What Fresh Hell: Laughing In The Face Of Motherhood

Take our listener survey! Here's the link: https://bit.ly/whatfreshhellsurvey 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/2020/01/angermanagementtranscript/, If you’d like to do a deep-dive on anger manage

Each week Margaret or Amy tackles a listener's most pressing question. This week Margaret answers the question, "How can I get my kids to care about things I think are important?" Submit your questions at questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of our very favorite things to say on this podcast, “back to one," is a term you'll hear dozens of times a day on any television or film set. It means resetting everything about a scene-- the cameras, the actors, the extras, the dollar bill that gets handed over, the coffee cup that gets picked up-- in order to do another take of that same scene. There's never any sense of disappointment or whose-fault-was-it judgment involved in doing a "back to one." It's just a reset so you can try it all again. We apply "back to one" to all areas of our parenting lives that need a reset, whether it's twice a month or once every ninety seconds (take that deep, cleansing breath). And as we look to a new decade, we're making this new year's goals "back to ones" as well. We're skipping the part where we feel bad that we didn't read all the books we said we would last year. We're just saying "back to one" and resetting that intention for the coming year. Here are what our listeners told us their "back to ones" for the new

Each week Margaret or Amy tackles a listener's most pressing question. This week Amy answers the question, "How can we teach our three-year-old son that he has to share his toys with his soon-to-crawl baby sister?" Amy mentions this article by Sarah S. MacLaughlin for Zero to Three- it's full of great suggestions on this topic: http://https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1964-helping-young-children-with-sharing Submit your questions at questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each week Amy or Margaret tackles a listener's most pressing question. This week Margaret answers, "How do I handle splitting time between my parents and my husband's parents at the holidays?" Submit your questions to info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Experts say happiness is often purer in the anticipation of an event. The reality can be a little more messy. And at no time of year is that sentiment more true than during the holiday season. We asked our listeners to tell us their holiday worsts, and in this episode we discuss them all, plus a few of our own. Hams glazed with norovirus! Toddlers sleeping in airports! And of course, everyone's favorite Yuletide treat: The Vomiting Christmas Baby! And yet those are the holidays we remember best. Which makes it (almost) all worth it. Think your holiday season has been a little crazy? Hold our eggnog. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

FOMO, or the “fear of missing out,” was a term coined around 2011 to describe the feeling you get when you see friends on social media posting about lives just a little more exciting than your own. Behavioral researcher Dan Ariely calls it "the worry that tugs at the corners of our minds, set off by the fear of regret." It's a feeling definitely made worse by the constant ability we all have to check in on what other people are doing. According to a 2016 survey, three-quarters of parents use Facebook; 61% of those parents check it several times a day. "We get online to check on what everyone else is doing on a wonderful summer afternoon," writer Susan Narjala explains, "and it takes about ten seconds to feel worse about ourselves and our lives." But even when we succeed in unplugging, FOMO can rear its head in real life. And once we become parents, the FOMO we feel on our kids' behalf-- the party invites that don't come, the Disney World vacations we can't afford right now-- can seriously interfere with our h

Do you respond to the idea of "practicing" gratitude with a heavy dose of nope? In this episode we discuss the science behind the gratitude>>happiness>>more gratitude>>more happiness loop. Studies have proven that regularly expressing gratitude actually changes the structures of our brains to make us healthier and happier, thanks to something called "positive recall bias." In other words, if you start looking out for yellow cars, you'll suddenly see them wherever you go. Wouldn't we all be better off living in a happier, yellowier-car world? And what if getting to that point was 1) not that hard and 2) kind of fun also? Our guest this week is Nancy Davis Kho, author of the new book The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time. Nancy's book is a lovely meditation on gratitude, and also a how-to guide to starting your own thank-you-letter-writing project. We loved this book! If you'd like to hear more about raising grateful kids , we've got an episode for that too! Just click

