 12-part series, we explore the question parents carry every day, from sleep and behaviour to screen time, emotional regulation, family wellness, mental health, and navigating life in its busiest seasons. Each episode blends expert insight, real-life experience, and research-backed strategies designed to meet parents where they are. At the heart of this podcast is a simple premise. Parenting was never meant to be done alone.
The is this, to give you trusted evidence, practical tools and a compassionate perspective so you can feel more confident, more connected and a little less overwhelmed. So take a breath, settle in and join us as we learn, laugh, reflect and remind ourselves that even in the hardest moments, in more ways than you realize, you're doing it right.
How was Jared getting kids out the door this morning? Søren was crying a lot. He was crying a lot. I don't know. He doesn't want anybody to not be holding him right now. And I stayed up too late reading that book and then the kids got up early. That's great. Our next podcast. Leo crawled into our bed last night soaking wet with pee. So nice.
Because then like everything needs to be washed? Yeah, I know, like in the middle of the night, like making difficult choices. You're like, do I lay a towel down and put you on it? Like, what are we gonna do here?
I'm sorry that happened. Yeah, thanks. It's okay. It was just like a nice thing to wake up to remember like, we have now eight loads of laundry to do before 8pm tonight. That will go well. I'm sure you'll get it all done. Yeah, She has to like towels and like hockey blankets. It's fine. And the comforters never dry. Anyways. Do remember when you used to like wash your delegates separately? That hasn't happened in a long time. No, I'm always like pleasantly surprised when my whites aren't pink.
cool, this is still a white-ish shirt. And you think I don't want ruined? just shove in the bottom of the dry cleaning bag that Joshua takes in once a month? Take this away. Alright, trust yourself as a parent.
Welcome to You're Doing It Right, the parenting podcast that's here to remind you that even when you might feel like a terrible parent, you're probably doing a wonderful job. I'm Dr. Leslie Roos, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Manitoba. My work focuses on parent mental health and strengthening family relationships, starting as early as pregnancy. I spend my days researching what helps families thrive. And I'm also a mom of three wonderful, chaotic, very busy kids, so I'm right there in it with you.
I'm Dr. Leanne Tomfer-Madsen. I'm a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. I study parent mental health, sleep, and early family well-being, and I lead the Healthy Families Lab, where we explore how stress and early experiences shape both parents and kids and ways to intervene to improve mental health. I'm also married and parenting two wonderful kids, so I'm right here managing all of this with you.
And I have to say that Leslie is somebody that I have loved working with for a really long time now. She's an associate professor in psychology and pediatrics, an investigator at the Children's Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, and a former junior fellow at the Harvard Center for the Developing Child. She's the CIHR Chair in Implementation Science and Human Development, and somehow managed to make all that work feel grounded and real for families and for her friends. The end is also incredible. Thank you for that very kind, generous intro.
She is a professor at University of British Columbia and a CAHR Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Equity. I have always viewed Leanne as a mentor and an inspiration and I'm so lucky to call her a close friend. And her work has really shaped how we understand parent wellbeing, especially in those early years. She also brings so much compassion to everything she does. When I met Leanne and people would talk to me about self-compassion, I would get all cringy. It's like a bit of an ick for me.
that's not something that was like super strong in my personal socialization, but she would describe putting her hand on her chest, talking about being compassionate. And over the years, I've come to really see things through Leanne's eyes and it is a wonderful place to be looking from. So, so grateful to be doing this work with her and to have someone as compassionate as she is in my life. Between the two of us, we have spent many years in research, clinical work and working right alongside families, trying to answer one big question.
How do we actually make this parenting thing, managing all of these relationships that we're in feel doable and enjoyable? So in this podcast, we're taking all that research and we're trying to turn it into practical, usable strategies that you can try out in your real everyday life. No perfection, no judgment.
just real life and expert advice for people who understand what's going on and want you to feel satisfied, confident with exactly who you are. Because you don't have to get everything right to be a great parent. You just have to feel a little more supported along the way. This is You're Doing It Right. We are so glad that you're here today. This podcast has honestly been something that we've been talking about doing for probably five years. We met early in the pandemic.
and started talking about how all of us and all the parents that we knew were locked up in their houses. And we started talking about how we wanted to get real evidence-based information out to parents to really try and help support them through that time. And that has just continued on until now. We're still really interested in supporting parents and helping them get their hands on advice that they can use. Part of this started coming up in our conversations because more than 97 % of parents are looking for parenting advice.
