Podcast
Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis
Hosted by Carol Sutton Lewis · EN
Parenting advice and inspiration for raising smart, confident Black children. Join host and Ground Control Parenting founder Carol Sutton Lewis for weekly conversations with guests––familiar and new––about the joys and real work of parenting.
18episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Life on the Hormonal Highway with Dr. Sharon Malone
6d ago01:02:31Tap to summarizePeriods. Sex. Fertility. Perimenopause. Menopause. There’s a lot we wish someone had told us about sooner. How do we do better with the next generation? Carol welcomes back Dr. Sharon Malone, acclaimed OB-GYN and author of Grown Woman Talk, for a frank and funny conversation about women’s hormonal health from puberty through menopause. Dr. Sharon shares what we need to tell our daughters and what we should be telling our sons. Dr. Sharon clears up persistent misconceptions about perimenopause and hormone therapy and reminds us that suffering through symptoms should never simply be accepted as part of life.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →On the Ground: Raising Kids in a Digital World
2w ago00:30:09Tap to summarizeEvery parent has had the moment. Your child seems permanently attached to their phone, and you wonder how to balance protecting them, trusting them, and preparing them for a world that is becoming more digital by the day.In this episode of GCP On the Ground, Carol Sutton Lewis is joined by panelists Jen Hayes Lee and Keisha Sutton-James for an honest conversation about raising children in the age of screens. Together, these three moms represent three generations of parenting, each putting their own spin on the opportunities and challenges technology presents for today's families.Their conversation moves beyond the familiar debate about how many hours kids spend on devices to explore the harder questions. Should parents track their children's location? Is the content our kids consume more important than the amount of time they spend online? When every other family seems to have different rules, how do you decide what is right for yours?Carol, Keisha and Jen offer a practical framework for navigating a world our own parents never had to imagine. Whether your child is asking for their first device or already carries one everywhere, this conversation will leave you thinking differently about screen time, trust, family expectations, and the values that should guide every parenting decision long after today's technology becomes tomorrow's history.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →GCP Book Talk: The Mommune with Grace Bastidas
3w ago00:33:08Tap to summarizeGrace Bastidas has spent her career finding the parenting stories that mainstream media tends to miss: first as the founder of a multicultural parenting brand for Latinx caregivers, then as the first woman of color to lead Parents in its hundred-year history, and now as the writer behind The Mommune, a substack about the realities of motherhood. In this GCP Book Talk, Grace returns to the podcast to talk with Carol about what she is building next. Grace shares with Carol what she's learned so far from mothers across the country: a farmer in Colorado, a death doula in Detroit, a mother in Arkansas working three jobs to provide for her kids. The conversation turns personal as Grace talks about stepping away from a major leadership role, the exhaustion she didn't expect, and her effort to stay present for her daughters without hovering. For listeners navigating their own transitions, whether that's a career change, a shift in how much space they're giving their kids, or simply the guilt of not knowing if they're doing enough, this conversation offers lots of great insights. Grace and Carol talk candidly about what it looks like to stay present for your children without hovering, and about giving yourself permission to have a full life alongside them. It's a reminder that raising kids well and building something meaningful for yourself don't have to be in competition with each other.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →How to Raise Kids Who Can Imagine a Better Future with Dr. Maisha T. Winn
4w ago00:44:10Tap to summarizeSo many of us are parenting through a fog of uncertainty right now—war, economic strain, and headlines that can make the future feel more frightening than hopeful. This week, Carol sits down with Stanford professor and futurist Dr. Maisha T. Winn to ask a question many parents want to know: How do we raise children who can imagine a future worth building?Maisha's answer reaches back to her own childhood. Raised in one of the independent Black Saturday schools born during the Black Power movement, she grew up learning that communities don't simply worry about the future—they create it. In her new book, Futuring Black Lives, Maisha argues that today's parents can borrow directly from that era's playbook: reimagine the world instead of just reacting to it, and raise our children to reimagine it as well.Carol and Maisha talk about turning struggle into a source of strength, helping kids think critically about AI, rebuilding a sense of village in an increasingly disconnected world, and raising children who believe they can help shape the future. Resource: Find Future MeFollow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →Raising AI Natives: From Anxiety to Action with Isabelle Hau and Victor Lee
Jul 1500:46:53Tap to summarizeOur kids are growing up as AI natives, and most of us are still playing catch-up. Carol talks with two leading voices from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning about what it really means to raise informed, grounded kids in an AI world.Victor Lee, faculty lead for AI and education at the Accelerator, starts simply: AI is a tool, not magic, and parents don't need to panic, they just need to get informed, and he explains how to do so. Isabelle Hau, the Accelerator's Executive Director and author of Love to Learn, introduces the concept of relational intelligence, our capacity to connect meaningfully with others, and makes the case that as kids spend more time with AI, human connection becomes more important, not less.The conversation turns to AI companions and what Victor calls the fast food problem: instant gratification that can't replace real relationships. Victor and Isabelle also dig into the digital divide and the double standard kids face between home and school. The key, they remind us, is that parents need to stay curious instead of judgmental as we talk to and learn with our kids about this brave new, rapidly changing world of AI. Resources MentionedIsabelle Hau, Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early EducationVictor Lee, Advancing Data Science Education in K-12CRAFT program (Classroom Ready Resources About AI for Teaching), Stanford Graduate School of EducationStanford Accelerator for LearningCommon Sense Media research on teen AI companion useFollow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →What Are We Teaching Our Kids About Money?
