Joyful Courage

Joyful Courage Parent Coach for parents of TEENS! Raising our children, while growing ourselves Feel free to be in touch with any questions!

Parenting classes and teacher trainings based on realtionship building and mutual respect. Check out events at http://www.joyfulcourage.com/events/

Joyful Courage is run by Casey Wilson O'Roarty, parent educator, wife and mother of two kids. http://www.joyfulcourage.com/contact/

This week I'm sharing a conversation I had with Margot Bisnow, who interviewed more than 70 families raising wildly self...
08/25/2026

This week I'm sharing a conversation I had with Margot Bisnow, who interviewed more than 70 families raising wildly self-driven kids. She went looking for a formula and found something more ordinary. We get into how to tell a real passion from checking out, and what parents do in the moments after their kid fails. She also tells the story of biting her tongue when her son left college halfway through. If you're white-knuckling your teen's path, my friend, this one's for you.

Margot Bisnow is the author of Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams, 99 Stories from Families Who Did, written after sitting down with more than 70 families whose kids grew into wildly self-driven adults. Before that she spent 20 years in government, including serving as an FTC commissioner and as staff director of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Her two grown sons found their own paths: Austin is a musician who founded the band Magic Giant and the folk duo Somewhere in Between, and Elliot founded the Summit conference series for young entrepreneurs and led the purchase and revival of Powder Mountain in Utah. When she isn't talking about parenting, she's traveling or with her family.

Takeaways:

🖤 Watch your kid before you judge the passion
🖤 Finish what you signed up for, then quit
🖤 Pushing your passion onto your kid backfires
🖤 Attitude toward failure separates these kids from others
🖤 Skip both the blame and the excuses
🖤 "What would you do differently?" beats reassurance
🖤 Grades predicted nothing about future success
🖤 Find the environment where your kid thrives
🖤 Kids risk more when home stays open
🖤 Lead by following, wherever your child goes

🎧 Tune in — link in bio, go to https://www.besproutable.com/podcasts/eps-669-margot-bisnow-on-raising-entrepreneurs/ or search "joyful courage eps 669" wherever you listen to pods 🌱 Can't wait to hear what you think!
Find Margot::
Website || https://raisinganentrepreneur.com/
Instagram ||
Facebook ||

08/25/2026

Living Joyful Courage Immersion Week
A deep dive for parents of tweens and teens
September 21-25
$69
Find out more and enroll at besproutable.com/immersion

08/21/2026

Comment EXPLORE below!

We can get on the phone and you can share about what's going on with you and your teen. I have so many podcast episodes, programs, coaching, and thoughts to share with you.

Today is the day - what do you have to lose??

08/20/2026

The window is open right now, and it doesn't stay that way.

Two or three weeks in, patterns start to set. By October the way this year is going is mostly decided, and you're no longer designing anything. You're managing whatever got built by default while everyone was busy.

Which is exactly how most of us end up with a fall we didn't choose.

So what's one pattern from last year you don't want to repeat? And what conversation would need to happen this week to change it?

Don't spend October managing a fall you didn't choose. Comment RESET, I'll send the checklist straight to your DMs.

Then, go listen to 668 for the context behind it— link in bio, go to https://www.besproutable.com/podcasts/eps-668-your-2026-back-to-school-reset/ or search "joyful courage eps 668" wherever you listen to pods 🌱

08/19/2026

When your teen says something designed to wind you up, they're still asking a question.

The question is some version of: do I belong here, and do I matter here?

The delivery is terrible. The need underneath it is the same one you have.

I know how hard this reframe is in the actual moment. It asks you to look past behavior that genuinely stings and stay curious about what's driving it, which takes more regulation than most of us have on a Wednesday night in September.

Where do you find that hardest? And what happens in your body right before you react?

Full episode is live— link in bio, go to https://www.besproutable.com/podcasts/eps-668-your-2026-back-to-school-reset/ or search "joyful courage eps 668" wherever you listen to pods 🌱

If reading this made you want a concrete place to start, comment RESET and I'll pop the Back-to-school Checklist into your DMs..

08/18/2026

Your kids are not listening to your values. They're documenting them.

Kids are extraordinary anthropologists. They're watching what you do when you're tired, what happens in your house after somebody messes up, whether you rest when you say rest matters.

Most of us have a set of values we could recite and a daily life that quietly contradicts a few of them. Mine included. One fall I came in hot with a whole plan for how after school was going to go, and my son eventually told me flat out that I was being controlling and spending a lot of my time telling him what to do. He was right. I apologized and asked for a redo.

What's one value you'd say out loud that your kid hasn't actually seen you live lately?

Episode 668 is out now and this layer is where the whole thing starts. Comment RESET and I'll DM you the free back-to-school checklist that walks you through it.

🎧 Tune in — link in bio, go to https://www.besproutable.com/podcasts/eps-668-your-2026-back-to-school-reset/ or search "joyful courage eps 668" wherever you listen to pods 🌱

I'm back from a couple weeks off and I'm fired up about the intentional ecosystem, the model I've been carrying around a...
08/18/2026

I'm back from a couple weeks off and I'm fired up about the intentional ecosystem, the model I've been carrying around all summer. It's four layers, and you work them from the outside in: you, your relationship with your teen, your systems and routines, and the in-the-moment tools. This is my answer to the question I get more than any other, which is I know what I'm supposed to do, so why isn't it working? The school year is a real reset. Come listen, my friend.

Takeaways include:
* Every layer grows in the conditions around it
* Work the ecosystem from the outside in
* Rules you enforce; agreements you return to
* A trellis gives them something to climb
* Insight and integration are two different animals
* Kids document whether you actually live your values
* Behavior is a strategy for belonging and significance
* Put connection in the tank before hard conversations
* Your family culture exists whether you designed it or not

Which layer have you been living in? Tell me in the comments, I'll go first. Innermost, all summer.

Want the checklist that walks through all four layers of the intentional ecosystem? Comment RESET and I'll send it your way. Eight pages, twelve things, built to be printed and written on rather than parked in your downloads folder.

🎧 Tune in — link in bio, go to https://www.besproutable.com/podcasts/eps-668-your-2026-back-to-school-reset/ or search "joyful courage eps 668" wherever you listen to pods 🌱

08/01/2026

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