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

This extended pause has been really hard for some of our kids, and actually sort of good for others. For every lonely preschooler who just wants to finally have someone to play “bad guys” with, there’s a formerly rambunctious middle-schooler who became a real scholar without all the distractions of the in-person classroom. And the happiest kids have sometimes surprised us. The family Eeyore is sunnily certain things will be back to normal soon, while the happy-go-lucky one is taking more naps. We've learned (again) that our kids are more complicated than we imagined.In this episode, we discuss the things we’ve learned about our kids and will take forward as parents, both for the kids who have weirdly thrived and for those who have struggled. Here are links to research and other writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:Aaron E. Carroll for the NYT: The Coronavirus Has Made It Obvious. Teenagers Should Start School Later.Nora Fleming for Edutopia: Why Are Some Kids Thriving During Remote Learning?Randy Kulman, Ph.D. for Psychology Today: Will Distance Learning Produce a Coronavirus Virus Slump?Debbie Meyer for Education Post: It Was Hard Being a Dyslexia Mom Before Coronavirus, And Now It's Even HarderDebbie Meyer for Education Post: Here’s How Remote Learning Could Help Struggling ReadersCaroline Preston for The Hechinger Report: ‘A drastic experiment in progress’: How will coronavirus change our kids? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each week Amy or Margaret answers on listener's most pressing question.This week a listener asks: "Any thoughts on how to get my 8 year old son to listen to/ ead anything outside his go-to genre?"Amy suggests the "You Wouldn't Want To Be" series as particularly appealing AND educational for grade-schoolers... you can find those books here: https://www.youwouldntwantto.be/Submit your parenting question- we might answer yours next!questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No joke: this is a particularly anxiety-provoking time. And even if our kids are little, and we manage to keep the TV off most of the time, they're still picking up on a certain hum in the house, a new and different frequency. But our job as parents is not to make it feel like like the pandemic, the social unrest, the climate change, and the coarsened social discourse of this moment isn't happening. Our job is to talk with our children about these times in age-appropriate ways.Here's the good news: we're not supposed to present our kids with the solutions to all the things that might scare them. We're supposed to meet them where they are, help them discuss their feelings, and then ask them what feels like the right thing to do next.Our guest this week is Dr. Abigail Gewirtz, a professor at the University of Minnesota. She’s an award-winning child psychologist and leading expert on families under stress, Her new book is WHEN THE WORLD FEELS LIKE A SCARY PLACE: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids. There couldn't be a better book for right now! It offers parents a clear and practical guide to discussing sensitive topics in a calm, reassuring, and productive way, that will help kids comprehend and process the world around them. We also mentioned The Week Jr. as a great resource for your 8-14 year old child to receive clear and non-terrifying information about these newsworthy times. If you have a kid who is asking questions, it's a relief to be able to offer them accurate information that won't be more than they can handle.The latest issue is available for free download here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aqNTPKKk7fs6iNMX2zvCuDRiPJzxHbyC/view Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each week Margaret or Amy answers one listener's most pressing question.Today Margaret answers the question, "What can I do about my husband who gives terrible gifts?"Submit your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shutting it all down was definitely hard, but the parameters of the assignment were clear.Reopening is more like: do what you want when we think you can, or at least aren't fully convinced that you can’t.Most of us are probably going to need to leave our houses before vaccines are available at your neighborhood Walgreens. But how do we do that safely when kids touch seriously everything? When masks are optional? When all we are learning about this virus is how little we know? We live in a world where we are entitled to make our own decisions, for ourselves and for our families. But other people's decisions affect us, including some people we are closely related to.How do we understand and mitigate the actual risks? How are we going to do this when everyone’s doing it differently?Here are links to writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:Carolyn Hax: Balancing snowbird migration and virus mitigationGerman Lopez and Amanda Northrop for Vox: How to weigh the risk of going out in the coronavirus pandemic, in one chartEmily Oster: Grandparents & Day CareRoni Caryn Rabin for NYT: How to Navigate Your Community Reopening? Remember the Four C’sLeana S. Wen for Washington Post: Four concepts to assess your personal risk as the U.S. reopens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each week Margaret or Amy answers a listener's parenting question.This week Amy answers the question, "How do I get my incredibly active 2 1/2 year old to stop when I tell her to?"Submit your parenting question– we might answer yours next! questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The idea that our kids are colorblind, and that we therefore should put off talking to our kids about race because they’re too young to understand its complicating factors, is wrong. And mothers of color could have told us that a long time ago.As parents, we should be talking about race with our kids early and often. Dr. Erin Winkler’s work shows that when parents are silent about race with our kids, or use "colorblind" rhetoric, we may actually reinforce racial prejudice.Yes, exploring race and racism and its many implications makes many of us uncomfortable. But it may be a lot easier than we're making it, as this week's guest, Deborah Porter, explains: “You have to be able to tell the truth in an age-appropriate way. To not discuss race is not being truthful. We can be truthful with our children about what race looks like in an age-appropriate way, where for them, it's just the thing that we're talking about today."We've created a Google doc with lists and articles and videos and social media accounts that can help us all in our work of raising anti-racist kids. You can find the list at bit.ly/raisingantiracistkids. If you see other resources you'd like us to add, tag us or send us an email: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com.Here are links to writing and research on the topic that we discuss in this episode:Mellody Hobson’s TED Talk: Color Blind, or Color Brave? Dr. Erin Winkler: Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn RaceSierra Filucci for Common Sense Media: How White Parents Can Use Media to Raise Anti-Racist Kidsprettygooddesign.org: Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntoshMargaret Hagerman for Time: Why White Parents Need to Do More Than Talk to Their Kids About Racism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each week Margaret or Amy answers one listener's most pressing question.Today Margaret answers the question, "What should I do about my kids' troublesome coping mechanisms during the coronavirus outbreak?"Submit your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here comes the summer of nothing! For older kids, camps and sports leagues and internships and jobs are canceled. For little kids, even "Camp Grandma" isn't a sure thing this year.We usually look forward to summer as a lazy-living, sleep in and lie around break from our usual hectic lives. But our kids have already *had* three months of lying around doing nothing, and the thought of three more months of cranky pajama time is not reassuring.How are we going to make July different from March this year?Our guests this week are Ashley Hearon-Smith and Keri Setaro from the Momtourage podcast. We talk with Ashley and Keri about the "special hard" of each age group when you're looking at a summer calendar with basically nothing on it.No matter how old your kids are, we think the answer is pretty much the same: give your kids the gift of free play, also known as the Land On The Other Side of Boredom.Here are links to writing on this topic that we discuss in this episode:Melissa Bernstein for Thrive Global: How Screen Time is Edging Out Play Time – and Why It MattersEsther Entin for The Atlantic: All Work and No Play: Why Your Kids Are More Anxious, DepressedPeter Gray: Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life Michael E. Ruane for Washington Post: The coronavirus wrecked spring. Will it claim summer, too?Sydney Trent for Washington Post: Summer jobs for teens are scarce, but a little boredom has its benefits Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each week Amy or Margaret answers one listener's most pressing question.Today Amy answers the question, "What can I do about my toddler who is giving a hard time to my older child?"Submit your question to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices