Professor, researcher, and author John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D., teams up with parenting, child, and intimate relationship expert Sara Polanchek, Ed.D., to bring you the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast. Children do not come with instruction manuals, and this bi-weekly podcast tackles some of the biggest issues parents face, with humor and wit. Brought to you by The Charles Engelhard Foundation, and the National Parenting Education Network, this podcast pairs cutting edge research and proven technique, to help make you a practically perfect parent.
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Inspiring Cooperation in Your Children
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In this fantastic new episode of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, John tries to inspire Sara to be more cooperative. You can guess how well that works. As the usual Sara-John dynamics fly, you’ll learn about three situations that tend to elicit children’s defiance, how ... Read More
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Teen Love
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
When John mentions the title of this episode of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, Sara emits the sophisticated professional response of “Eewww gross.” Don’t worry. Things get better from there, because you get to hear a wide range of strategies for teaching children about healthy ... Read More
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Helping Children Deal with Fear and Anxiety
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
John begins this episode feeling nervous, mostly because he has unrealistic expectations about wishing to solve everyone’s anxiety problems with one podcast episode. Fortunately, because Sara is a genius, she immediately helps John feel better about his unrealistic expectations . . . although Sara also ... Read More
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Why Kids Lie and What to Do About It
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
When it comes to boastful lying, there’s no better example than Penelope, one of Kristen Wiig’s characters on SNL. Penelope is incessantly popping up here and there, basically lying her ass off. The purpose of Penelope’s lies appear relatively straightforward. She seems to be insecure ... Read More
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Sibling Rivalry
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Two brothers, ages 7 and 9, were arguing over an imaginary cookie. In a dramatic turn of events, the older brother brought the invisible cookie to his lips, and took an imaginary bite. Immediately, the younger brother fell to his knees, crying and wailing over ... Read More
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The Secret...
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, this podcast was thought to be lost forever. Then, somehow the universe returned it to us. As a lost, but freshly rediscovered relic, it includes massive secrets that are about to be unleashed on society. The good news is that ... Read More
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The Secret Self-Regulation Cure (Seriously, this time)
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
For this Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast you should just let yourself relax, let go of all expectations, and tune in. You can even practice being bored, because one part of the secret to self-regulation is that it’s all about embracing your boringness (Spoiler alert, Sara ... Read More
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The Secret Self Regulation Cure
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In today’s episode, Dr. Sara begins by imagining what it might be like if children, teachers, coworkers, parents, and even world leaders, were able to regulate their emotions. John is so inspired he starts to sing a song from the Beatles, "Imagine all the people ... Read More
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Behavior Modification: To Use or Not to Use-That is the Question
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Parenting is difficult. Parenting is also wonderful. As parents, most days we’re reminded of parenting challenges and joys. In today’s episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John talk (and John dons his professorial persona and talks too much). Sara and John they talk about adding the ... Read More
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On the Road with the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast: Q and A with Students from the University of Montana
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
One day, Sara woke up tired; she was tired of always having to go to a studio to record the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast episodes. She emailed John and Mike (the sound guy) and suggested we take the show on the road. So we did. ... Read More
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Parenting in the Age of Trump... and Dealing with Other Challenging Role Models
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Here’s a quick parenting quiz. Question: “How do you spell opportunity?” Answer: “T-R-U-M-P” Regardless of your politics, most of us American parents agree, there’s more profane and disgusting information leaking out of the media and into our children’s brains than ever before in the history ... Read More
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Why Parents Spank Their Children and Why They Should Stop
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
What do you feel when your lovely child misbehaves and then the misbehavior continues or repeats? What happens when you feel terribly angry and just want to make your child’s behavior stop? What happens if you spank your child . . . and then . ... Read More
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How to Listen so Parents will Talk, and Talk so Parents will Listen
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
It would be nice to know everything. And if you have children, it would be nice to know about all the wild parenting adventures awaiting you. But you don’t know. You don’t know because there’s no special instruction manual that comes along with the birth ... Read More
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Technology as a Barrier and Bridge to Healthy Family Relationships
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
This OPENING episode of Season 2 of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast is positively packed with information and tantalizing tips. TECHNOLOGY and SCREEN TIME is a huge issue for many parents. In this captivating episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John are talking back to technology; ... Read More
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Why Youth Sports Makes Parents Crazy
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In this—the final episode of Season One—Dr. Sara and Dr. John talk about how youth sports can be the royal road to emotional problems for parents. Highlights include: (a) a discussion of how easy and natural it is for parents to get overemotional about their ... Read More
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Youth Sports: Opportunities, Benefits, & Advice for Parents
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In this action-packed episode, Dr. Sara gathers important insights about youth sports from a parent and two young athletes. Then, she treats Dr. John with contempt (not really) because he doesn’t understand the term “Capitalization” (that’s true), and later she has to put John in ... Read More
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How Parents Can Help Children Deal with Grief
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In our last podcast Dr. Sara and Dr. John, teamed up with Dr. Tina Barrett from Tamarack Grief Resource Center as we answered some questions about how to talk about death. This week, we go from talking to doing, as we invite Dr. Tina back, ... Read More
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Talking with Children about Life & Death
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In keeping with our “Big Talks” theme, this episode focuses on how parents can face and manage conversations about death with their children. Beginning with memories from their childhoods and concluding with money tips and resources, Dr. Sara and Dr. John ramble from practical tips ... Read More
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Teens & Depression
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In this episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John take on the serious topic of teenage depression. There are no laughs or giggles, but you’ll get to hear Sara ask John a rapid-fire series of many questions about teen depression, which is sort of funny. Her ... Read More
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When Teens Talk Back
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In this episode, Dr. Sara decides to consult with Dr. John about her hypothetical “friend’s” teenage and pre-teen boys, who coincidently, happen to be the same ages as Sara’s own children. Other than being a disastrously bad consultant, John ends up complaining about how disrespectful ... Read More
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Let's Do The Sex Talk Again
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Would you rather have your child learn about sex from Fergus, the unsupervised kid down the street . . . or from internet pornography . . . or from YOU? We hope you can see that the answer to that question is obvious. In this ... Read More
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Post-Partum Depression – It’s Harder than You Think
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
The American expectation is that pregnant women and new moms will be happy and fulfilled. But the reality is that approximately 20% of pregnant women are diagnosed with depression during pregnancy. So what happens when pregnancy and childbirth bring along the storm clouds of depression? ... Read More
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Divorce and Shared Parenting
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Getting a divorce isn’t part of the fairy tale family story. No one who gets romantically connected and has children plans on getting divorced. In this PPPP episode, Dr. John and Dr. Sara discuss the divorced children’s bill of rights. In the process, they provide ... Read More
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Love, Sex, Babies, and Happiness
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
In this Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, Dr. Sara starts off by spoiling the romantic hopes and dreams of everyone—including Dr. John. Instead of embracing fairy tale relationship patterns that include love, sex, babies, and happiness, Sara offers a rather depressing list of reasons why having ... Read More
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The Challenges of Step-Parenting
John Sommers-Flanagan and Sara Polanchek
Step-parenting is like walking a tightrope. You don’t want to be in the biological parent’s shadow, but, at the same time, you know if you try taking over as mother or father, you’re rocking a family boat that’s already unstable. Also, you want to be ... Read More