So much of that content is not great quality. Most folks who are in the influencer space or even just sharing content online are doing so with financial motives. Dangerous behavior in kids is being tolerated in the name of psychology. Let me know in the comments and follow for the truth parents and professionals need to hear. With Father's Day rapidly approaching here are some more excerpts from my book.
One the most stressful things that parents and teachers try to cope with is behaviour that challenges. So I've put more details below about the webinar. It would be great to see you there. It's framed to be coming from someone who's an expert or who knows or who works in this area, but it's sort of a misrepresentation of what the science actually says because it's overconfident and the people who are trying to sell something to you
only sell that by making you feel like you're deficient. Like you should be ashamed of how you're parenting, like it's not going to go well for your kids. If you're struggling, that's a problem and it means you should be buying into what they're selling. And that's just not really accurate. In reality, most parents, really every single parent I know struggles because parenting is really hard and it should be hard.
And I knew when we had some of these questions, Leanne, like you talked to me about some questions that came up for you or for your friends and like how I would frame that. Do you remember some of those early chats? Yeah, the one that's coming to mind that still like gets under my skin is I had a friend who was using sticker charts really, really successfully. And her kiddo was thriving with them and really enjoying earning things. And then they went and saw a new therapist. They were talking about using the sticker chart and the therapist said, ⁓ I just have to stop you there.
you're really going to harm your child with that. And so they stopped using it and their kids stopped being able to earn these things that they really loved. And I remember bringing that to you and really having questions like, why would the therapist say that? And remember what you said? Yeah, for sure. So things like sticker charts come up a lot as something people have questions about. Because there could be this narrative that if you use a sticker chart, your child's going to need a Smartie every time they tie their shoes for the rest of their life or, you know, make their bed or do anything that's like basic self care.
Don't get me wrong, I am a lover of sticker charts. I think that they are a great temporary motivator, but they are not a long-term solution. But that's actually really in conflict with what we know about brain science and how relationships work, in that often kids, along with adults, need a little bit of motivation to build those skills. And then they become like muscle memory and easier to do over time. So they can be a really powerful skill. And a lot of popular...
media and social media has this approach now where they want to tell you that you're doing it wrong. They want to say, maybe you've heard this or maybe you're trying this, but I'm going to scare you and tell you how you're sort of messing up your kids. And the reality is that there's lots of great ways to do this. I absolutely hate as a psychologist and human and friend, when someone feels like they can't use a tool that could be useful to them.
because it's misaligned with some abstract theory that's not practical. The cultural variability in parenting is amazing and incredible all around the world. There's lots of ways to raise wonderful, adjusted, quirky kids. You should feel empowered to play with what's working for your family and trial and error. But yeah, I think that matters a lot. What do you think about when you think about trial and error parenting strategies or things that come up?
I think my whole life is trial and error parenting strategies. Every new phase requires a different strategy and lots of positive reinforcement and lots of me and my partner trying to figure out what we're aiming for with our kids behavior and then trying to get them on board while working really flexibly through that. Another thing that came up, I know for us was like a very popular parenting influencer saying that they didn't believe you should praise your child. Oh no. Oh my God.
doesn't really change the way we feel about ourselves. It makes perfect sense that we would start to examine whether it's actually a great tool to use in our parenting. And I remember seeing it online and thinking that, you know, people don't know us, but whenever I do something that's really hard, you send me a big text message full of gold stars. It's very, very motivating for me.
And the idea that I would do everything because it's intrinsically motivating just doesn't resonate for me. I don't do things because I just want to all the time. I go to work because I really enjoy my work, but I also really enjoy getting paid. And so the idea that your kids would just do everything with no reinforcement didn't make a lot of sense. But then I think millions of people probably saw that post. And then millions of people are confused. Am I allowed to tell my kid that I...
really love that they just loaded the dishwasher without me asking or is that somehow robbing them of their intrinsic motivation to do things? That's so common and I think we get a lot of questions about stuff like that. You know, I saw this or I heard this like, is that true? What do you think? The research on that is that specific praise. So you don't just say like, great job, Leanne. You would say great job unloading that dishwasher so carefully and gently and looking to put the dishes away without
even being asked. That specific praise can help build skills and kids' confidence in very specific settings a little bit more than general praise, but no part of the research says parents who don't praise their kids have better adjusted kids. It's like, withhold that warmth, that love that you have for your kids. I'm starting think about that. It's like, you want to throw in specific praise, that's great. It's helpful for kids to know what they're doing right.
