Uplift Kids: Guiding Parents on Emotions and Wisdom

Episode 191 of the Secular Buddhism Podcast

Host: Noah Rasheta Guests: Jon Ogden, Michelle Larson, Amanda Suarez

Hello and welcome to the Secular Buddhism Podcast, a podcast that presents Buddhist teachings, concepts, and ideas from a secular perspective. You don't need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use what you learn to simply be a better whatever you already are. I'm your host, Noah Rasheta, and let's jump into today's topic.

Introduction

Today's episode is one that's been in the works for over a year now. I actually recorded this interview with Jon, Michelle, and Amanda from Uplift Kids last September. I'd come across their work through knowing Jon previously. He'd posted about it on Facebook, and we're friends there, so that's where I first discovered it.

I noticed right away that they've created a curriculum and lesson plan that follows a weekly schedule of different topics. It goes through ancient wisdom traditions, topics around emotions, specific values, friendship—all the kinds of things you'd want to teach your kids. My very first instinct was, "Oh, I want to try this for my family."

I've gone through several books on teaching mindfulness, Buddhism for kids, and related topics. And I've always run into a similar issue: sometimes these concepts are explained in a way that's just difficult for kids to understand. A lot of them read more like they were written for adults. Even the adult versions are often written in a way that's really hard to grasp.

When I came across this curriculum, I downloaded one of the lesson plans to try it out, and I was really pleased with how it was presented. I was sold immediately. I reached out to Jon and thought, "It would be really neat to interview you and talk about your podcast."

They actually have a podcast called Uplift Kids. The podcast content is supplemental information for parents to help them prepare to present the lesson. They give you the content for the lesson you're going to teach your kids, and then they provide information to help you prepare for that topic. You'll hear all about that in the interview.

I didn't get a chance to release this episode right away because the editing process turned out to be more difficult than I expected. It was originally going to be a video, but I ended up just doing audio because that's what I'm already comfortable with. And so here it is, a year later.

But I want you to know that I've been using their curriculum for a full year in my own family setting, and I'm very, very pleased with it. This is not a sales pitch of any kind. I'm not involved with Uplift Kids in any way. I don't get any commission or referral fee—nothing. I'm just someone who uses their program, and I wanted to share information with you.

In this interview, they talk about what Uplift Kids is and a bit of their background. But more importantly, we get into the topic of one of their lessons: emotions. How do you teach your kids about emotions? How do you teach them to deal with difficult emotions? I've used these concepts many times now over the last year because I have kids at three different ages, all going through different things.

Learning to talk about mindfulness is one thing, but learning to talk about friendship and concepts like honesty or emotions—these are all very different topics. I'm very grateful that I have resources like the Uplift Kids curriculum to help me navigate those topics with my family and kids. So I wanted to share that with you.

Without further ado, here's the audio of the interview I had with Jon, Michelle, and Amanda. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I interviewed them. You can learn more about them at upliftkids.org.

The Interview

Jon Ogden: Thank you for listening. My name is Jon Ogden, and I'm a co-founder at Uplift. All three of us are co-founders here. My focus has primarily been on the wisdom traditions—Buddhism, Stoicism, Christianity, Taoism, and so on. That's kind of the approach I'm taking.

Amanda Suarez: I'm Amanda Suarez, joining from just outside of Portland. I'm a school psychologist. I've worked with kids in schools even before becoming a school psychologist, and I have children of my own. So I have a lot of interest in healthy development of children and families.

Michelle Larson: I'm Michelle Larson, also just outside of Portland, Oregon, and a co-founder of Uplift. I'm a marriage and family therapy associate. So I bring in the psychology and the scientific point of view. But one thing about Uplift that's different is that there are lots of places where you can get psychology resources on emotional intelligence and psychological resources. What we do is try to bring together all of the scientific research and all of the wisdom tradition. We really emphasize that we're spiritual beings and that we have access to these wisdom traditions and science to help us in everything we do in our lives.

Jon Ogden: The podcast is something new that we've started, and it covers the weekly featured lessons. We have a program that goes through weekly themes—a new featured lesson every week about a different value. Last week we covered bullying. We've done lessons on emotions, kindness, compassion, grit, curiosity—all kinds of timeless values as well as various wisdom traditions. The podcast covers the weekly featured lesson, and we talk through the concept. Then people can go to the lesson library and use the lesson for a sit-down experience in the home or a bite-sized experience. Really, whatever approach a family wants to take, they can use it to talk about these timeless values at home.