Whining is what experts call a “low-power strategy of dominance.” Kids do it because it’s what’s available to them. Since it drives parents bonkers, it’s remarkably effective. And it turns out whining really is as annoying as we think it is. A recent study tested whether adults (non-parents and parents both) were more distracted by whining than other sounds. The result? Everyone in the study, whether they had kids or not, found the sound of a whining toddler twice as distracting as the sound of a table saw screeching at full volume. As effective as this "auditory sensitivity" is, no wonder most humans between the ages of two and four learn to take full advantage. Still, there are things we can do to make the whining bother us less, which will make it less effective, which will make our kids do it less, and look who's got a strategy of dominance now? In this episode, we discuss the best ways to deal with whiners, and how to perhaps greet it with a bit more generosity. We might as well; we're probably stuck wit

Each week Amy or Margaret answers a listener's most pressing parenting question.  Today Margaret tackles the question, "Should I throw away the diapers to encourage my kiddo to commit to potty training?" Submit yours! questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's hard not to be a little nervous when your kid is the only one still crying at preschool dropoff. Or the only one still spelling everything wrong in third grade. Sometimes it turns out to be a late bloomer situation, nothing to worry about. Sometimes it's an early indicator of something your kid might struggle with for a long time. How do we move beyond our own stress about what our kids are and aren't doing like the rest of the bunch? How do we adjust our demands to meet what our kids are actually capable of? How do we set our parental expectations so that our kids will be motivated to try harder without feeling bad about themselves? It's a tricky balance, best summed up by parent coach Sarah Wayland: "If we never had expectations that were beyond our children’s current abilities, we wouldn’t teach them anything.... But I’m at my absolute worst as a parent when my expectations are far beyond my kids’ abilities." Here are links to research and other writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode: Jo

We asked the listeners to tell us their extremely minor annoyances of motherhood-- the smaller and more seemingly inconsequential, the better, because it turns out those are things that really make us loco. From soggy bath toys, to pushing swings, to the toddler who spins around and offers the wrong arm to be put into the held-up coat sleeve, here are many of the teeny-tiny things that drive moms insane. Join the fun on our Facebook page! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anyone old enough to remember TV antennas and New Coke usually says that things were way better in the free-wheeling, simple-living, “don't come home till it's getting dark outside” days of our childhoods. But were they really? And what about for our parents? From maternity clothes to snow days to school nights to movie nights, in this episode we decide whether the things that loom largest in our lives as kids (and now as moms) are Better Then or Better Now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The "invisible workload" has become shorthand for the never-ending to-do list that moms keep in our heads-- because much of that work is invisible to the people we do it for, let alone the larger world. That work falls to us because moms tend to be the default parent, whatever our outside-the-home workload (or that of our spouses) might be. Are you the one who leaves work when the baby throws up at day care? Do you know which closet the wrapping paper is in- and if you're almost out? Is it your calendar that keeps track of when your kid has to bring the snack for soccer? Yup, us too. Most of us get majorly resentful about this invisible work. Some of us make lists of it all (to make it more visible). Those lists make us mad. Not very much changes. We start to think that this is just the way it has to be. But we don't have to fall for the old chestnut that women are just better at multitasking, and so we might as well keep doing it all. As professor of neurogenetics Dr. Pat Levitt explains: "I don't know of an

No matter what ages our kids are, when they need rescuing, they look to Mom. And whether we rescue them or not, we’re left second-guessing whatever it is we just did.  Did you bring that forgotten lunch to school? Nice helicoptering, loser!  Did you leave your kid to figure out his own way home from baseball when it was getting dark? Really, how can you live with yourself?  In this episode, we talk about all the situations our kids have (and will) want rescuing from, and whether or not each requires our stepping in-- and how to know.  We discuss: why “natural consequences” for your forgetful kid doesn’t mean she’ll remember her cleats next time; the structures and scaffolding you can put in place so kids can start rescuing themselves; and why “muscle confusion” isn’t just for the gym. Basically, we think that if your kids blow it once in a while, you should go ahead and bring them the right shoes. But don’t forget to give your kids the gifts of solving their own problems once in a while.  As parenting expert

Have you ever felt coerced into parenting in a way you usually wouldn’t because you were in public? Does the tsk-ing disapproval of Aunt Joan feel even worse than eyerolls from strangers? Do you discipline your kids differently in front of friends who might hold a tighter line, even if it's in your house? Do you ever give a "now you listen to me, young man" lecture to one of your kids primarily for the benefit of his or her siblings? For better and for worse, parenting with an audience means doing things differently.  In this episode we discuss what to say to well-meaning (but still interfering) onlookers with front-row seats to your kid's tantrum without making What That Lady Must Think your primary focus. As parenting columnist Sarah Coyne reminds us, we should focus on strengthening our connections with our kids rather than pleasing the onlookers. Kids need consistent, reliable, trustworthy parents who don’t change their game plan based upon who’s acting as witness." Here are links to other writing on t

What is it about the kid who throws sand that other kids find so irresistible? How do we keep our kids away from bad influences in their lives, especially as they get older? And why do parents sometimes peg exactly the wrong kids as good influences? In this episode we discuss what age groups are most susceptible to peer influence (good and bad), how to approach the parent of a suspected bad-influencer, and how to teach our kids to approach these situations on their own. As Timothy Verduin, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU, explains: "If you want kids who are resilient, you can’t isolate them from social pathogens. Think about the long view, that you’re training them to handle less-than-ideal people and solve their own problems." Here are links to research and other writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode: Jennifer Bleyer for Real Simple: 9 Bad Influences on Your Child (or You) Diana Simeon for Your Teen Mag: When to Call Another Parent About Teenage Behavior Problems Laure

We asked the members of our Facebook group for your "hot takes"- that is to say, the things you feel insanely strongly about while the rest of the world is seemingly indifferent.  From athleisure to mayonnaise to french-fry consistency to the enduring fame of Coldplay, these are your extremely fervent hot takes and unpopular opinions.  Should pizza ever, under any circumstances, be topped with pineapple? Should trophies for mere participation be forever banned? Was Dr. Seuss not that great of an actual writer? Here's what all of you really, really want the rest of us to know.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What should we as parents do when the well-meaning grandparents in our lives are overindulgent of their grandchildren? Or undermine our parenting choices? And what do we do with our own hurt feelings when our parents don't seem very interested in our kids at all? In this episode we talk about how to create a grandparent relationship that works for everyone. It's worth the effort. Take it from our friend Belinda Luscombe, who when it comes to navigating this relationship, reminds us of the ever-present upside: "Don't let the opportunity of getting to know your in-laws or parents in a different way pass you by." Here are links to some writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode: Susan Newman, Ph.D: Little Things Mean a Lot: Creating Happy Memories With Your Grandchildren Jaycee Dunn for Parents: What to Do About Uninvolved Grandparents Jo Piazza for Parents: From Toxic Mother to Loving Grandmother: How I Learned to Forgive My Mom After My Son Was Born Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoi

Kids don't usually seek to lose their dependence on us as parents- and why should they? Doesn’t a grilled cheese taste so much better when Mom makes it?  So it’s up to us to teach our kids independence, and that means showing them how an ATM works sometime before they leave for college. How do we start the nest-leaving process early and often? Our guest is Lisa Heffernan, co-creator of the parenting-older-kids website Grown and Flown. She and Lisa Heffernan are the co-authors of the new book Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults. Lisa says yes, we should start preparing our kids now to survive without us— but she’s not arguing for tough love as the only answer, whether our kids are three or twenty-three. “Being involved in your kid’s life does NOT make you a helicopter parent,” Lisa says. "It makes you a loving, supportive parent.”  It’s often harder, longer, and more complicated to make our kids do something than to just do it for them. But this week