But if you don't have it in you, or you're just like, hey, good job, like thumbs up, rocking what you're doing, but like all of those positive interactions matter so much and they feel so good. It's like those little sparkly dopamine hits. And I think it's so harmful too, to just like rob parents of that confidence in what they're doing or that wisdom and sort of how they're parenting. Like trying to optimize parenting sometimes can really take away from the joy of.
Yeah, I love my kids. I love my partner. I love my friends. I want to be able to reflect back to them the things that I see that they're doing well. I think as parents, like we see this so much in ourselves and in our everyday work, that there's parents who care so deeply and they're trying hard and they still feel unsure. So part of what we want to do here is just name that to say this is understandable and you're not alone in this. Sometimes you might be at a stage with your kids where things are really hard.
and you think maybe I am doing it wrong and that's really natural. Can you think about any times when you were like doing it wrong as a parent or something came up where you're like, I sure wish I hadn't tried that out? Yes, I think one of the things that I have had to shift like so much over the years is how I manage sleep. And I live with somebody who has different cultural influences than I do, like parenting with somebody who is really happy co-sleeping and
doesn't want her kids to feel scared at night. And literally my husband slept on the floor for like months when my daughter was having night terrors. And I grew up in a culture where it was probably more normal to just like sleep alone and have your kids in the bedroom. Probably when I get in touch with my own internal values, it's not what I want. I want them to feel comfortable coming to me and having good nighttime cuddle-ees. It's not as great for my sleep, but it's better for our relationship. And I've had to be really flexible about that along the way.
How about you? you any of those stories? Yeah, mean, something that we do that's not great, but I think is really common is when the kids are having a hard time or they're not following directions, we can go to trying to remove screen time. Like, we were going to have a time to watch play a video game or watch movie tonight. Like, we're not doing that anymore. We're just going to have an early bedtime. And that's not as linked to a natural consequence. It's not great because like I would sure love that half hour for them to play a video game to do something.
that is on my list. But sometimes it comes up because we're tired and I can't think of an automatic natural consequence for hitting your brother or for throwing food or something like that. It's one of those things where it's like, ⁓ I didn't really mean to do that. I'll try to update that in the future. But it's really natural and it's okay. It's like no video games, no TV, nothing for a month. It's not super long. It's not like perfect parenting, but we know we're not trying for perfect.
It's just, that was the best for what I could do in the moment. And I want people to be able to like have those moments throughout the day when they're not doing their best or they reflect and like, maybe that wasn't what I want to do with that situation in the future, but then be able to leave it and move on. Right? Like we don't want people to be dwelling on all those crappy moments at the end of the day versus feeling like you could like repair, you can discuss and move on with your life.
that feels so much better to me. Like that's what I want for my friends and clients and people that I care about. that like not perfection, but just sort of moving towards your values as a parent again and again. You know, one thing that I value so much about my friendship with you and friendships with other people as well is the ability to share when things are feeling really hard and like when things...
happened that you feel ashamed about or like, that was awful. I know I recently shared with you that we lost my four year old on a vacation for 15 minutes. It was very, very stressful. That's just awful. That feels so much worse when I don't feel like there's someone that I can can share it with. And so I want to talk just a little bit about this sort of sentiment that parenting is something that like you do alone or it's a reflection of who you are as a person. We've talked about this a little bit, but what's your take on that?
think people feel alone in so many aspects of their life right now. And I think we're living in a culture that is trying to reclaim some of the connection that we've lost. But there's been a real focus on hyper-independence in so many areas. And now I think there's a whole bunch of people that are like, OK, I've lost this community that used to be here. And now we've got to figure out how to create a new community. Because being alone and parenting, that sucks.
that is too much pressure. I remember when my daughter was born, I feel like I have to my husband's permission to go to the bathroom or go to the grocery store. What the hell? I have to schedule in going to a yoga class? That's so impossible if you don't have support. There's so many ways that you can search for support and we'll talk about that a little bit in one of the episodes with Dr. Leah Fontaine and Sandra Hunter around Indigenous ways of knowing and community wellness.
But I just think that searching that you mentioned for connection and community is something that is really lost for so many parents and families right now. When I think about family wellness, I think about the interconnectedness. We are all connected in some way. And so when we lift one person up, we lift others as well. And so if we can support the whole family, then we are doing even more.
I think that children thrive most when they have multiple different people in their lives who they can go to for that support or environment where they can really thrive. So we are getting a little bit into what we're going to talk about on the podcast. So we already brought up sleep, which is such a big topic. And in episode four, we're going to look at the research and we're going to look at the work of our colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Keys, who studies infant sleep and parent well-being. think it's really important to always go back to what families
want for themselves because there's so much chatter and so many opinions about what you should do for sleep. I did a study and we called it information overwhelm to try to pick out like what really is important to them and what's sustainable to them because there's many ways of doing things and you know don't think that there's one perfect way.
