What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

What are some small traditions we can lean on right now to create more joy and meaning for our families? We’re talking LITTLE. Preferably free. Not exhausting. Super fun. Lifetime of memories created.Our listener Lee inspired this topic in our Facebook group: What about an episode about fun or special traditions for the rest of the year? When I was growing up, the “birthday person” always got breakfast in bed. I’ve brought the tradition to my own family as an adult, and it’s such a fun and special way to start the day. I’ve been trying to build more traditions for my young family (my kids are 3 and 6), especially during the pandemic, since we haven’t seen our extended family much, and a lot of our other markers are missing.In this episode we discuss some of our (and our listeners’) favorite family traditions.A few Rules of Traditions we discovered while recording this episode: Giving the ordinary a special name, song, day of the week is part of what makes it a tradition. Pizza Friday! Porch Popsicle Time! It’s all in the branding.  Traditions are like leprechauns: if you go looking for one, you probably won’t find it, but you can tell when one has appeared. Keep your eyes and ears open for fun moments that can become traditions simply by repeating them. Limitations are where the ingenuity– and the fun– comes in. What Rube Goldberg creation can be made exclusively with what’s in this junk drawer? What famous painting can we recreate using old bedsheets?  This moment we’re all in is tough. It’s also a crucible where family traditions might be formed. Even thinking about tradition-making has lifted our spirits– the idea that we can find “little fun” that might somehow become what will be remembered of this year we’ve all spent mostly at home. * Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app!* Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast* Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast* questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When is a teen happily isolated– or at least content– and when is it something a parent should be concerned about, particularly during the pandemic? This week's question comes from Kate in our Facebook group: When should one worry about a teenager's lack of desire to be with friends? For my 15-year-old it’s always been an issue, but since we moved two years ago, he’s been even more in the “I don’t care” camp than before. Outside of soccer and school, he doesn’t ever see friends, and says he doesn’t want to. All this is only made worse by the pandemic.Over the last year most of us have had more access to our kids' moment-to-moment existences than we had previously. That means we’re seeing more of things that might have always been there, and are therefore fine– and things that are new to us and actually should spark our concern. Some introverted children really are more content right now. If an adolescent is not expressing signs of depression and anxiety, than a teenager in his room all the time might be a content hermit, even if that has not been his parent's pandemic experience.Some sadness is fine too. Sadness makes sense right now. So how can a parent tell the difference between content self-isolation, some sadness about this tough moment, and depression?NYU child psych Dr. Aleta Angelosante offers this checklist of what to watch for in a teenager's mood:https://nyulangone.org/news/checking-your-teenagers-mood-during-covid-19-pandemicIn this episode, Amy discusses some of the behaviors to watch for, and how to address concerns you might have with your teen. Don't put off the conversation because it might go poorly; it very well may, but your loving concern will be heard. I’m putting resources in the show notes- reach out to pediatrician- get a telehealth appointment with a professional if necessary, it can work a lot better than you’d think. one thing the pandemic has actually made easier.Dr. Angelosante further suggests these resources for parents. If you have concerns, don't hesitate to reach out to your child's pediatrician, or to a mental health professional. Anxiety and Depression Association of America: Watch, Ask and Listen: How to Tell if Your Child or Teen Is Anxious or Depressed Society of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology: Effective Child Therapy U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Resources to Support Adolescent Mental Health Send us your parenting questions- we might answer yours next! Email us- questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How we doing, moms? If you're anything like us, your domestic situation has blown past “getting old” to “seriously guys, we cannot do this anymore” to fetal-position numbness and beyond. And there’s nothing for dinner, and the 5th grader is failing math, and our boss just asked if that wasn’t “someone’s kid” he just heard on the background of our work Zoom call. (Why yes. Yes, it was.)The New York Times recently released a series called “The Primal Scream” examining the pandemic’s effect on working moms in America. As we come up on the one-year anniversary of this crisis we thought would take a couple of weeks, let's face it: all moms are kind of falling apart. As Dekeda Brown, a mother of two profiled in the Times’ stories, explains: “We are holding together with the same tape that we have been using since March.” In this episode, we discuss how it’s going for us (not great) and offer a few solutions for making this Groundhog-Day time a tad more survivable. Here are some of the articles we mention in this episode: Jessica Bennett for NYT: Three American Mothers, On The Brinkhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/04/parenting/covid-pandemic-mothers-primal-scream.htmlJessica Grose for NYT: America’s Mothers Are In Crisishttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/parenting/working-moms-mental-health-coronavirus.htmlLaurel Elder: Parenthood and Politics in the Era of Covid-19https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3762600Pooja Lakshmin for NYT: How Society Has Turned Its Back On Mothershttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/parenting/working-mom-burnout-coronavirus.html* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app!* Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast* Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast* questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's listener question comes from Kristen in our Facebook group:How much input should I have on my kids' choice of friends?This is a hard one. Ceding control over our kids' lives is anxiety-producing, and one of the first ways we need to practice letting go is when our kids choose friends that - let's say - wouldn't have been our first choice for them.So that's the bad news.The good news is that we do still have a role to play in this situation. Just as with our own kids, when we address the behavior of our kids' friends, rather than their character, we'll get better results. We can (and should!) verbalize things like "I don't like when I see [insert friend's name] using bad language." That message will be heard by our child with a lot less defensiveness than if we say "That [insert friend's name] is such a bad kid!"Here are other things you can consider doing if you're worried about the kinds of friends your kid is choosing: Keep your child involved in a range of activities, so they're exposed to a wider potential friend group. Have gatherings at your house so you can get a better sense of your child's friendship dynamics and how they're playing out. Help your child develop "prospecting" by talking about behavior and consequences frequently. Implement concrete consequences for a friend's inappropriate behavior. If your child knows she'll lose her phone for the day if her friend sends her an inappropriate text, she might be more motivate to set her own boundaries on that friend's behavior (or that friendship). Our kids' friends can sometimes seem to have an outsized amount of influence over our kids. Hence our concern as parents. But if we are consistent with our own expectations and discipline, we can help our children navigate a range of friendships successfully.Hear more about this topic in our episode "Kid Friend Breakups":https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/2018/05/kid-friend-breakups-episode-55/And if you have a question for Margaret or Amy you can submit them to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com.* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app!* Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast* Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast* questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we're introducing a "From The Vault" series, reconsidering some of our favorite episodes of the past four years. Our kids still get angry (imagine that) so time to revisit this one.The best way to handle our children’s anger is to equip them with the tools to handle it themselves. You don’t have to smother children's emotions in order to calm them down; as your kids get older, you really can't. But you don’t need to throw up your hands and accommodate their anger and everything that comes with it, either.We talk at length in this episode about an excellent book for kids on this topic: “What To Do When Your Temper Flares: A Kid’s Guide To Overcoming Problems With Anger.”by Dawn Huebner. The book is aimed at grade-schoolers, but there’s much to learn in here for kids of all ages (and their parents)! Whether your kid is 4 or 14, this episode will help you stand outside their storms and get your calm house back a little sooner. If you’d like a transcript of this episode, you can find it here: https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/2021/02/angermanagementtranscript/If you’d like to do a deep-dive on anger management for parents, check out our “Sometimes We Lose It” episode here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It often becomes clear to us where our boundaries should have been set only after those lines have been crossed and left far behind. But whether it's with overbearing extended family members or partners who leave socks on the floor, how do we create effective boundaries? Especially after it's been established that we're not very good at it, and especially in a world that doesn't very much like women who aren't afraid to set them?In this episode we discuss why boundaries should be set early and often– and not just in problematic relationships, either. Healthy boundaries with our spouses, partners, and co-workers are what make long-term relationships possible. And don't forget positive boundaries. Want to start setting aside more money each month? Having one date night a week, or one weekend morning when you get to sleep in? It starts with saying so.Living in a pandemic has made it unavoidable: we all have to say out loud what feels safe for us and our families. We can seize that opportunity to practice the difficult conversations. Those on the other sides of those conversations are entitled to their reactions and opinions. But that doesn't necessarily mean that setting the boundary was wrong.Here are links to some writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:Fatherly: 16 Tips For Creating Healthy Boundaries With Your Extended FamilyMark Manson: BoundariesElizabeth Earnshaw for Mind Body Green: A Therapist Explains 6 Things People Get Wrong About Setting BoundariesSarah Saweikis for Medium: Scared to Set Boundaries? How to Set Boundaries to Improve Your Relationships and Increase Peace of MindBrianna Wiest: The Honest Truth About Why Some People Can't Set Boundaries* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app!* Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast* Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast* questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's listener question comes from Rosie in our Facebook group:My little guy is in the “only want mommy” slash “must be touching mommy” phase. Any advice on how to not go insane and to still get things done with a 26-pound, 17-month old attached to my hip? Disclaimer: of course i give him all the snuggles, and I know it’s just a phase. But I’m going a little crazy.Yes, the "only mommy" phase isn't forever– and it's not something you have to train out of your kid. But it can be overwhelming while you're in it. It's okay for you to take breaks, and it's okay for your toddler not to like it. But understanding where it's coming from might make getting through this stage a little easier.Toddlers sticking close to their primary caregivers is a biological imperative: if the cave toddler lost his parent, he wouldn't eat. These days, the stakes are more akin to "might not have my cinnamon raisin toast buttered to my exact specifications," but routine and structure and control over the little things are what your toddler is focusing on right now as he figures out his world.If you have a spouse or co-parent, lean in to that person doing some of your toddler's very preferred activities. That partner might also be feeling hurt if the toddler is rejecting them; support them in that disappointment and reassure them that it's temporary. And if there's any small part of you secretly happy to be so indispensable to your child, that’s only human. Just make sure you’re not leaning in to it too much.Hear more about this topic in our episode "When Kids Prefer The Other Parent Over You (Or You Over Them)":https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/2019/07/preferotherparent-ep115/* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app!* Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast* Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast* questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we're talking to Dr. Harold Koplewicz, one of the nation's leading child and adolescent psychiatrists and the founding president of the Child Mind Institute, a national nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children  struggling with mental health and learning disorders. Dr. Koplewicz is also the author of the new book THE SCAFFOLD EFFECT: Raising Resilient, Self-Reliant and Secure Kids in an Age of Anxiety, which guides parents through strategies for raising empowered, capable people.In this episode, we discuss Dr. Koplewicz's suggestion that we create scaffolding around our children as they create their own lives. We're not the architects, we're not the builders– as parents, we're there to support the cantilevered balconies of our children's passions and interests, even if they're not at all what we imagined things would look like, or what we would build ourselves.Miscalculations are part of the plan for our children to learn resiliency and self-reliance. Dr. Koplewicz suggests scaffolding as the best way to encourage kids to climb higher and try new things, in order that they can grow from those mistakes.Find The Scaffold Effect in our Bookshop store:https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593139349 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This last (almost) year has been full of challenges. On the other hand, so many things that we thought had to be a certain way– weekends packed with travel sports, weddings with hundreds of guests, the wearing of Spanx– have been proven surprisingly optional.In this episode, we discuss the things that we and our listeners are hereby declaring we’ll never do, or wear, or worry about again. From pants with buttons to touching strangers, we are here to say that a new path forward is eminently possible.We mention our episode "What This Has Taught Us About Our Kids"– you can listen to that episode here: https://bit.ly/WFHep162* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app! * Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast * Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast * Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast * Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast * questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's question comes from our Facebook group:"My son is 5 years old and in pre-K. One of the kiddos in his class lost his dad when he was very young. Since learning this, my son has started asking us about death, and has started worrying that something is going to happen to me or my husband. I'm not sure how to talk to him about it. I want him to know that it does happen, and we need to be compassionate to his friend, but also don't want him to worry every day. How can I bring this hard topic down to his level?"Five years old is a developmentally-appropriate age for kids to start having significant questions about death, along with real worries about dying themselves or losing one of their parents. That's true whether or not they've experienced the death of someone close to them.These questions can be hard for parents because, unlike most of the other questions our kids ask, we don't have any perfectly satisfying answers to provide. Questions like "Why did my friend's dad die so young?" or "Are you going to die, Mommy?" can rattle us because we find these questions frightening and difficult ourselves.The solution is to talk openly and honestly with our children about death. Avoid metaphors and imagery like "He's gone to a better place," or "He's sleeping with the angels," which can confuse kids or make them think death is temporary. Instead, try to speak plainly about death, even if you find it very difficult. Explain that when people die, they don't come back. That is why death feels so sad for those who are still living. These discussions can– and should– also involve your own beliefs and religious traditions.Margaret also cites Anya Kamanetz's NPR article "Be Honest and Concrete: Tips for Talking To Kids About Death." Kamanetz reminds us that kids take in knowledge the way they eat an apple - a few small bites at a time. It's a great reminder to avoid overburdening kids with too much information. Instead, answer questions as they come up, read books that deal with death in an age-appropriate way, and discuss them openly– so your kids always feel that they have a chance to talk out things with you, even if those things feel scary.Margaret praises the book 'Tuck Everlasting' in this episode, which is available in our Bookshop store:https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780312369811 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices