Summary: Today I am thrilled to be re-sharing my podcast with parenting author Marcy Axness. This interview first ran last February, and it’s one of my favourite to date. I hope you’ll take the time to listen – I can promise it will be worth your while. I met Marcy Axness on Twitter, when my childhood hero Raffi had glowing things to say about her. Did you know that Raffi and I are totally Twitter buddies? It’s true. It may also be true that my inner six-year-old lets out an audible squee every time he replies to me. But this is all an aside, because today I’m all about Marcy. Before she had kids, Marcy was an Emmy-winning documentary writer and producer. Post-kids, she is an educator with a private counseling and consulting practice. Plus she has a PhD. This woman is no slouch. She’s also the author of the recently-released book Parenting for Peace, about raising our children to be peacemakers. It all sounds a little bit woo woo, but it’s based on hard science. Basically, it’s about using what we know about infant and child development to raise kids who are intelligent, imaginative, trusting, empathetic and have a strong inner balance. When I sat down to interview Marcy for our podcast, I was planning to speak to her for 20 or 30 minutes. Somewhere around the 27 minute mark I knew I was nowhere near finished. I found Marcy to be a really compelling person to speak with. In fact, our conversation caused me to make a fairly fundamental shift in how I parent. She breaks down a lot of complex research into easy-to-understand pieces, and helps parents to work through their own feelings around how they approach life with their children. Marcy is authentic and easy to relate to. When she talked about her feelings of rage as a new mom, I found myself nodding along. She’s not sugar-coating parenting here, she’s giving you useful tools to make it better. In the process, she doesn’t just help to create more peaceful kids, she helps to create more peaceful parents. If you could use a little more peace in your life (and really, what parent couldn’t?) you’ll want to listen to my interview with Marcy Axness: Next week on the podcast I’ll be sharing the rest of my interview with Marcy Axness. She’ll be talking about the three biggest mistakes that she sees parents making. This is the part that caused me to totally shift the way I parent my own kids, and you won’t want to miss it. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you’ll hear every last bit! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!
