Laurie Berkner is a singer, songwriter, performer, author, and founder of Two Tomatoes Records, LLC, whose children’s music has received more than a billion streams.
413: The Power of Music in Parenting
Laurie Berkner
Kids sing, dance, and stomp to the infectious music of Laurie Berkner, the singer-songwriter responsible for your child singing “We are the dinosaurs.” In this Mindful Mama Podcast episode, we talk about the power of music—how it helps kids express and regulate emotions, connect to their bodies, and connect to each other. Learn how to bring music into your child’s life.
The Power of Music in Parenting - Laurie Berkner [413]
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*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Laurie Berkner: I started to realize the more I did that song, how important that aspect of it was in allowing kids to have a space where they could express their anger.
[00:00:15] Hunter: You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast, episode number 413. Today we're talking about the power of music in parenting with Lori Berkner.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you can. And give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, hunter Clark Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children.
I've been practicing mindfulness for over 20 years. I'm the creator of Mindful Parenting and I'm the author of the best-selling book, raising Good Humans. A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and raising kind confident kids.
Welcome, welcome back my friend. I am glad you are here. Hey, if you haven't done so yet, make sure you're subscribed. If you, and if you get some value from this podcast, if you like it a little bit please go over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review, and it just helps the podcast grow more, and I hugely appreciate it.
In just a moment, I'm going to be sitting down with Lori Berkner, a singer, songwriter, performer, author, and founder of Two Tomatoes Records, LLC, whose children's music has received more than a billion streams. If you know the Dinosaur Song, Lori Berkner, otherwise known as We Are the Dinosaurs.
And so in this episode, we are going to be talking about the power of music, how it helps kids express and regulate emotions, connect to their bodies, and connect to each other. So you're going to also learn how to bring music into your child's life. This is such a fun episode and really fascinating.
We got to go deep into the power of music and also the stories from her life. And I think you are going to love this episode, my friend. So join me at the table as I talk to Lori Berkner.
So Lori, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful
[00:02:28] Laurie Berkner: Mama podcast. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:30] Hunter: We'd like to talk about parenting and things like that here. And so I would love to just dive in with the starting with your story and what, how were you raised and what was your childhood like?
How was I raised?
[00:02:45] Laurie Berkner: My. I don't know. I feel like it felt my childhood, my parents were both worked a lot. So I guess that was one thing that affected me a lot. My mom my mom in particular, my mom was homeless than my dad was. She traveled a lot and had, especially as I got a little older elementary school, middle school, she was commuting.
We lived New Jersey in Princeton for most of those years. And she was mostly commuting to Manhattan. So lots of long, like getting up early. Yeah. Leaving the house. Getting home quite late. So those days were, that was hard. And I, I think I both felt inspired by her as a person who had a career and also and there were times when I really liked being more independent and on my own.
But also sometimes that was hard. My father who passed away about 10 years ago, he was diagnosed as bipolar when I was about 10. Not sure that might've actually been a misdiagnosis I'm starting to discover, but but was, he was a very intense and sometimes difficult person. There, there was definitely some, yeah, some of that stuff was hard.
I spent a lot of time. I think trying to be maybe more than I was always capable of, I was also very young. I was ahead in school, I was like the youngest in my class, I was like constantly trying to prove myself a lot and some things about that have served me well as an adult and a lot of things I've had to unlearn and learn how to be kinder to myself.
[00:04:37] Hunter: Yeah, that like kind of achievement oriented thing can be like great in a lot of ways. And then you can see it's dark side, like when we're, we're never enough or, just particularly like in parenting, like we're never going to get it perfect. We're never going to do everything, ever.
It's not possible and then we have this achievement mindset and it's oh, it's, it can be
[00:05:04] Laurie Berkner: devastating sometimes. I know we talked a little before the podcast and that your kids didn't necessarily grow up on my music, but I do have a song called I'm Not Perfect that I wrote very much for myself.
