Our society has undergone a radical transformation—from one rooted in hierarchy, authority, and tradition to one that celebrates openness, equality, and emotional authenticity. In this episode, I explore how political and cultural movements like the New Left, along with the rise of secularism, commercialism, and therapeutic thinking, reshaped the way we relate to authority, structure, and ultimately, how we parent. What happens when the old frameworks fall away, and nothing clear takes their place? Join me as we unpack the historical and ideological shifts that helped create the meaning crisis affecting today’s children—and how it all traces back to the world we've built around them.

In today’s powerful and heartfelt episode, I sit down with Suzanne Andora Barron—yoga instructor, breathwork and meditation guide, and host of the Finding Joy in the Hard podcast. Sixteen years ago, Suzanne experienced every parent’s worst nightmare: the loss of her nine-year-old son. Left to navigate the grief while raising her younger child, she began a journey of deep healing, spiritual growth, and redefining joy through suffering.

Suzanne shares her story with raw honesty and grace, offering profound insight into the complexities of grief, the practice of presence, and how we can still find joy—even in the hardest seasons of life. This episode is a moving reminder for all of us to slow down, savor the fleeting moments of parenthood, and live each day with intention.

What We Talk About:

• Suzanne’s story of loss and what helped her survive it
• How to hold joy and grief at the same time
• What it means to truly be present with your children
• Parenting with perspective and intention
• Daily practices for emotional support and healing
• How Suzanne helps others through her offerings and podcast

About Suzanne:
Suzanne Andora Barron is a yoga instructor, meditation and breathwork guide, and Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner. For over a decade, she’s helped women reconnect with themselves emotionally, spiritually, and physically. She’s the creator of Feel, Heal & Align and Process What You Feel to Heal—two programs designed to support emotional processing and physical well-being. Suzanne is also the host of the Finding Joy in the Hard podcast.

Resources & Links:

• Connect with Suzanne: https://www.instagram.com/suzanneandorabarron/reels/
• Listen to Finding Joy in the Hard: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finding-joy-in-the-hard/id1716893853
• Learn more about Feel, Heal & Align: https://suzanneabarron.com/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAadalVXWoORF1AypW3QLjYdusYt_GDSH1m3tj736dFnNeYAmvgM081sc5Fik1A_aem_ZrksWBaLIx7wzfTidCyOqQ

If you found this episode meaningful, please share it with someone who might need this reminder today. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast—it truly helps us reach more listeners.

In today’s episode, we explore a powerful—and often uncomfortable—truth: judgment-free parenting is not what our children need.

In a world lacking a clear moral compass, our kids are growing up surrounded by overwhelming information, conflicting influences, and voices that often lead them away from wisdom, discipline, and values. While empathy is essential in parenting, it cannot replace moral clarity.

We dive into:

• Why empathy alone can become a trap
• The danger of assuming kids will “figure it out” without guidance
• How to help our children distinguish right from wrong in a confusing world
• The importance of modeling delayed gratification and value-based decision-making
• Why our children need us to be confident moral leaders—not just emotionally supportive figures

We also discuss the balance:

• How to guide without being rigid
• How to stay in honest communication with our kids
• The importance of personal growth as parents so we can lead by example
• Why a strong, respectful relationship with our children is the foundation for real influence

This episode is both a call to courage and a gentle reminder: Your children are looking to you to lead—not just to understand.

🎧 Listen now and reflect on what kind of leader your child needs you to be.

In this heartfelt and inspiring episode, I sit down with Fraida Shusterman—Orthodox Jewish mother of 11 and a woman of remarkable perspective and strength. Fraida shares her family's journey, including raising a child with Rett syndrome, and how focusing on gratitude, resilience, and proactive growth has shaped her outlook on life.

Drawing from Jewish wisdom, Kabbalah, and her lived experience, Fraida discusses the critical role of parenting in preserving Jewish values, how to raise children who can navigate life's challenges, and why rituals, traditions, and a sense of higher purpose are essential for emotional stability and meaning.

This conversation is a reminder that challenges are not endpoints—they are invitations to build, to deepen our connection to God, and to live with greater purpose and joy.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Fraida and her family embrace gratitude even amid life's toughest challenges
• The concept from Kabbalah of looking forward and being proactive during hardship
• The Jewish approach to parenting and the three core life skills parents must teach:
  • How to "swim" through life's waters
  • Learning a trade or skill
  • Preparing for marriage and emotional maturity
• Why modeling values is more powerful than preaching them
• Parenting each child according to their unique way ("Teach the child according to his way")
• How Jewish traditions and rituals create stability, belonging, and emotional resilience
• What it means to discipline from a soul-centered, Torah-based perspective
• How to maintain connection and faith when children choose different paths
• The importance of living every moment as a teaching opportunity through Torah values

Inspired by John Vervaeke’s Course “The Premise of Beauty” on Peterson Academy

In this deeply reflective solo episode, we dive into how our children’s mental health crisis is, at its root, a meaning crisis. Drawing on the insights of philosopher and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke, we explore how the loss of cultural depth, the dominance of the "having mode," and the narrowing of our ways of knowing have led to a disconnection from beauty, wisdom, and the sacred.

