Miscellaneous
In this episode, I talk with Noelle Ward who is a Teen Life Skills Coach, Occupational Therapist, founder of Life Skills 4 College, and parent of two. Noelle shares with us a host of strategies for communicating more effectively, both verbally and non-verbally, with our children especially when approaching sexual health discussions. She explores how parents can cultivate their children's curiosities, how to read body language and how to foster healthy communication skills in our children. Want to connect with Noelle and Life Skills 4 College's services and content? Visit her website here to sign up for free downloadable tools and online courses that support communication and life skills for the young person in your life. Follow Life Skills 4 College on Instagram here. And as always: Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for regular sex-positive content and updates. Sign up for our email list and receive your free download of 'Preparing for the Sex Talks: An Action Plan for Parents & Caretakers.' Shop sex-positive swag and merchandise for parents, caring adults and sexual health advocates here. Leave a review in iTunes to let us know how much you’re enjoying the podcast. This gives us great feedback from our community as well as expands the reach and visibility so we can serve more families! TRANSCRIPTION {Soft instrumental music plays as introduction} {Person speaking} Welcome to Sex Positive Families where parents, caring adults, and advocates come to grow and learn about sexual health in a supportive community. I'm your host, and the founder of SPF, Melissa Carnagey. Join me, and special guests, as we dive into the art of sex-positive parenting. Together, we will shake the shame and trash the taboos to strengthen sexual health talks with the children in our lives. Thank you so much for joining us! {Same person speaking} "Hello, Families! Today's episode is all about communication strategies when talking with our children and teens. For this one, I had to bring on Noelle Ward founder of Life Skills for College as well as the award-winning LifeLabs. These are two programs that teach children life skills for success. Noelle is a Licensed Occupational Therapist, working with diverse individuals of all ages and abilities. She is also the Director of Rehabilitation for a large home health and hospice organization. She is responsible for the therapy programs and quality of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy throughout the state of Alabama. Alongside her profession, she's married with two kids, so she knows a bit about this parenting thing. Noelle is breaking down barriers for verbal and non-verbal communication while offering actionable strategies for parents and caring adults, so they support sexual health talks with the children in their lives. This episode is packed with helpful tips, so let's get to it!" Melissa Carnagey: “Noel, how are you?” Noelle Ward: "I'm great, thanks! How are you, Melissa?" M.C.: “I'm doing very well. So let's get started with you telling us just a little bit about your journey.” N.W.: "Great! Well, I'm an Occupational Therapist by background, and I have been working in leadership roles the majority of my career, for about 20 years. And I noticed over the past, about the past 10 years, I was working with a lot of new graduates, college students and I was noticing... I was mentoring and coaching them a great deal because they didn't have the life skills they needed to navigate not only the workforce but just their lives in general. I was seeing this on a regular basis, and I was seeing people that were not happy in their current role in work or life and they were blaming this on their situation but it wasn't their situation. It's because they didn't know how to navigate the situation, especially with communication, which we’ll be talking about today. So I thought of this and I thought,