But also thinking a lot of the songs that I write, I think a lot about Things that I wish I had learned earlier or wish songs that I wish I had from myself as a child and I'm not perfect just came out of one day when I like I lost my date book at it before anybody had you know cell phones and computers doing everything And I thought I was going to let a lot of parents who had birthday parties coming up that I was supposed to be performing at.
I thought I was going to let a lot of kids and parents down. And it was so horribly upsetting and like making a song out of it and reminding myself that I'm not perfect and I hope people will still love me that, realizing oh, that's how I wish I had. Been able to think and talk to myself when I was younger.
Oh, that's so
[00:06:10] Hunter: beautiful that you were able to process that through your art. So you don't know this about me, but I'm a painter or was a painter before as a writer. And I process a lot of like stuff through my paintings, this idea of like my anger is a big thing that led me to write my books.
And just like this idea of processing, I made these ferocious images of pregnant beast women who are predators, sounds like that's a, it's a similar, I really appreciate the way that, that has a channel to. Process and think about and make something, have something creative come out of something we are going through.
It just, it's, it seems so natural and wonderful. I'm glad that you have that process for your work and. And to have a song, I'm not perfect. That's great. I wish my kids had, I'm sorry, we missed you, Laurie. Yeah.
[00:07:10] Laurie Berkner: That's, I just wanted to add on to what you were saying because it reminded me we did, I know you know that I have a song, we are the dinosaurs.
And that is. That was one of the first ones that I ever wrote and it came out of being in a room with a bunch of four year olds who did not want to sing anything I wanted to sing. And when they told me, when I asked them, what do you want to sing about? They said dinosaur. So we got up and one of the things about that song that I think has created a lot of staying power is that being a dinosaur allows a kid to be angry.
And express those feelings in a safe way, in a socially acceptable way, in a school room, or at home, or in a concert, or in their room with the music on, or whatever I can be powerful. I can be big. I can have like claws and teeth. I can roar like when I get mad. I can make noise. No one's going to tell me not to make that noise.
In fact, they're going to go, you're such a good dinosaur, how different is that from yelling because we're angry, having a fight with a kid, another kid, pulling, wanting that toy, whatever the thing is. It's it's such a different reaction from the people around us that we're looking for approval from our parents or the teachers, as kids, maybe that doesn't end so much when you're an adult either, but that's a different conversation, but I think like that sense of power through having feelings that are come.
completely normal and have a lot of like taboo around them is really important. And I think it's one of the reasons that song is like, just speaks to kids so much, and it really was just like. Oh, let's just march around. Let's be big. Let's be dinosaurs. Let's roar. Show me your teeth. Show me your claws, and that was just because that's what dinosaurs were.
But I started to realize the more I did that song, I realized more and more how important that aspect of it was and allowing kids to have a space where they could express their anger. I love
[00:09:35] Hunter: that. I love that because yeah, musical music can be this avenue for emotional expression like that.
And also even like I imagine like practicing emotional regulation because you can be, so for during the dinosaur song, you're loud and you're dangerous and you're aggressive. And then in two minutes you're practicing a different emotional. Experience right through the emotional experience of whatever the next song is like, and so that really is regulation, right?
Like the process of going from one thing to the other and moving through those things and not getting stuck necessarily on one or the other emotion.
[00:10:17] Laurie Berkner: So I'll take that even one step further, which is that within the song itself. That's what we do. They're marching. They're dinosaurs. We are the dinosaurs marching.
Then minor chord, big, strong movements. Then it turns to major and it's quieter. And the next part is, stop and eat our food when we're in the mood. Stop and eat our food on the ground. And the only reason I did that was because the kids were going completely bonkers bananas, like trying to attack each other.
I was like. Oh, my God, what does, can a dinosaur do that will keep them from hurting each other? And so I was like, stop and eat your food on the ground right now please. I hope they do it. And they did. So then I was like, okay, everyone's relaxing, took a deep breath, they ate their food. We can march again.
But of course, within, one round of that, everything was just back exactly where it had been. So I said, stop and take a rest over in our next step is to take a rest. That means lie down, so with that's actually something I do a lot within the songs and that was me learning that if you can think about it as classroom management, you can think about it as emotional regulation from their perspective, from the teacher's perspective, it's more like helping them be in that space with each other in a way that is like helpful to each other and for their own learning.
And I also think of it as, I really think of it as like a rhythmic experience that, that is how. We live. Our lives are in these rhythms. So I it's if you get a kid, anybody up to a big, almost explosive kind of intensity. There has to be a release of that. And music, that's what makes music so satisfying is creating a little bit of tension and then releasing it.
And so you can do that through the drop moment music. Yeah, exactly. In a dancing mix. Yeah. Yeah. I think all that stuff, it's around us all the time and and you can do it anyway. My point was just it can happen within a song. It can happen between songs, it can happen between classes, or it can happen in a moment, right?
And what's so beautiful about working with young kids is that they don't have rules about I was sad, so I can't stop being sad. It's just you're not sad anymore, you move on to the next thing. And that's one of it's that beautiful human part of us that allows us to have feelings and let them roll through them, which I think sometimes as we get older, we tend to wanna, or think there is something that makes us need to stay in them longer.
And I love seeing kids like go from zero to 60 and back and. And be completely authentic in that. I
[00:13:18] Hunter: love that. That's like a wonderful bit of learning. Like you can do all the time, from the kids. That's really, that's like a real nugget of wisdom there. I really like that.
Stay tuned for more mindful mama podcasts right after this break.
How did you come to do this work? Become to be perform, write and perform children's music. Were you
[00:13:48] Laurie Berkner: always like really musical? I always loved music. That was my. I love listening to music. I also really always loved making music. So that was my happy place. Definitely. As a kid one of my earliest memories was just being in my room, marching around to the sound of music and I was.
not three yet. I don't remember many other things from that age. I have a lot of memories of the powerful feeling both of making music by singing by using my body, moving to music and also creating music with other people around me, like what it felt like to be in the midst of a lot of people singing all together.
And also I just feel like music It helped me express a lot of things. It helps helped me with social anxiety. Helped me connect to people and learn a lot about myself. Yeah that's always been important to me. And I thought I was trying to be a positive person. A rock musician in my 20s when I graduated from college, I had moved to Manhattan, was playing like at cafes and writing music, writing in journals, telling myself, I'm a musician, I'm a musician.
Oh. And, but I got this job about a year out of college because I had been babysitting for a neighbor in my building in the East Village. She had her daughter was less than one at the time, but she was the movement teacher at Rockefeller University's Child and Family Center on the east side. And she said, oh their music teacher is leaving.
And they want to use that money to get a psychologist for the school. So they're looking for somebody cheap and eager.
She was like, you're good. You're great with my daughter. I had been a music counselor at a camp that was not a music camp, but had a lot of music in it. It was. Pete Seeger's family ran the camp. And I had that background and she said, why don't you just apply for the job? It's just part time, a few classes a week and see if you get it.
So I got that job. Totally, probably should never have gotten that job. I had no experience except working with eight to 15 year olds. And this was. Three to five year old. Oh, yeah, it's by the end of the year. And after a year or two Also, they added an infant and toddler center. So I was working with six months to six years.
No experience, I was a psych major and art history minor in college and anyway, I had no idea what I was doing the woman who ran who was the They called a principal. I don't know. She was the director of the school some for some reason she believed in me Thank you, Marjorie Goldsmith. And I did learn a lot from the person who had my job before me.
I went and I observed her. And the main thing she taught me was stop talking to the kids. Put it all in the music. And that changed my life. Like I, before that I wasn't even trying to write songs. I was just trying to find songs that. Helped me keep the chaos to a minute, at least to a tolerable amount.
