How to Teach Kids Emotion Regulation | With Jon Fogel

Episode Summary

In this warm and moving episode, Eli sits down with Jon Fogel — parenting educator, pastor, and author of Punishment-Free Parenting — to talk about his brand-new children's picture book, Set My Feelings Free, co-authored and illustrated by his wife Jess Fogel. Jon unpacks the surprising science behind Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, why music is the key to teaching kids emotional regulation, and how a 30-page book can do what 300 pages can't. You'll probably cry. Eli definitely did.

Key Takeaways

• Secure attachment and emotional regulation are not the same thing. You can grow up securely attached and still have significant gaps in how you model and regulate emotions — and that's okay to acknowledge.
• Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was peer-reviewed science. Every episode was reviewed by developmental psychologist Margaret McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. The show was deliberately designed to teach emotional regulation through music, repetition, and child autonomy.
• Music is a limbic tool — it directly activates the same part of the brain driving a child's dysregulation, making it uniquely effective for teaching regulation strategies in the moment.
• Teaching a 3-year-old emotional regulation is not as hard as teaching yourself — the obstacles are almost always the parent's own unprocessed emotions getting in the way, not the child's capacity.
• The 5 tools in the book (diaphragmatic breathing, movement, grounding/color game, visualization, and naming feelings) were carefully selected to cover every kid, including ADHD kids who don't respond well to breathing alone.
• Repetition before bed is the key delivery mechanism. Reading the book nightly before sleep leverages the brain's heightened receptivity to learning during memory consolidation — backed by behavioral neuroscience.
• Naming feelings alone isn't enough. Jon drew on the work of Marc Brackett at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence — naming must be followed by moving through a regulation strategy.
• Cycle-breaking parenting is like learning algebra while still learning to add and subtract. The children's book handles the foundational math so parents can focus on the harder, deeper work.

About the Guest

Jon Fogel is a parenting educator, pastor, author, and creator of the @wholeparent social media platform with over 1 million followers. He is the author of Punishment-Free Parenting: A Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice and the newly released children's picture book Set My Feelings Free, co-created with his wife and illustrator Jess Fogel. Jon is currently pursuing his PhD in developmental psychology and serves as senior pastor at Hope Covenant Church in Orland Park, Illinois.

• 🌐 Website: wholeparentacademy.com
• 📸 Instagram: @wholeparent
• 💼 LinkedIn: Jon Fogel

Resources MentionedBooks

• 📖 Set My Feelings Free by Jon & Jess Fogel — Amazon (Available April 28, 2026)
• 📖 Set My Feelings Free — Bookshop.org (supports local bookstores)
• 📖 Set My Feelings Free — Publisher (Beaming Books)
• 📖 Punishment-Free Parenting by Jon Fogel — Amazon
• 📖 Punishment-Free Parenting — Penguin Random House

Organizations & Research

• 🏛️ Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (Marc Brackett) — Research on naming feelings as a foundational emotional regulation tool
• 🏛️ Circle of Security International — The attachment-based parenting program referenced; origin of the "shark music" concept

People Referenced

• Marc Brackett, PhD — Founding Director, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence; his research underpins the importance of naming and labeling feelings
• Dr. Dan Siegel — Mindsight Institute; referenced throughout in connection with emotional brain science
• Dr. Tina Payne Bryson — Co-author of The Whole-Brain Child; referenced for visualization/nightmare work
• Margaret McFarland — Developmental psychologist, University of Pittsburgh; the behind-the-scenes architect of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
• Fred Rogers — Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood; his show was intentionally designed around emotional regulation science
• Dr. Benjamin Spock — Author of what Jon calls essentially the first gentle parenting book in the 1940s
• Erik Erikson — Developmental psychologist whose early attachment work is foundational to the field
• Harry Harlow — Researcher whose Rhesus Monkey experiments helped establish attachment theory
• Jaak Panksepp — Behavioral neuroscientist; his work on memory consolidation informs the bedtime reading recommendation

Want to become a more secure, confident parent? 👉 Join the Secure Parenting Program

Learn more about secure parenting: https://www.attachmentnerd.com/secure-parenting-program

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Music by Gold Child: https://www.goldchildmusic.com/