Jul 800:32:53Tap to summarizeTalking to our kids about money is never just about dollars and cents. It brings up our values, our fears, our own childhood experiences, and sometimes even our regrets.In this On the Ground episode, Carol is joined by co-hosts Keisha Sutton-James and Jen Hays Lee for an honest conversation about raising money-smart kids. They talk about building generational wealth while carrying the fear of backsliding, finding the balance between giving our kids opportunities and teaching them the importance of earning, and recognizing how the way we were raised shapes the way we handle money now.They also tackle a real parent dilemma: What do you do when your child wants those wildly expensive sneakers all their friends seem to have? The conversation turns practical as Carol, Keisha, and Jen share the tools that have worked in their own homes, the lessons they’ve learned along the way, and the places where they are still figuring it out.Whether money is discussed openly in your home or never talked about at all, this episode offers ideas and tools to help you raise kids who understand money, choices, and responsibility.On The Ground is a recurring segment, new this season, where Carol and two other moms dig into the issues we're all talking about around the kitchen table.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →Parenting Through Divorce: Helping Children Heal with Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart
Jul 100:47:09Tap to summarizeYou've decided to get a divorce. Now what? When do you tell the kids? How much do you share? What do you say about the other parent? And what if you're already worried you'll get it all wrong?Divorce is one of the most common experiences families go through, and also one of the hardest to talk about with our kids. In this episode Carol sits down with pediatric psychologist and parent coach Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart to figure out how to do it with care.We get into how and when to tell your children, why telling them together matters, how much to share and what to hold back, and how to build a healthy co-parenting relationship even when you and your ex can barely be in the same room. Dr. Lockhart explains why a changed family structure is a loss that kids grieve, how to keep them out of the middle, and she offers a powerful script for any parent who feels they got it wrong and wants to reset. It is an honest, practical conversation you can use right away.Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart is a pediatric psychologist, parent coach, and author of Love the Teen You Have.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →Even the Baddest Kids Have a Favorite Book with Alvin Irby
Jun 2400:48:22Tap to summarizeHow do you raise a child who wants to read? Award-winning educator Alvin Irby has a simple answer, and he found it in a barbershop. In this episode, Carol talks with the founder of Barbershop Books, the national nonprofit that places books in barbershops and inspires Black boys to read for fun.Alvin's approach: ask Black boys what they like to read, then give them those books. He explains why the titles children actually love, like Captain Underpants and No, David! rarely appear on book lists created for Black boys, and how well-meaning curation can trap kids rather than free them. You’ll hear why he advises parents to replace the word "or" with the word "and," affirming what a child already loves while introducing something new.Carol and Alvin also explore how children can build their reading identities and find literacy assets hiding in plain sight, on cereal boxes and in the bathroom. They talk about the reading trauma many adults carry, and why giving children agency over how and where they read can help us raise the next generation of readers.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →GCP Book Talk: What Sisters Teach Us About Parenting with Deborah Roberts
Jun 1700:31:53Tap to summarizeWhat can sisterhood teach us about raising children? In the first episode of Ground Control Parenting Book Talk, Carol explores this question with award-winning journalist Deborah Roberts, author of Sisters, Loved and Treasured: Stories of Unbreakable Bonds.One of six sisters, Deborah draws on both her own family and the many women she interviewed to share the honest, sometimes complicated truth about sibling relationships. She and Carol dig into the patterns every parent will recognize: comparison, labels, and favoritism. They each candidly reflect on the labels that stuck in their own families, and on how being seen as "the favorite" can be both special and burdensome. Deborah also opens up about the close bond between her daughter Leila and stepdaughter Courtney and the journey to it. You can't force closeness between siblings, but as she and Carol discuss, you can nurture and protect the conditions for it.Stay tuned for more episodes of GCP Book Talk, a new recurring feature in Season 8, where we look at great books through a parenting lens.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
Transcribe →Gentle Parenting — Are We Healing the Past or Just Going Soft?
Jun 1000:39:20Tap to summarizeBoomer, Gen X, Millennial. Three moms, three generations, one question that divides mom group chats: how do you discipline in the age of gentle parenting?In this episode of GCP: On The Ground, Carol sits down with Keisha and Jen to wrestle with the parenting issue so many of us are living through right now. They move from the research linking spanking to worse outcomes, onto the harder question underneath it: does gentle parenting reject the way Black families raised us, or does it evolve it?This conversation ranges from spanking to its alternatives, from talking back to respect, from societal expectations to the realities Black parents carry as they prepare their children for a world that too often judges them differently. The moms also take on a listener's question about second-guessing your own values when family weighs in on how you discipline, and they get honest about the role grandparents, aunties, and uncles play, including why kids seem to respect a whole different set of boundaries depending on who's in the room.GCP: On The Ground is a recurring segment, new this season, where Carol and two other moms dig into the issues we're all talking about around the kitchen table.Follow Ground Control Parenting:📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis
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