Sleep is so stressful, but waking up at night is totally normal. know people might know that infants waking up at night is normal, but it's also normal for your four-year-old or your nine-year-old or your 13-year-old to wake up at night. Trying to be able to understand what can I expect or if I'm struggling, what should I look for are all really key parts of building that parent and confidence and support that you have for yourself and your kid. It's not that you're feeling at something.
We're going to dive into some of the evidence that shows that sleep develops over time, that there's a wide range of what's normal, and that it's shaped by your child's temperament, your own temperament, development, and the cultural context in which you're living. It's not just your parenting choices. another area that comes up a lot is discipline. There's lots of strong messaging, so much strong messaging about what you should or shouldn't do. And I think discipline is particularly tricky.
because when people are at the step of disciplining their kids, it's when they feel like they've often run out of options. Kids aren't listening and you weren't able to control the situation the way that you wanted. So it's easy to feel and to be reactive and it's also easy then to feel badly about what happened. We'll talk about this with Dr. Brendan Andrade talking about understanding kids' behaviours and the emotions that might be under them. Kids seeing their parents as people.
is actually a good thing. People make mistakes and sometimes people lose their cool. And it's okay to take ownership of that and try and repair that situation. It leads down to conversation of what could be different. And then we'll also talk about positive discipline with Dr. Ashley Stewart-Tufescu, who focuses on parenting without punishment, even in high stress environments, knowing what some of the options are for you to take as a parent.
And also, you know, not what some of the options are, you probably know what the options are, but how do you repair when things don't go the way you want them to and like why that's so normal? One of the wonderful things we're trying to do with our research and our work is to kind of reclaim what discipline actually means. And when you define it, it's actually about learning, knowledge and understanding.
That's what discipline is all about. It's not just like letting our kids run amok and do whatever they want. In fact, it's the opposite. Sometimes in the moment, we're going to say something that sounds crazy, right? You're going to feel like, you don't stop that right now, I'm going to take your iPad and throw it in the river. I'm not going to do that, obviously. But realizing that sometimes those things come out and we can catch ourselves in the moment or we can catch ourselves afterwards and look at how we want to do it differently.
and that that's okay, that figuring out that we've made those mistakes and we can apologize for them and then we really hope that some of the people that you hear on our show are gonna give you ideas so that you can pre-plan what you're gonna do next time your kid, I don't know, throws their mac and cheese on the floor in front of you or I've got a kid who's hitting right now so who runs up and hits you when they're frustrated. Sure. I have a kid right now who like playfully comes and punches you.
And it's so funny, but he's also really strong. So it's like, hey, bud, like that doesn't feel good. You are punching me. So yeah, we're working on that. Always something new to work on. And we know that the research shows that when kids are struggling, these kinds of behaviors that they're engaging in, they're often not about defiance, right? They're about regulation. And so when we rely only on punishment, we might stop the behavior in the moment or else we don't, we escalate it.
But we don't necessarily teach the skills that are underneath, whereas approaches that are grounded in connecting and co-regulating and clear boundaries, those can support longer term development. We'll try to talk about both how to think about pre-teaching those in advance, trying to set yourself up for success. I'm personally really big on lowering expectations for yourself and your children. A personal mantra, lower your expectations for your husband, for your wife.
But we'll also talk about what to do after. And so I think a lot of learning and change that we see in ourselves and growth as parents and kids actually comes from doing it wrong and then reflecting that's not really how I wanted it to go. One of the things I heard my husband say once to my daughter after they'd had a fight, which I just respected so much. he said, it doesn't matter if we had a fight, I'm always going to come back for you. We're always going to repair.
And I think just naming that for your kids is sometimes really powerful. It's so interesting to sort of reflect on how the ways that we were socialized as adults and like everyone was socialized differently. Everyone has good parts and parts that are tougher for them impacts things. I know for me personally, one of my biggest challenges has been that I never fought with my parents and I basically never heard them raise their voices to each other or to me or to anyone else. I was a super
compliant, somewhat anxious kid and you know, they were doing their thing. They were older, they were pretty calm about things. And that has made me really intolerant to my husband's anger or frustration, to my kids being chaotic. I didn't have any siblings growing up. She was like, what is this? Calm down. Like why are you doing this? I just like to sit and read my book or we could paint together. And we're all coming into this with our own kind of blind spots and things that we want to work on.
