Podcasts Featuring Our Family Culture
Our Family Culture has been featured in conversations with parents, educators, and thought leaders exploring what it means to raise grounded, connected kids in a distracted world. Listen in as we talk about intentional parenting, family values, communication, screen time, and the small rhythms that help shape a stronger family culture.
Innovate Where You Are: What Kids Need to Thrive with Steven Shapiro
Two students who coasted to C’s in Steven’s high school Community Action class went on to change their city’s curfew law, four months after the semester ended and without anyone grading them. For Steven, that story captures what young people are capable of when the work actually matters to them, and it’s a belief he has carried through more than three decades in education.
In this episode of Innovate Where You Are, Steven joins host Kristy Venny to trace his journey from reimagining high school learning to helping families build intentional cultures at home. They talk about the hidden cost of overscheduled childhoods, why parenting is harder today than at any point in human history, and how Our Family Culture uses clarity, simple behavioral language, and a few minutes of daily practice to help parents raise the kids they hope to raise. Along the way, Steven shares why older kids should help choose their family’s Fundamentals, even if it means calling out their parents, and why a weekly family huddle might be the most valuable habit a family can build.
"Almost all parenting advice is about what to do, but there’s not very much support about who to be."
You only get one chance
to raise amazing kids
The Missing Partner in Special Education: Family Culture with Nancy Shapiro Rapport
"We're both culture builders. It's what we love the most about the world of education."
Your district has a culture. Your campuses have a culture. But what about the families you serve? That’s the question Allie Wilson, host of Conversations by IEP Assure, explores with Nancy in this episode.
Drawing on 34 years as a middle school counselor, Nancy explains what “parenting by design” means and why it matters to schools. She makes the case for students taking an active role in their own IEP and 504 meetings: knowing their accommodations and seeing them as tools, not labels. The conversation also covers assuming good intentions between parents, teachers, and administrators, and shifting conferences from data updates to student strengths. Plus, a first look at a district pilot bringing family culture resources to every family.
The Modern Mommy Doc Podcast with Dr. Whitney Casares
Every great sports team has a culture. Every great company has one too. So why do we never talk about our families that way? That’s the question Dr. Whitney Casares, pediatrician and host of The Modern Mommy Doc Podcast, put to us in this conversation.
Drawing on our combined 68 years in public education, we walk Whitney through our system of Fundamentals: behavior-based values like Bounce Back and Show Up for Others that turn abstract intentions into concrete, repeatable behaviors. We get into why parents freeze when asked what they want their kids to grow into, what happens when two parents mean different things by the same value, and how parent vulnerability questions build more trust than any lecture. Best of all, it takes just minutes a day.
"We talk about culture at work and on sports teams. We never talk about the most important culture you'll ever build: your family."
Transforming the Toddler Years
Building Your Family Culture: Parenting On Purpose
What if the secret to raising resilient, emotionally healthy kids starts with intentionally creating your family’s culture? That’s the question at the heart of this conversation, and it’s one every parent of young children should be asking early, because family culture starts forming whether you’re building it on purpose or not.
We talk about moving from parenting by default to parenting by design through simple daily practices rooted in shared values and connection. Drawing on our combined 68 years in public education, we get into how modeling behaviors like kindness, self-regulation, and empathy helps children build strong identities, the realities of blended families, and the power of creating a home where children always feel they belong.
What School Could Be with Josh Reppun
What Families Could Be
Josh Reppun has spent years asking educators one big question: what could school be? In this conversation, he asked us the question that drives everything we do now: what could families be?
We talked with Josh about the staggering rise in youth anxiety, depression, and loneliness we witnessed over our combined 68 years in public education, and why we came out of retirement to do something about it. We got into comparison culture among parents, why choosing Fundamentals together deepens a couple’s relationship in ways they don’t expect, and how Our Family Culture works for every kind of family: single parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, and everyone in between. Small things, done week after week, build something that lasts.
"Every family that joins us is one more block in the cathedral we're building."
Culture Architects with David J. Friedman
What Does It Mean to Be the Culture Architect of Your Family?
David Friedman has spent his career teaching businesses how to build high-performing cultures. At the end of his book Culture by Design, he wrote that people often ask if he used his Fundamentals system with his own family, and his answer was always, “I wish I had.” When we read that line, we knew we had to talk to him. One email later, a collaboration was born.
In this two-part conversation, we share our three decades in classrooms and counseling offices, the story of how Our Family Culture came to be, and the specifics of the system itself: how parenting partners choose their Fundamentals independently, then come back together and discover what they never knew about each other.
The One You Feed with Eric Zimmer
Feeding the Good Wolf, as a Family
Eric Zimmer’s podcast is built on a parable we love: two wolves battle inside each of us, one good and one bad, and the one that wins is the one you feed. Eric has spent hundreds of episodes asking thinkers and practitioners how to feed the good wolf. In this conversation, we brought the question home, literally.
Because that’s what a family culture is: a decision, made on purpose, about which wolf your family feeds. We talked with Eric about how our combined 68 years in public education showed us which kids stood on solid ground and which got swept along, and how the Fundamentals give families a way to feed the good wolf a little bit every day, in minutes, not marathons.
"The families raising rock-solid kids weren't perfect. They were clear. Everyone in the house knew what that family stood for."