📉 The Crisis in Numbers

• 1 in 6 kids experience a mental health disorder annually
• Over 10% diagnosed with ADHD
• Self-harm ER visits among girls up 188%
• Suicide rates among adolescents skyrocketing

💡 Core Themes in This Episode

• Why our kids are not just overwhelmed, but existentially unanchored
• The cultural shift from communal belonging to isolated individualism
• How beauty, ritual, and depth have disappeared from our children's lives
• Erich Fromm’s distinction between having mode and being mode
• The 4 types of knowing (propositional, procedural, perspectival, and participatory) and why only focusing on facts leaves our kids empty

🌿 What Our Kids Need to Thrive

• Participation in meaningful activities (not just consumption)
• Flow states through free play, art, and creativity
• Rich relationships that require empathy and perspective-taking
• Rituals that help shape identity, values, and belonging
• Time to be—without screens, without rush, without outcomes

🌀 Reclaiming the Imaginal

• Why becoming, not just imagining, is where true growth happens
• How the “Solomon Effect” and third-person perspective build wisdom
• The role of sacrifice, struggle, and mystery in meaningful development

🧠 Why This Matters in the Age of AI

• AI excels at propositional knowing, but lacks imagination, perspective, and participation
• Our children’s humanity—wisdom, agency, creativity—must be cultivated, not downloaded

✨ Key Takeaways

• Mental health isn't just about treatment—it’s about reconnecting to meaning
• Rituals, beauty, flow, and play are not luxuries—they're necessities
• We must let our kids be in the world, not just consume it

💭 Final Message: Let your kids be kids. Let them experience awe, struggle, connection, and growth. Let them participate in life. That is how they will build identity, meaning, and strength to meet the future—with or without AI.

In this powerful episode, we explore why so many modern parents—especially in the millennial generation—feel like they’ve lost their authority. We unpack the cultural shifts that led us here: from authoritarian upbringings to the rise of therapeutic parenting, gentle approaches, and fear of judgment in a multicultural, morally relativistic society.

But have we gone too far?

We discuss how authority became synonymous with oppression, why permissiveness is not the solution, and how children actually thrive when there is clear, benevolent leadership in the home.

You’ll learn:

• The root causes of the "authority crisis" in modern parenting
• The consequences for kids: confusion, anxiety, identity struggles
• The impact on parents: guilt, doubt, and burnout
• How to reclaim your role as a loving leader in your family
• Practical steps to build a strong family culture, set boundaries with confidence, and raise grounded, resilient kids in a chaotic world

🔑 Key Topics Covered:

• Why gentle parenting sometimes goes too far
• How permissiveness undermines connection and safety
• What real, benevolent authority looks and feels like
• Creating a home culture with values, rituals, and roots
• How kids thrive with structure, guidance, and spiritual meaning
• Parenting in a society without shared moral foundations
• Why Israel offers a powerful cultural contrast to Western trends

👨‍👩‍👧 For Parents Who:

• Feel unsure about setting boundaries
• Struggle with mom/dad guilt or fear of being “too much”
• Want to raise emotionally intelligent and morally grounded kids
• Are ready to lead with both empathy and conviction

📌 Resources Mentioned:

• Reclaim Play by Avital Shrier Levi
• Hi Fam Studio Membership
• Hi Fam Podcast
• Hi Fam YouTube Channel
• Follow Avital on IG
• Related episodes: "You Won't Mess Up Your Kids" and How To Raise Kids To Find Meaning In a World That Lost Its Moral Compass

✨ Join the Conversation:

We’d love to hear your thoughts!
💬 Join us in the Parenting Wisdom FB group send me an email to Efrat@efratamira.com to share your insights, aha moments, or questions.

In this episode, we sit down with Ben Cheek—spiritual guide, educator, and Executive Director of Camp Deerpark—to explore how spirituality can be a transformative force in our lives, families, and communities. With over 20 years of experience in multicultural and grassroots contexts, Ben shares how he and his wife are raising their children in a spiritually grounded homeschooling environment they call The Mágoulo’s School for the Spiritually Gifted.

We dive into powerful themes like the role of shame in modern life, the limitations of purely psychological approaches to healing, and the deep need to integrate spiritual wisdom into our parenting, education, and personal development. Ben's perspective is rooted in the belief that true healing and empowerment come from aligning with a spiritual sense of purpose—and helping the next generation do the same.

🌱 Resources & Mentions:

• Camp Deerpark – Ben’s current work and retreat center
• The Mágoulo’s School for the Spiritually Gifted – A homeschooling initiative focused on spiritual formation
• Topics: Spiritual Parenting, Healing Shame, Multicultural Community Building, Embodied Spirituality

🙌 Connect with Ben Cheek:

• Website: campdeerpark.org
• Instagram: @campdeerpark
• Email Ben Cheek- profmag@unusualkingdom.com

In this episode, I address a common fear many parents have—the worry that they are going to mess up their kids. This belief is rooted in false assumptions about the nature of children and mental health.

I take a deep dive into these assumptions, breaking them down and offering alternative perspectives that can bring more freedom to our parenting journey. By shifting our mindset, we can learn to trust our kids, recognize their resilience, and understand that they can handle adversity—even when it comes from us.

Their mental health is shaped by much more than whether or not we "traumatize" them. Join me as I explore a broader, more empowering view of parenting—one that helps us release unnecessary guilt and embrace our role with confidence.