Sustainable Parenting | Positive Discipline for Raising Resilient Kids
For cycle-breaking parents who still face battles at bedtime and beyond, Sustainable Parenting teaches tools that actually change behavior when gentle parenting doesn't work.
If your 6-year-old ignores you, your toddler screams over a broken banana, and bedtime still ends in tears—it’s not you, it’s the gentle parenting advice that’s failing you.
Research shows 1 in 3 parents who try gentle parenting still end the day begging kids to listen and blaming themselves when the scripts don’t stop the tantrums. So unlike other podcasts that only tell you to “stay calm” or “validate feelings” while your toddler is throwing dinosaurs at your head, here you’ll get strategies to set limits kids respect without crushing their spirit so they grow into kind, confident humans, and you finally feel like the calm, in-control parent you want to be.
I’m Flora McCormick—a counselor, parenting coach, and mom of two. After 20 years helping families worldwide, I’ve helped thousands of parents raise confident kids while practicing parenting without yelling or shame. Parenting will always have hard moments, but raising respectful, emotionally healthy kids doesn’t have to be a constant battle.
Follow Sustainable Parenting and start listening today.
Popular Topics Include: Bedtime battles, Positive discipline, Gentle discipline, Gentle Parenting, Parenting differences, Discipline without yelling, Positive parenting strategies, Raising confident kids
Sustainable Parenting | Positive Discipline for Raising Resilient Kids
Do This 1 Step, to Raise Kind Kids in an Unkind World
Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to raise kind kids in an unkind world?
Between constant headlines, cultural tension, and everyday parenting struggles, many parents are asking the same question: How do I raise compassionate, resilient kids who will make the world a better place?
In this episode of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, I share my number one tip for raising kind, caring humans—especially during uncertain and stressful times.
We start by naming the reality many families are living in right now: fear, frustration, and emotional overload.
We then walk through a powerful Positive Discipline exercise that helps reframe everyday parenting challenges like whining, talking back, sibling fights, tantrums, and power struggles into moments we actually look forward to. What?!!!
By the time you finish this episode, you'll have a FRESH perspective on the most challenging moments you face.
This episode is for parents who want:
- positive parenting strategies that actually work
- calm parenting tips that reduce power struggles
- gentle discipline without permissiveness
- tools for raising kind, confident, and resilient kids
- a kind-and-firm approach that feels sustainable
If you’re tired of reacting, yelling, or feeling defeated—and you want to parent with more clarity, confidence, and purpose—this episode will help you zoom out, refocus on the long game, and feel more hopeful about the humans you’re raising.
✨Want more?
✨NEW✨ pdfs and short video lessons on Respect, Bedtimes, Power Struggles and More: ON ETSY!
✨ Get my 3 KEYS to Calm, Confident Parenting (30 min. FREE webinar) - https://view.flodesk.com/pages/63640a05c74edb4b6bdce1f3
✨ Buy a 3 session Coaching Bundle (saving you $100) - for THREE 30-min sessions 1:1 with ME, where we get right to the heart of your challenges, and give you small, powerful shifts that make a huge difference fast.
OR ✨Schedule a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting, so we can answer any questions you may have about working with Flora.