Noah Rasheta: As I mentioned before, Uplift Kids is a lesson library and a curriculum that you can find online. But there's also a podcast. I asked Jon a little bit more about the podcast—specifically, who is the intended audience?

Jon Ogden: The intended audience for the podcast is grown-ups. So parents will use the podcast as a way to prep easily for the lesson. They can listen to it and get insights like, "Oh yeah, this is how I would want to do the lesson with my family." It's really a simple way for parents to prep.

Noah Rasheta: And if I understand this correctly, there's the weekly topic or weekly assignment, and that's membership-based, right? So you join as a parent, and then you have tools to bring up specific topics every week in a family setting. The podcast supplements all of that. And yet the podcast content is just out there. So if I wasn't a member of the community, I could still benefit from just the podcast?

Amanda Suarez: Yeah, the podcast is just intended to be an entry point to the lesson topic for the week. We talk about how it comes up in our families, how it comes up in our work, why that topic is kind of relevant and alive in our lives.

Noah Rasheta: That's actually really interesting to me because I've been wanting to make it a habit to do a weekly planning session with the family. This might be how I could incorporate the topic side of it or the lesson plan side of it. How does the membership aspect work? What's the cost involved?

Jon Ogden: The membership is $99 for a year. That gives you access to everything we have—our lesson library as well as our wisdom library, which covers the wisdom traditions. As Michelle said, we take a view that merges the best of the latest scientific research with the wisdom traditions. We focus on spirituality. We tend to lean toward the Sam Harris view of spirituality, which he describes using the word spiritual because there's not really a better word for what we're talking about—this amorphous thing. We really ground it in the emerging research on the topic of spirituality.

A membership gives you access to a lesson or multiple lessons depending on what you're looking for. It includes worksheets, discussion prompts, opening activities to get the conversation started, and then some resources like a journal and calendar to help structure things.

Emotions and Mindfulness

Noah Rasheta: You mentioned emotions as one of the lessons. I think that's actually one of the most important topics to cover with kids. How do you approach teaching kids about emotions?

Amanda Suarez: Well, I think what's really important is to help kids understand that all emotions are valid. Often, we grow up in families where certain emotions are seen as off-limits or not okay to feel. So a child might learn, "I shouldn't feel angry," or "I shouldn't feel sad." And that creates a barrier to being able to process those emotions in a healthy way.

What we try to do with the emotions lesson is help kids understand that every emotion they feel is information. Every emotion is telling them something. And then the work is learning how to respond to that emotion in a way that's skillful and doesn't harm themselves or others.

Michelle Larson: I think one thing that's really important is helping parents understand their own relationship with emotions first. A lot of times, parents didn't have a very healthy model of how to be with emotions when they were growing up. So in our lesson, we have prompts for parents like, "What emotions felt off-limits when you were growing up?" or "Does everyone in your family feel safe talking about their emotions?" These questions help parents reflect on their own experience so they can show up more authentically with their kids.

Noah Rasheta: That's a really good point. Because if we're asking our kids to be open about their emotions, but we ourselves are closed off about our emotions, there's a real disconnect there.

Jon Ogden: Absolutely. One of the things we're trying to do is help parents understand that your own mindfulness practice, your own meditation practice, is foundational. When you're working on these issues for yourself, you're then modeling that for your kids. And the relationship itself becomes a vehicle for transformation. It's not just the lesson plan. It's the connection and the honesty that you bring to the conversation.

Meeting Families Where They Are

Noah Rasheta: One thing I appreciate about your approach is that you seem to recognize that families have different amounts of time and different constraints. Can you talk about how you try to meet families where they're at?

Michelle Larson: Absolutely. We've designed our resources in a way that if you have 20 minutes to sit down with your family once a week, we have resources for that. But we also have resources like a journal that you can print or have bound, with question prompts for every day. So if you only have time for one question a day, that works too. Some families have found that the car ride to school is actually a great place to get into some of these resources. We have things that fit into a short drive. It's important to us that we actually create resources that work with real family life, not some idealized version of it.

Jon Ogden: And every lesson has sections for different age groups. We have a section for teens, a section for kids, and a section for littles. So a parent can get in, do the opening activity, and then go right into whatever age group they want to address.

