Sunshine Parenting

  This episode of the podcast is an excerpt from my interview with Jessica Alexander, co-author of The Danish Way of Parenting. When we’re so immersed in our own culture, we rarely take the time to step outside our ways and see if there may be some things we can learn from others, like a de-emphasis on competitive sports for kids. In The Danish Way of Parenting (subtitled, “What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids”), authors Jessica Alexander and Iben Sandahl share that one of the best cultural practices of Danish parents is not judging other parents. So, if the Danes were assessing American parenting practices, most likely, according to the authors, they’d look for the positives in our competitive, self-focused, over-scheduled, and over-supervised craziness. What this book does so nicely is not focus on what American parents do wrong but instead shares a glimpse into a culture that is obviously doing some things right – they are, after all, the happiest people in the w