Stories at Bedtime with Heather Aranda of The Family Arcade

On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly is a practicing clinical psychologist, wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County. Today she is talking to Heather Aranda, of the Family Arcade.

Episode Highlights

• 01:11: Heather is blessed with a total of eight children.
• 03:33: Heather is The Family Arcade on Instagram and she has a whopping 131,000 followers.
• 04:59: Heather shares how she started the YouTube channel and then later shifted to Instagram.
• 07:06: Heather shares how she gets a sense of completion that one never gets in the most beautiful way when raising children. 
• 08:16: Heather loves Instagram and YouTube. The world she has created it is very exciting. She loves what she can do without the written work. 
• 09:51: Heather explains how post-COVID she prompted her children to take up virtual classes.
• 11:38: Heather talks about the bedtime routine that she follows with her kids.
• 13:26: Heather shares how she starts a story and then another kid adds to it, and the one on the bottom bunk might list for something that comes next.
• 14:43: Heather shares how long it takes her to put eight children to bed.
• 15:40: Sometimes kids need to let go and the best way to do that is with the story, regardless of what their day was like.
• 16:22: When it comes to new stories, Heather's children play a big part.
• 20:48: Heather shares how she wants the videos to be about her family, regardless of who has the camera, who is recording.
• 21:38: What makes really excellent families is when everybody is working to support each other and the couple, the team are really cohesive and supportive of each other. 

3 Key Points

1. Carla and Heather discuss the importance of reading books to kids.
2. Heather talks about the bedtime stories that she dramatically reads to her children.
3. Heather shares how her work helps families be happy.

Tweetable Quotes

• "It's better to fight sadness with good news." - Heather Aranda
• "I decided to go with Instagram because well, it's instant and we have a lot of kids we are busy. If you want fast, quick gratification, you know to fill in the gaps and it still made the kids happy and it made me happy, and I enjoy editing so much." - Heather Aranda
• "All my children have their own song, something I fabricated." - Heather Aranda
• "As part of the winding down process, it really feels like you just incorporate it into a natural ritual that here this is the time the lights are low and let's kind of just get into the space of letting go of the day and moving into the night so we can wait for tomorrow." - Heather Aranda

Resources Mentioned

• Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
• Familius: Instagram Facebook Shop
• The Family Arcade: Instagram
• Podcast Editing