I just think that's a big part of being any kind of educator. If you work with young kids, you have to figure out how much chaos can you tolerate and still do your job and still feel like they are getting something out of the experience, right? Because the chaos is there, it's all happening. It's just like, how do you use that to connect to them?
How do you use that to make, help them connect to each other and to themselves? And and at the beginning I had no idea how to do that. I did. I felt like they taught, they spoke some language that in my 20 years earlier, I guess I used to speak, but I did not. Understand at the time. And really that dinosaur song was the first time when I finally said stop trying to feed them music.
I said, let's just sing about what you want to sing about. And so we did, I just made it up.
[00:18:11] Hunter: I love that. Like that origin story, that is the song that's just lasted so long. That's like now my. In 2023, my two year old, second cousin is like loves, just, not even verbal yet. And it's just it was a, ah, let me get through this.
Let me get through this moment. Totally. These chaotic kids like, was it hard for you to transition to from your dreams of being like a rock play, musician to moving into playing children's music or did was there some kind of, was there some Ego and expectation stuff you had to deal with around that?
[00:18:52] Laurie Berkner: Totally. I just remember I did have a, so ego played in actually in a couple ways that was really. Interesting. When I, the last band I was in before I quit doing adult stuff was an all female cover band called Lois Lane. And I just remember, every gig, free bird, come on, play another guitar solo, and I was just like, Oh my God, I can't deal with the drunk people screaming things at me. But when I went to play a birthday party and the parents and the kids are like. Victor Vino, play Buzz, do the dinosaur song. I was like, Oh, that's fun. No, like I wanted them to scream at me to play songs I had written, but I don't really like Oh, people are getting something positive out of a create, like a creation of mine.
That's so cool. What a great way to be able to give and receive musically, in my life. So that way, yes. Also. I had a lot of friends who were musicians for many years. I still do, but I was very steeped in it in college and after, and a lot of them were trying to make it as as musicians.
And slowly, one by one, they turned to other careers. And somehow, for me, I was building a career and I have very few of those friends, very few of those friends ever became successfully career musicians. But one person that's coming to mind is the drummer for They Might Be Giants.
Who also do kids music. Yeah they do. So it's just things like that. And Marty was... He mostly, I mostly knew him because he played in other bands of like in our friend group, but he did for a short time play in a band of mine as well. And, it's just it's been fascinating to see what has longevity and and where people have been able to actually make a career out of being a musician and bringing something into the world that other people really want to listen to and get, get something out of.
Yeah,
[00:21:13] Hunter: you were like following the breadcrumbs that were laid out for you. It was like, okay, next breadcrumb and this next one. And now you're the queen of children's musicians. But I think that like for us and my family, like music was my husband makes electronic music and and so music was always like very important in our family.
We did music together, classes and, loved singing. And I loved that time of life when I could sing to my kids, like all the time, even though I don't have an amazing singing voice, but I, at that point, I really loved that. It, to me, it. It had so many benefits, but they seem like in some ways, like intangible and I was just wondering if you've thought about that, like how, why music is so important in early childhood for their development
[00:22:09] Laurie Berkner: and things.
Yeah, I think about it a lot. I'm not. Like I was saying before, I don't have a lot of formal educational background and I don't have a ton of research to cite, but I do feel extremely aware of having watched kids over the many years I've been working with preschool aged kids and around that age, like seeing the benefits of Music.
You can come think about it specifically like just one kid I remember one, one boy who was in my music class at a preschool and he was incredible. So engaged. Came in, sat right down next to me, asked for songs, knew every word, acted everything out. Was just like a delight and seemed to enjoy being there so much.
I actually got pulled aside by his classroom teacher saying, I don't know if I'm going to one day, I'm not sure that I'm going to let so and so come to your class today because he is the most difficult problem child in my entire class, and I was completely flabbergasted because I didn't see any of that.
And, that just means to me, okay, this kid finds joy and expression in music and maybe has a hard time sitting, sitting down in a classroom. But in my class, they're moving, they're doing things, they're using their bodies there, and so there's that, and you can think of just that one kid who needs the music in order to actually express their best self to learning about.
Feelings through song, learning about learning more academic or skills through music. We remember those things so much more, right?
[00:24:05] Hunter: I guess so. Isn't there the, there might be a giant song about the solar system that everybody
[00:24:11] Laurie Berkner: remembers. You know that one. I always give the example that my, my bank account number.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The only reason I know it is because I sing it like this. Da dee da. All the numbers. That's how when I sit, I write the back of a check. I'm like, and that's how I write it. So I taught my daughter to learn that our telephone number, that attaching information to music allows our minds to remember it better.
And then I think there is. I feel like I could go on for hours about this, but another thing that is really fantastically important, I think, is the feeling of a shared experience and connecting with other people. So when you're in a room and you're singing with lots of other people, all singing the same words, making the same sounds together, vibrating, like physically vibrating your body by making those sounds.
And they're blending with the vibrations of everybody else in that space. It feels almost impossible not to feel connected to those people. Yeah. And I think that is a way that maybe has not been explored enough that we could be breaking down a lot of barriers. Yeah,
[00:25:31] Hunter: I agree. I mean that literally You're interconnected, you're literally the vibrations, the sounds coming, are connecting with each other.
That, that is true. And it's like you're in rhythm, you're in sync, rather than us just always being like, at, so many times, like we're all doing our own thing, like these little ping pong balls. And we're, we come in conflict with each other because we're just alive.
And. In this one moment, we're all like doing something together and in a really, it's like a really unification. Yeah, that is really beautiful.
[00:26:10] Laurie Berkner: Yeah, and I don't know that people. It's not always something that is verbalized, but I do think that it's extremely powerful. And the memory of even as adults, like going to a concert, what is remembering that feels like looking around, everybody's singing that one song that you know by the artist and that sort of thing is even something in, in that feels almost surfacy in that way.
I feel like can. When you're leaving, it's Hey, yeah, oh, you saw that. Oh, we did that together. There's just like this incredible sense of community. I think that comes out of that that a lot of times gets lost. And on a, on the deepest level to me, the feeling of other is one of the things that I think creates the most conflict in our lives, right?
If you see someone as other, it's easy to justify. hating them, being hurtful to them, excluding them, judging them. If you see them as self or as somehow connected to yourself, we change all of that. We accept, we are curious we love sometimes unconditionally, we, we allow those people in, we protect.
And that's just a very different way of, interacting with other humans. So I do think music is incredibly important in creating that kind of feeling of community. And yeah, I don't know. I think that's actually what I was going to say.
[00:27:46] Hunter: No, I know as you were describing that moment, right?
Like when you're at a concert and you're all I had that moment, not that right before the pandemic, I saw Radiohead and we all sang like 19, 000 of us saying like that song together and oh my God, like it's transcendent. And I think I had, It had been so long since I'd been at a concert like that, that I had forgotten about that, that experience.
And I was like, so grateful that like somehow some, someone just couldn't get these tickets and we got them from like a friend who had gotten these tickets, and just was like, thank you universe for reminding me about this experience because you get so caught up in parenting and. Day to day and all the different things, all the responsibilities, and you forget that these transcendent experiences exist.
And I think of my daughter, who's 16 now she sings in a choir in school, and she does the higher level now, chorale choir, and she does all the singing. We have a concert with her tomorrow night. When she was little, she, I think she had perfect pitch actually, because my husband, which could pick out like, he'd play a note on the piano and she'd be like, that's blah, blah, blah.
And we'd be like, Oh my God, it was really and and you can tell She has her own challenges and struggles in a lot of different areas in life, but when she's singing and, it's like everything drops away, like she, she has a pain amplified pain syndrome that she deals with and, but like it, it all drops away, like when she's singing, like it's, and then that, it's just the power of it is Amazing.
