Today's guest is a scientist and a mum who got sick of the same thing most of us have felt scrolling parenting Instagram at 2am. Everyone with an opinion, nobody with a source. Violeta Gordeljevic, parenting science expert, spent years working in public health for governments and global organisations before she had her own baby and realised nobody was translating any of that research for parents. So she built The Parenting Class herself, now reaching over 330,000 people who come to her for one thing, actual evidence.

We go right back to little Violeta, born in Bosnia, two years old when her family left in 1992 to join her father in Germany, where he'd been working as a coal miner. We talk about growing up shy and sensitive in a tight multicultural community, becoming the nerdy teenager who discovered the library and never left, and the moment Sunday school turned her into a lifelong questioner of everything, including the old wives' tales her own mother swore by.

From there we follow her into public health, into a decade working on environmental health policy across seven or eight countries, into meeting her Indonesian partner, and into the shower in her Berlin apartment where the idea for The Parenting Class was born while her newborn slept on the couch. We get into the real, unfiltered version of building a business while raising two kids, and why she moved her whole family to Indonesia to make sure her children grow up connected to both sides of their heritage.

We talk temperament, and why there's no such thing as a good baby or a bad baby. We talk screens, and the real difference between a curated cartoon and handing a toddler an algorithm. We talk about the wildly different parenting cultures she's lived inside, hands off playgrounds in Germany versus hovering in Australia versus a village of aunties, and how she's learned to trust her own values over whichever culture she's standing in.

In this episode:

• Little Violeta, born in Bosnia, raised in Germany from age two
• The moment questioning the Bible in Sunday school got her called a non-believer
• Studying business first, then finding her real passion in public health
• The Berlin shower where The Parenting Class was born
• Building 160 videos and 15 hours of content over five years
• Temperament, and why the same approach can fail completely on a different kid
• Moving to Indonesia to connect her kids to their father's heritage
• Raising two kids across English, Serbian, German and Indonesian
• Schooling in Germany versus Jakarta
• Playground culture across three countries
• Screens, algorithms, and the one rule to set on day one
• The permission slip she'd give every mum listening

Find Violeta Gordeljevic at @violeta.parenting.science and www.theparentingscience.com.

Find Ivana Strbac Alfonso and Balkan Sis at @balkansispodcast, or ivana.alfonso@hotmail.com.

Until next time, this has been Balkan Sis. Love, Ivana.