Positive Parenting for Military Families | Mr. Dad Armin Brott

Dawn Dais, The Sh!t No One Tells You About Toddlers.

Topic: A guide to surviving the toddler years

Issues: Restaurants are battle zones: don’t even bother trying to feed a toddler; potty training; taking the fun out of vacations; when you’re not the favorite parent.



Ann Gadzikowski, author of Creating a Beautiful Mess.

Topic: Essential play experiences for a joyous childhood.

Issues: Playing with blocks; turn-taking games; pretend and make believe; the joys of messes; finding and collecting; and more.

Frederick Travis and Robert Keith Wallace, coauthors of Dharma Parenting.

Topic: Understand your child’s brilliant brain for greater happiness, health, success, and fulfillment.

Issues: Different brain/body types and where they come from; how understanding your child’s brain/body type will help you better connect; how each type responds to food and other inputs; routines to improve family dynamics.



Katherine Ozment, author of Grace without God.

Topic: The search for meaning, purpose, and belonging in a secular age.

Issues: Percentage of adults who don’t identify with any organized religion is growing; are they skipping out on more than tired rituals and ancient folklore? How do non-religious people fill the need for community, more guidance, and meaning without religion?

Margie Ulbrick, author of Mindful Relationships.

Topic: Creating genuine connections with ourselves and others.

Issues: What is mindfulness? How to meditate; the science of mindful relationships; applying mindfulness techniques to your relationships with your spouse, family, children, and coworkers.



Paul Tough, author of Helping Children Succeed.

Topic: What works to help low income kids and why.

Issues: What does growing up in poverty do to children’s mental and physical health and development? How does adversity at home affect their success in the classroom? What practical steps can parents, teachers, and policymakers take to improve their chances for a positive future.

Jeffery Leving, author of Fathers’ Rights.

Topic: Hard-hitting and fair advice for every father involved in a custody dispute.

Issues: How to stay in control of your emotions; ways to protect your relationship with your children; special issues facing military fathers; the importance of finding an effective and empathetic attorney; potential challenges of a divorce from a foreign national.



Michele Borba, author of Unselfie,

Topic: Why empathetic kids succeed in our all-about-me world.

Issues: The hidden advantage of empathy and why it matters for children; how to develop empathy; what empathetic kids do that non-empathetic kids don’t; developing moral courage; becoming an empathetic leader

Jess Shatkin, author of Born to Be Wild.

Topic: Why teens take risks and how we can help keep them safe.

Issues: What adolescents think about risk; what you need to know about the adolescent brain; why adolescence is crucial to evolution; the truth about peer pressure; what parents, schools, and society can do about risk taking.



Ira Chasnoff, author of The Mystery of Risk.

Topic: Drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, and the vulnerable child.

Issues: An overview of biological and environmental risks to newborns; risks to children exposed to marijuana, alcohol, and harder drugs in utero; behavior, memory, and other problems in drug-/alcohol-exposed children; diagnosing and treating drug-/alcohol-exposed children.

David Lancy, author of Raising Children.

Topic: Surprising insights from other cultures.

Issues: Culture and infancy; questions about infant attachment; children playing and learning; protection vs. suppression; going to school; consequence of raising “unique individuals”; major differences between the US and other cultures.



Catherine Pearlman, author of Ignore It!

Topic: How selectively looking the other way can decrease behavior problems and increase parenting satisfaction.

Issues: What behaviors are appropriate to ignore and what to do when ignoring isn’t an option; use ignoring to eliminate problem behavior in just a few days; creating a reward system that actually works; use time-outs effectively so they don’t become a battle of wills; what to do when mom and dad aren’t on the same page.