And so accessible, I think, to people. That's the thing is we forget how accessible music is,
[00:29:33] Laurie Berkner: To us. Yes. Although that, that in person experience was not just like you were saying during COVID. That was like a very... It was a painful time. I think as a musician, of course for everybody, but during that time I did a lot of online concerts.
I actually did concerts or I did a half an hour of music starting in March, end of March, 2020, every weekday through until into the summer because kids weren't getting music at school. So I came on every day. I thought of a theme, sang the same song to start, same song to say goodbye, and just talked to them and sang every day.
And now that I, my concerts are back, and thank God people really want to come again because it's gives me life and it's so beautiful and amazing to be able to actually have that experience again of making music with all these people in a room. Like people come up to me and they're like, you got me through the pandemic.
You got my family through the pandemic. Just every day you came on, there it was. The music was there, your voice, your face, the like connection with my kid. That was what. Kept us going every day and now I feel like that's so fantastic and I can sing with you in person and we can have a whole room full of hundreds or thousands of people like just all singing together and we all know these songs.
I'm singing you the songs, and it's just singing them together with that. It just feels it feels incredible. It's I feel so grateful to be able to do that again because when I did it during the pandemic, I was amazing Not hearing them had to imagine them.
[00:31:16] Hunter: Okay, I definitely wanted to like End with a song maybe if you remember it that I'm not perfect on which I love but I would love to if you Have some ideas for knowing how helpful it is and In so many ways and how important it is to us as humans.
What are some ways that parents can bring more music into their child's life? I guess maybe beyond like you can teach your kid there, your phone number with with some music, actually there was a practical way I used to use it when my kids were babies, my daughter, Maggie, I would sing her. I would sing to her as I changed her diapers so she wouldn't be frustrated.
I would sing her Maggie Has a Little Lamb. I know all the lyrics to Mary Has a Little Lamb because of that. It was great. But maybe you have some better ideas.
[00:32:08] Laurie Berkner: I think that's actually an incredible idea because you turned something that could be an upsetting Or feeling like of no, like not feeling powerful.
Yeah, feeling powerless. That's the word. Moment for her into a connected moment with you where you were giving her something. I think that's actually beautiful and better than anything I was going to say. I, what I was thinking maybe a little bit along those lines something that can be really first of all, just not being afraid to sing in front of your kid.
If you are worried about how you sound or that you're not like doing it right or not good enough singer, that absolutely is going to keep you from connecting to your kids through music. So just put that aside. It's all none of that matters. Every child knows that their parent is the best singer in the world until maybe they're seven.
But like when they're younger than that, don't worry about it. My own kid told me to stop singing when she got older. Oh
[00:33:18] Hunter: no, you have such a beautiful voice.
[00:33:21] Laurie Berkner: That is just fishing for that. So that's one thing. Get it. But then the other thing is to incorporate it into anything like it makes singing with your kids makes things more memorable, more playful, more creative.
So if you're going to the dentist and that feels scary, like you can sing about those things on your way, you can sing that you're about walking there, you can make up anything. And as long as. You're both involved, whether even before your child is verbal, you can be just singing to them about it. And if, and once they are, then they're going to be the ones leading those songs and creating the songs.
And we're taking a step. And another step, we're not stepping on that, whatever, and it doesn't matter not to remember it ever again. But sometimes those songs do become special private ways of connecting to each other that can come up again. And that is also a really beautiful way to use it.
So yeah, I think just the playfulness and being really can help.
[00:34:34] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcast right after this break.
Yeah. When my kids were little, I did do that. Like I put aside my qualms about my voice and I sang a lot and the cool thing was, I was like, Oh, I got better. I was like, wow, I'm feeling pretty good about this song now that I've been like singing it for three years. That's a bonus too, but I love it.
Put it aside. Don't worry about it. Would you feel comfortable sharing that song? I want to hear that. I'm not perfect. Yeah. I've heard the dinosaur song. I love it. You guys have to listen to it if you've never heard it.
[00:35:13] Laurie Berkner: I know we were talking about a lot of songs that I wrote a long time ago, but I also always putting out new music.
