Advertise on podcast: Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis

What can a ballerina, an inventor, a pediatric psychologist, a First Lady, and three generations of moms teach us about parenting?  As Season 8 comes to a close, Carol revisits some of the many conversations offering memorable answers. Misty Copeland, Dr. Marian Croak, Maryland’s First Lady Dawn Moore, and the moms of On the Ground were among the many guests who shared their stories and practical parenting guidance this season. Across these very different conversations, a few truths surfaced again and again: talk to your kids honestly, keep talking with them as they grow, and give yourself grace.  Carol also looks back on the launch of new segments On the Ground and GCP BookTalk, and the first Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha’s Vineyard. Join Carol for the Season 8 wrap-up, then catch up on any episodes you missed! Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

What helps a child walk into an unfamiliar room and believe they belong there? For Jen Hayes Lee, it has always been a pair of golden hoop earrings. In this GCP Book Talk, Jen joins Carol to discuss her debut children’s book, The Golden Hoops, inspired by the first pair she received from her mother. Jen is head of marketing at The Bump, founder of Bestow Collection, host of the No Guide for This podcast, and one of the moms from GCP’s On the Ground series. Jen shares how her golden hoops made her feel connected to her mom and helped her hold onto her Black identity while growing up in predominantly white environments. She and Carol explore the cultural history carried by hoop earrings, what children may need when they are feeling like outsiders, and how parents can use the lessons of The Golden Hoops to help both girls and boys enter new spaces with confidence.  Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Dr. Marian Croak is one of the most influential inventors of our time. With more than 200 patents, she helped develop Voice over Internet Protocol, the technology that makes Zoom, FaceTime, and WhatsApp possible. She has transformed the way people around the world communicate. Dr. Croak joins Carol for a deeply personal conversation about parenting, including how her parents turned a frightening childhood mistake into a defining lesson, and how their example shaped her approach to failure, invention, and raising her own three children. During this episode Dr. Croak offers a memorable image for the tension between an intense career and family life, shares a question she has asked herself every year throughout four decades of work, and reveals the one piece of guidance she believes is the greatest gift a parent can give a child. Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Madam C.J. Walker built a groundbreaking business and created opportunities for thousands of Black women. She also raised a daughter, A’Lelia Walker, whom she loved fiercely and tried hard to protect. Sometimes that protection felt like pressure. In this GCP Book Talk, Carol talks with award-winning journalist A’Lelia Bundles about her book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, the story of her great-grandmother.  They explore the complicated bond between Madam Walker and her daughter, the difficulty of watching our children make choices we believe are wrong, and the challenge of growing up in the shadow of a powerful family legacy. Come for a fascinating story of Black history, culture, and achievement. Stay for the unexpected parenting lessons about love, control, identity, and letting our children find their own way. Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

What happens when you throw a shower for parents?  At the Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha's Vineyard, parents at various stages of the journey spent an afternoon being informed, inspired, and celebrated. In this special episode, Carol goes behind the scenes at the Shower, describing how the afternoon was built around four issues that matter deeply to GCP families, and sharing some of the best advice and resources that parents took home courtesy of sponsors Morgan Stanley, Meta, The College Board, and DonorsChoose. The episode also takes us back inside Carol’s live conversation with Abby Phillip and Courtney B. Vance about raising children who are grounded and confident. Courtney shares how he and Angela Bassett created a strong “rhythm of the household” for their twins, and how they worked to keep their privilege from becoming their children’s definition of normal. Abby talks about the high expectations of her immigrant parents, the role of grace in her life and career, and how she is teaching her daughter to find her sense of worth within herself, rather than in other people’s praise or criticism. Come inside the GCP Shower and discover what happens when parents get some of the attention, encouragement, and support they truly deserve.  Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: @Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

How do you raise children who are confident in who they are, especially when they are growing up in a world very different from the one you grew up in? Recorded live at the Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha’s Vineyard, Carol sits down with CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip and Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor and author Courtney B. Vance for an intergenerational conversation about the values we carry from our own childhoods and the ones we choose to pass on. Abby and Courtney talk with Carol about resilience, high expectations, raising Black children in predominantly white spaces, and why showing up at your child’s school matters. They also wrestle with a challenge many parents face as they become more successful: how do you give your children opportunities you didn’t have without taking away their hunger and drive? From Courtney’s determination to keep his twins grounded despite growing up with famous parents to Abby’s powerful belief that no one else can give you your value—and therefore no one else can take it away—this is a candid conversation about raising children who know who they are, wherever they find themselves. Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com  📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Periods. 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 The "Life on the Hormonal Highway" Playlist--Enjoy!! 10 songs, tracking the episode's journey from puberty through menopause: "Life Is a Highway" — Rascal Flatts (the episode's theme, set at the top of the conversation) "Can We Talk" — Tevin Campbell (talking with daughters about puberty and periods) "Let's Talk About Sex" — Salt-N-Pepa (the sex talk, and the pleasure gap) "Shots" — LMFAO ft. Lil Jon (the three-shot HPV vaccine series) "(You're) Having My Baby" — Paul Anka (egg freezing and the fertility window) "Roller Coaster" — Ohio Players (perimenopause and menopause, "because it is truly a roller coaster") "Get Ready" — The Temptations (perimenopause and menopause) "How Will I Know" — Whitney Houston (perimenopause and menopause) "Hot Hot Hot" — Arrow (hot flashes) "Hot in Herre" — Nelly (hot flashes)

Every 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

Grace 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

So 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 Me Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Our 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 Mentioned Isabelle 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 use Follow Ground Control Parenting: 📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting 💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis 🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Talking 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

You'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

How 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

What 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