Michelle Larson: I actually have a 19-year-old in college, and I've found that some of the prompts we have for parents work really well with older teens and young adults too. For younger kids, we have worksheets that keep them engaged. So really, we have resources from very young kids all the way up to young adults.

Looking Forward

Noah Rasheta: And do you have any other resources that you would recommend to someone listening who wants to dive into this more deeply?

Jon Ogden: Our website, upliftkids.org, is the best resource. People can submit their email to get a free sample lesson, and we offer a free two-week trial so people can see if it's a good fit. We recognize it's not going to work for everyone, and that's okay with us. We want it to be a good fit for those who will use it.

Beyond that, we have an Instagram page and the podcast. Those are the primary resources. I would also add that we're working on doubling down on the mindfulness aspect of our curriculum. We built a lesson library based on values, which is mostly what we've been talking about. In 2023, we spent time adding an additional library about the wisdom traditions. We take excerpts from Taoism, Buddhism, Stoicism, and so on. It's a library that parents can have on hand if they want to introduce their kids to various traditions.

Then in 2024, our plan is to develop a mindfulness and meditation library using animation. My spouse is the illustrator. We're creating animations with voiceover to have guided meditations for kids that are a bit more embodied. They're not necessarily still sitting, because that often isn't the best way to start a kid into meditation. But they're visual and embodied videos that we're hoping to get up as a mindfulness library.

Michelle Larson: Something that's really important to us is meeting families where they're at. Our resources have been designed in a way that if you have 20 minutes to sit down with your family once a week, we have resources for that. We have resources like a journal that you can actually print or have bound, with question prompts every day. So if you have time for just one question a day, some families have found the car ride to be a great place to use these resources. We want to create things that actually fit into real family life.

Noah Rasheta: And in terms of age ranges, do you find that most of this content works for children across a wide age range? In my case, I have a 14-year-old on one end and a seven-year-old on the other.

Jon Ogden: Yeah, every lesson has a section for teens, a section for kids, and a section for littles. So the parent can get in, do the opening activity, and then go right into whatever age group they want to address.

Michelle Larson: I've actually got a 19-year-old in college, and I've found that some of the prompts we have for parents work really well with older teens and young adults too. For younger kids, we have worksheets that keep them engaged. So really, we have resources from very young kids all the way up to young adults.

Closing Thoughts

That was the end of my discussion with Jon, Michelle, and Amanda. I wanted to share this interview with you because I know you're listening to this podcast because you're interested in becoming a better whatever you already are. You're interested in topics like the wisdom of ancient traditions.

I've gone through a lot of books on the topic of mindfulness when it comes to parenting. I think I have six or seven that I've found. Some are bedtime stories like Buddha at Bedtime. I've enjoyed several of them. But what I've found is that a concept will often be presented in a way that kids can't understand. You all know this. These concepts and ideas are difficult for us to understand. And that's why I've always had an interest in trying to explain these teachings and concepts in a way that makes sense for the ordinary everyday person, because that's what I am. I'm just the ordinary everyday person.

When I came across the curriculum from Uplift Kids, that's what struck me right away: this is stuff that actually makes sense for kids. From the time this was recorded until now, when I'm publishing this episode, I've been using this curriculum for a year. The topics we've covered in family settings have been really helpful. The videos, the worksheets, everything has been useful. I've been able to talk about important things with my kids. And I'm very grateful for having access to this curriculum. That's why I wanted to share it.

I'm not affiliated in any way. This is not a sponsorship. I don't get anything out of this. I just want to share a resource that I found to be quite valuable for parenting. And I hope you'll look at it too and give it a try. Maybe you'll find that this can be a useful curriculum or a useful set of tools for you on your path of parenting as well.

Thank you for taking the time to listen. If today's insights resonated with you, there's so much more in store. You can extend your journey exploring these concepts and ideas by joining our online community of podcast supporters. Together in our weekly video conferences, we dive deeper, share experiences, and discuss how to live these teachings in day-to-day life.

Discover all this and more at secularbuddhism.com, where you'll find insightful articles, my books, online courses, and information on how you can become part of our thriving community. May you carry the wisdom from today's episode into your daily life.

Thank you for listening. Until next time.

For more information about Uplift Kids, visit upliftkids.org