So I just wanted to throw that out there that like, actually have the song I just put out a few weeks ago called My Bunny Goes Hop. And I've been really happy because I saw it already has 6 million views on YouTube. So I'm like... Kids are liking it. They're watching it over and over. That's good. When I first started, I had these classrooms full of kids that I could try things out on, change them.
If it didn't work, I would notice what, what they responded to, what they really loved. They told me, I didn't even, they were certainly told me all the time, but now it's. It's more okay, this is what I understand. This is what I've seen. This is what I remember. This is what I know.
I'm going to try and put all that into my next song. And so when they work, it's, it always feels like a little magical oh my gosh, I feel so grateful. And also that I made something that kids like makes me happy. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so a lot of this I wrote while I was crying, just trying to be a good parent to myself.
Totally.
I'm not perfect, but I've got. I
do my very I'm not perfect.
And I hope you like me that way. We're not perfect. No, we're not. We're not perfect. But
we've got what we've got. We do our very best, do our very best each day.
But we're not perfect, and we hope you like us that way. Ba da, ba da, ba da. You're not perfect. No, you're not. You're not perfect, but you've got what you've got. You do your very best, do your
very best,
do your very
[00:38:34] Hunter: That's so beautiful, Lori. Thank you so much. If I know anything about the Mindful Mama podcast listeners, there's definitely a tier or two running down. It's a couple of seasons right now because it really is so simple and just gets to something so profound and needed.
[00:38:54] Laurie Berkner: Yeah. I actually felt that like at the end, I was like, oh yeah, I was talking to me.
I was talking to the kids, but I was also talking to myself and it's. It feels really good every day to be reminded that it's, we just are ourselves and that we're still lovable.
[00:39:16] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. That's so beautiful. Laurie, this has been a truly a pleasure. We missed out on the Laurie Berkner boat when my kids were little, but I'm now I'm definitely putting that song on my I have a playlist of songs that I like to play.
So I have good songs running through my head. When my internal radio station plays, like I want to have good lyrics that are going to, they're going to, if I'm going to listen to them endlessly anyway, but it's definitely going on there and I'm I really feel honored to have talked to you.
It's been really a pleasure to hear your music and hear your story. What projects do you have coming up and what are you excited about now?
[00:39:58] Laurie Berkner: Thank you. Yeah, this year I'm actually. I'm celebrating the 25th anniversary of my second album which is called Buzz. I know. Wow. Which, feels.
Feels really good to have been able to continue to do this for so long. So I'm celebrating that all year. I'm actually continuing to do the online performances just once a month, but we'll be in incorporating songs from that album all year, and then it'll be released a digitally remastered version of it's going to be released on vinyl in the fall.
I know it's really fun actually, cause we did this for, what do you think of that last year, which was. The album that the dinosaur song was on, that was my first album. And the record label that I work with at this point on those are just like, they're so good at making them beautiful and like it's a giant book, opening the album and there's like pictures and the records themselves.
When I first started out, there were, it was cassettes, like that's what people listen to. So when I made them, I remember thinking, I want a kid to be able to know which cassette they put in their own player, even if they can't read, if it has the song on it that they want. So I color coded them. So like my first one was yellow and then the buzz was red.
And so we made the discs yellow and red and. And anyway, it's just so super fun that's out there. I've also been working with Tony box. I don't know if you know that it's a really wonderful toy. That's a speaker, no screens squishy speaker that. Colorful that has little cat ears on the top that you, so kids, toddlers can manipulate them, can adjust the volume, turn it on and off and the way it works is instead of putting a cassette or a CD or something into it, you put a figure on top of it, it's magnetized, so it's very easy to put on and that figure streams certain songs like as if you were playing a, an album.
And so I have a dinosaur one, yeah, that has a bunch of my songs on it that I feel very excited to be able to be working with them. So those are some things I'm doing right now, working on a musical, always putting out new songs and videos. I hope if people liked anything they that we talked about today and they don't know my music, that they'll just go to YouTube and you can see the videos there.