And so we're going to be diving deeper into all of it. I think that's so important because we are experts in family mental health, parenting, all those good things. And at the same time, if there's something that's really tricky for me, I'm going to do my best, but then I'm also going to go talk to a friend of mine who's actually a total expert in this that does research that that's their focus. And so that's one of the things we really want to bring to this podcast is it's not like one person's opinion.
It's bringing in experts who are from all different universities, all different clinical backgrounds, but can share focused information on these topics that really matter. Sometimes the busyness of life, can be tough to like take a minute and appreciate all the things that you're doing to go to that barbecue, organize that small event or something that's going to be meaningful to your kids, whether that's setting up a tent in the living room.
or doing something else that's gonna be important for your family to feel really connected and support that long-term bond over time. And I'm really excited to talk to all of these guests and really hear from them. What does the research actually say? What do we know, but also what do we not know? So maybe we know that some things are particularly helpful, but we might not actually know that other approaches are harmful. And so trying to give people a little bit more space and permission to tune in to their...
inner wisdom, inner knowledge, listen to what feels good as a parent and what works for your family and make that work for you as well through understanding more about what the experts actually think about these topics, not just, you know, what are official guidelines, what's an influencer saying, what do people have to say about this topic, who are the leading experts in the field? My parenting philosophy is that parenting is often really hard because it should be hard.
And that's because it's something that really matters to us. For things that we care about that are important to us, we're going to think about that. We're going to want to do it right. We're going to want to, you know, not mess this up. And so it can be easy to get stuck there as a parent and sort of focusing on what's hard or what's not feeling good. I want to help parents feel empowered, hanging on to those moments of joy a little bit more and like being present to enjoy the super special time of life. I just want parents to feel a little bit more ease because I think that
bringing in that ease into your life makes everybody feel more comfortable. care so much about their kids. I want to help parents feel more empowered to let go of the small stuff and have confidence in themselves to move forward in what feels like a positive direction. You're coming into a really friendly space with people who care about you and who are going to give you actual good advice. You can come here, you're going to have a good hang with us.
We're gonna be supportive and positive about your parenting and you're gonna come away knowing something that we believe is true, that we believe is coming to you from an expert who you can trust. We want parents to realize that even though they're facing all these decisions, that they're doing so many things right. And particularly, I think parents who are really asking these questions and digging into it are the ones who are the most focused on trying to get it right. So, so much of parenting, believe it or not, is instinctual.
And the fact that you care enough to try to make things better should give you some hope. We want to hear from you, your questions, your experiences, because this is meant to be a conversation. So if you're listening to this and you're recognizing yourself in any of these moments, just know you're not alone. think another important thing to take home is like we all have good days, we all have bad days. We want you to feel connected, like you have somewhere to go, people to talk to in those hard days and moments. You know, kids don't come with a manual. And even if there was one, like it wouldn't apply to you or to your kid.
probably. So it's really that figuring out how do you make things personal? How do you figure out what your values are and what works for you? We really want to step in to this space of science communication and social media and be a counterweight to some of the more predatory influences that are out there. tell us when the stuff that you hear on the podcast doesn't work.
We're really interested in your unique family. There's so many kids bringing their own unique perspectives to the work. And so we also want to hear from you if you're like, that didn't work in our family. Let us know. Leanne and I and all the experts we bring on, we don't have Outterior Motives. This is funded by the Canadian government. This is not for profit. We want people to be able to access key resources that are coming from experts in the topic. And so in addition to the podcast content, every expert that we bring on will also be providing
some key information about additional readings, other resources that parents might want to access on these really common, challenging topics. And we have so much access as clinical psychologists and as academics in this space. When we have a question that we want answered, we are often able to just text somebody who is a really legitimate expert in that space and get some advice. Next time on You're Doing It Right, we'll be talking about understanding children's aggression and opposition.
and what those behaviors might be communicating, the emotions underneath, and how we can respond in ways that build connection. I think this is a really important topic as sort of a foundation for supportive parenting and also supportive parenting, like supportive self-care as well, because it's really tough when your kids are exhibiting big behaviors and you're not sure what to do. We're so glad you're here. This is You're Doing It Right.
Listen to episodes from You're Doing It Right wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube, and visit yourdoingitrightpodcast.ca. Connect, follow, and reach out to You're Doing It Right with your questions or comments on Instagram at Your Doing It Right Podcast. Another Everything Podcast production. Visit everythingpodcast.com, a division of Patterson Media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.