Friend, today I want to give you my number one tip for raising kind humans in an unkind world. Because if you've been feeling heavy with the weight of all of the challenges going on right now, the fear, the hate, the massive injustice, you are not alone and I am with you. I have been up in sleepless nights scrolling the news. I have felt my shoulders just so tight with tension. I have felt my head cloudy when I'm trying to focus on other things. Because the state of the world is bringing me to this very worrisome place. And it can be so easy to forget that we have one very powerful tool as parents, which is to raise kind humans for the next generation. Hey friend, welcome back to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, where we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline so that you finally have the joy and ease you've been missing. When you are parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time, ugh, parenting finally feels sustainable. You have dependable calm and resilience built in your child. I'm your host, Flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach, and I'm so glad you're here. Let's acknowledge something first out loud. We're parenting in a really challenging time. Across the country, families are carrying stress, financial pressure, uncertainty, grief, fear, exhaustion. And even when people disagree about why, there is an undeniable shared current of stress and hurt and tension going on. And our kids can get pulled into it unless we make intentional choices that lead our children in a different direction. So here's the reframe, and then I'll give you the tool that is going to powerfully enable you to make sure you're raising kind humans. The reframe that grounds me again and again is that yes, the world can feel very unkind. And also, we as parents have the power to raise the solution, our children, the next generation. So today I want to give you this really crucial tool that I find so powerful in making sure that we're raising kind humans that are resilient in this world that is so challenging. This is an exercise from positive discipline. So this is a really tangible episode today. I want you to grab a piece of paper. It can be scrap paper you're writing on the back of, or fresh paper, whatever you have. Draw a line down the middle. And on the left side, I want you to write the challenges at the top. The word the challenges. And on this left column, write down all the things that have been frustrating you lately with your child. They're not eating a variety of foods. They don't listen when you ask them to do something. They are getting really jealous of their sibling all the time. They're grabbing toys. They're having tantrums. They're not going to sleep at night. They won't brush their teeth. They won't wear their helmet when they're going on their bike. They're arguing with you about what's getting packed in their lunch, whatever the challenges are. I want you to write those on the left side columns. This is just you. This is kind of coming out of the world, focusing on you and the challenges that have been frustrating you. They may feel small when we've just talked about all the hurt going on in the world, but look at those moments. Conflict with a sibling, conflict at school, conflict with you, it all can be listed on this left column. You can pause the episode if you need to to complete it. Friend, if you'd like to leave a review to share how sustainable parenting has been impacting your life, I would be so grateful. It helps others to know what's possible in their families too. And you can do so easily by scrolling to the bottom of all episodes, clicking on that fifth star, and leaving a comment. Also be sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you regularly get the downloads each week and don't miss a single tool and strategy so parenting finally feels sustainable. On the right side at the top, I want you to write qualities or characteristics of a 25-year-old. I want you to fast forward and imagine that you are standing in your home and you have your 25-year-old knock on the door coming for a visit. When you open that door, what are the qualities and characteristics that you hope are true about the human who is standing there? Kindness, compassion, responsibility, self-respect, problem solving, resilience, honesty, cooperation, empathy, a sense of humor, confidence. Those are some that I've heard listed from clients of mine. Whatever you have, there's no wrong answers. Look at those two lists, and here's where the power comes in, friend. Every single challenge on the left column is an invitation or opportunity to build something from the right column. Whining, that's a chance to practice respectful communication. Right now it's just about whining that they didn't get their way or wanting a certain snack in a different shape than you gave it to them. In the future, it could be how do they communicate their needs in a respectful tone at school with a coworker, with someone else in their community. Sibling conflict, that's the training ground for empathy, negotiation, and repair. Fast forward that of how that will impact their ability to be a kind human in the future. Homework battles, bathtime battles, bedtime battles, all of those are opportunities to build responsibility, problem solving, ownership of their decisions. So when we see challenges in this way, something really powerful changes. The next time that your child is refusing to brush their teeth or in a fight again with their sibling, I hope that you can shift your mindset from, oh, why is this happening again? Why does this have to be difficult? To what is my child having a hard time learning? And how can this moment give us a chance or opportunity to build the skill they're missing? And I really encourage you to put this list up on your bathroom mirror so that you can look at it regularly, so that it guides you as you go through the challenges that can feel so rote, so repetitive and annoying into starting to see those as things you're actually kind of grateful for. Because it's in those moments that you get to build a kind, respectful, problem-solving, courteous human. It's how we manage those moments that they get to learn. Raising kind humans in this very difficult world doesn't mean shielding ourselves or just from the realities, or somehow having lectures with them about how to be nice. It's where the rubber hits the road. When they have conflict, how do you guide them in ways that you're thinking so much further forward? This is not just how to treat your little brother. And I'm just gonna say, hey, you're two years older. This is, ooh, how do I want my child to think about this kind of situation with another classmate or a person of a different ethnicity in their future? Let me go bigger on applying those big principles to these little moments. Because as Princess Catherine once said, we as parents really want to be about the big win, not the quick win. And that's what I see this exercise being entirely about. I hope this equips and empowers you so that you can parent with more kindness and firmness at the same time, friend, so that parenting finally feels sustainable. And if you're in a space where you'd like guidance on that, let's connect. You don't have to do it alone. And it is too important for us to not pay attention and put in our effort, isn't it? Alright, until next time, I'd like to just give a giant hug through the airways to you with great compassion and empathy for wherever you are standing in the challenges of life right now. I'm here for you.
SPEAKER_00:Listeners, if you need parenting advice, talk to my mom. Sustainable parenting. Flora McCormick.