There must
[00:42:36] Hunter: be so joyful to do this work with little kids all the time and just be creative and then also be sharing it with such an appreciative audience.
[00:42:45] Laurie Berkner: It's great. Yeah. It really is. I almost wish that I spent more time with young kids. Not being in the classroom anymore has changed that a lot.
I have a lot of meetings and writing time and interviews like this, which I love. It's just that sometimes. I crave being able to do the concerts. I was just in Kansas over the weekend and like being there and seeing the kids jumping and hearing people singing and just like having that experience and then meeting them afterwards.
It's just that feeds me a lot. And I do, I love being able to actually be around the kids who are hearing the music and getting to experience them. Thank you so
[00:43:30] Hunter: much for taking the time to come on the Mindful Mama podcast. I really appreciate it. It's been really
[00:43:34] Laurie Berkner: a pleasure.
It was great. Same for me. Very much a pleasure.
[00:43:46] Hunter: I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope it inspires you to have an awesome dance party with your kiddo. I want to give a shout out to IDKbutPokemonMan for your five star review. Thank you so much because Apple podcast reviews make such a big difference. They said it's very helpful. I came across Hunter through her book.
This podcast was very helpful to help me parent differently to my very anxious child. Thank you. Thank you so much for that review. It makes such a big difference. Where are you listening to the mindful mama podcast? I'm curious. Do you listen to it? While you're folding laundry? What are you doing?
Are you I tend to listen to podcasts? I Like when I'm getting ready for I guess in a shower. That's like a prime podcast listening time for me Yeah, just wondering where you do. You should let me know. Let me know at mindful mama mentor on Instagram. I'd love to know and Of course, the notebook is out raising good humans every day.
Yay! I'm so psyched about this book. It's so readable. I read the whole thing out loud. There's an audiobook with me reading it. 50 simple ways to press pause, stay present, and connect with your kids. And I think you're going to love it. I think you're going to really love this book. It's going to be a great gift book for you to give to other people too.
So go check it out. Raising good humans every day, everywhere books are sold. I guess that's like a lot of promotion I'm doing right now there, right? I'm like saying. Leave a review and go buy a book, but like those would be amazing and life affirming things to do. So I still support that. I think those would be great things to do and
[00:45:29] Laurie Berkner: would
[00:45:29] Hunter: support you, and so thank you so much for listening. So glad you are here. So glad you're part of the movement and I hope you have a great week. I hope you have lots of dance parties. I hope you listened to We Are the Dinosaurs and all the other great Lori Berkner songs and you could talk about how, what her life is and it's so cool.
Anyway, loved her. And yeah, I hope it inspires you to bring more joy and peace and all those good things into your life this week. And I'm wishing you the very best. I'm wishing you all of that for you and your family. I'm being loving to you and yours. And thank you for listening, my friend. Namaste.
[00:46:18] Laurie Berkner: I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It
[00:46:20] Hunter: will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better.
[00:46:25] Laurie Berkner: And just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse. It's been really a positive influence in our lives. So definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more with them and not feeling like you're yelling all the time or you're like, why isn't this working? I would say definitely do it. It's so worth it.
It'll change you. No matter what age someone's child is, it's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's great investment in someone's family. I'm very thankful I have this. You can continue in. Your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift everything in your parenting.
Are
[00:47:22] Hunter: you frustrated by parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem... So overwhelming with too much to learn. Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clark Fields. And if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the mindful parenting membership. You will be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of mindful parenting and now have confidence and clarity in their parenting. This isn't just another parenting class.
This is a This is an opportunity to really discover your unique, lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself. It will translate into lasting connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner too. Let me change your life. Go to mindfulparentingcourse. com to add your name to the waitlist.
So you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment. I look forward to seeing you on the inside. Bye. Thank you.
[00:48:37] Laurie Berkner: Thank you. Thank you.
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