Laugh Lines with Kim & Penn Holderness

As someone who has said one of their family’s values is resilience, I have a hard time with seeing my kids quit something. If something isn’t serving me or isn’t something I am interested in, I have no problem saying no. (This took years to master, by the way.) So why do I have a problem with my kids wanting to quit something? This week, we invited our dear friend and parenting coach, Dr. Hope Sei...

Penn here. The other day I drove home from rural North Carolina after yet another youth basketball tournament. There are moments I question my sanity for agreeing to coach my son’s basketball team. It’s a time and energy commitment that can be draining. But there’s something else too. Coaching his team has taught me a great deal and I believe has made me a better parent. Kim and I discuss the less...

Hoping you all are enjoying your summer so far. Happy to say that Penn and I are currently in full-on summer mode. After a very busy spring with our book tour, we’ve been lucky enough to squeeze in some beach time in between work, sports, camps, and college prep for Lola. Penn Charles capped off his busy spring with a celebration for graduating from 8th grade. PC was quick to remind us that this w...

Emotions are hard. Teen emotions are VERY hard. We brought in one of our favorite people to talk to us about the new Pixar movie, Inside Out 2 . For the past four years, Dr. Lisa Damour has worked with the writers as they explore how becoming a teenager changes Riley’s emotional world. The author of three  New York Times  bestsellers, she helps highlight some of the uncomfortable emotion...

I have fond memories of riding bikes and walking around the mall, with my biggest worry being how to avoid the intense southern heat. Fast forward to today, my 17-year-old daughter’s summer is planned out to the minute. Between college applications, tennis, and being a normal social teenager, her schedule is could be compared to a complex military operation. It made me start to think about ho...

Penn and I do lots of things together. We work together, we live together, we travel together, and now we… dream together? (No, like literally the same dream. What do dreams mean?!) On this week’s podcast, we brought in expert dream analyst Jane Teresa Anderson to see if she could unravel that dream for us (and she also unraveled some of yours from those who called in!) Jane Teresa defines dreams...

What a journey this past month has been. Kim and I finished up our final book tour appearance last week in Minneapolis - and we loved meeting all of you! ADHD Is Awesome is research-based and we interviewed many doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists to get as broad a perspective as possible. But in the end, it's written from my perspective. When I look back at the process of writing this book,...

Recently, I went back to therapy. Penn says has already seen a difference in me and I can feel it too. I'm a big fan of therapy and have been in and out of it, for whatever reason, my entire adult life. Doing the work (plus being encouraged by my doctor to go on a pediatric-sized dose of medication) has made the world a little brighter and easier for me to navigate. It goes without saying that the...

First off, let me say that we are humbled and grateful for you all and the support of our book, ADHD Is Awesome . For the past few weeks, we’ve met so many of you on our book tour and I can’t tell you how incredibly emotional it’s been for us. (I’m a big ball of mush right now.) In this week’s podcast, we reflect on our first two legs of the book tour, what we did after finding out about making th...

My mother (who I love and adore) moved to town in January to be closer to our family. It’s been wonderful to be able to call her up to see if she wants to go to dinner on a random Wednesday.  So last week, I did just that. Her response? “I have to check my calendar.” Wait, what? As she thumbed through her calendar looking for a free night, I started to think to myself “am I fai...

As I write this, we are celebrating 19 years of pure, wedded bliss (do you hear the sarcasm?) NINETEEN YEARS. Our marriage is a freshman in college. Our marriage probably has a fake ID and makes bad decisions in bars. But on the balance, I will say I feel incredibly lucky. We have a really great marriage. This week we discuss our best marriage tips... including why Penn doesn't poop in our ho...

If you are listening to this on April 30th - the day this podcast came out - our new book, ADHD Is Awesome is out today! About five years ago, we started making ADHD content and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. (Spoiler alert: Your encouragement was a big motivator for us writing this book!) The biggest question we've gotten while writing this was: Will there be an audiobook? Well, today...

Yay, you made it to the end (and a HUGE thank you for listening!) This is Part 3 of our 3-part ADHD Is Awesome bonus series. This podcast series is inspired by our new book ADHD Is Awesome which comes out April 30, 2024. In this series, we plan to answer three big questions: 1) What does ADHD look like, 2) How do you best partner with someone who has ADHD, and 3) What do you do with your ADHD to (...

Hi friends, Penn here. As some of you know, I am obsessed with all things sci-fi. This traces way back to my childhood during the Star Wars and Star Trek days that sparked a lifelong fascination for all things space. It’s the main reason that I always wanted to be an astronaut. Fast forward to today, you can see that life took me in a wildly different direction. (Plus I have terrible vertigo...

Welcome back! This is Part 2 of our 3-part ADHD Is Awesome bonus series! This podcast series is inspired by our new book ADHD Is Awesome which comes out April 30, 2024. In this series, we plan to answer three big questions: 1) What does ADHD look like, 2) How do you best partner with someone who has ADHD, and 3) What do you do with your ADHD to (mostly) thrive. This week, we have Dr. Emily King jo...

I love discovering new things about people through great conversation. But lately I’ve been thinking about how to avoid the pitfalls of asking a question that might make the other person feel uncomfortable or awkward. One of the reasons for that self-reflection is the fact that we have a junior in high school and previously, if I met up with one of her friends, I'd ask, “Where are you thinking abo...

Welcome to our 3-part ADHD Is Awesome bonus series! This podcast series is inspired by our new book ADHD Is Awesome which comes out April 30, 2024. In this series, we plan to answer three big questions: 1) what does ADHD look like, 2) how do you best partner with someone who has ADHD, and 3) what do you do with your ADHD to (mostly) thrive. This week, we have Dr. Marcy Caldwell join us who had a b...

Most of you that have followed us for a while know I’m an anxious person. You know one thing that bizarrely doesn’t scare me? Artificial intelligence taking over the world. There's a lot of hills I'm gonna die on. But if there's a zombie apocalypse triggered by AI? Take me first, alien overlords. Penn is extremely worried about artificial intelligence and what could happen if it gets in the w...

If you had a button to get rid of your ADHD or someone else’s, would you press it? The perception society has around Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is pretty negative. You would find it hard to believe there are benefits to something that has three unfavorable words as part of its name. I would rename ADHD in a heartbeat if I could. In our book, ADHD Is Awesome , we talk about alter...

I heard of schadenfreude for the first time while sitting in the audience of the hilariously wonderful Broadway show Avenue Q . It means pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. But if schadenfreude is taking pleasure in someone’s misfortune, can you take pleasure in someone’s joy? Enter freudenfreude. On this week’s podcast, we had Dr. Catherine Chambliss teach us how to prac...

I have a solid marriage, a great one actually, but most nights I look over to my husband, who falls blissfully asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, and I’m filled with RAGE. How does he fall asleep so quickly?!? How does his body let him STAY asleep?! Apparently, sleep disruption like I am experiencing is one of the many (many) symptoms of perimenopause. But sometimes, I feel like it’s some...

Penn here! This week, we recorded a live podcast at SXSW in Austin, Texas about how to (mostly) thrive with ADHD. We talk about how the world wasn’t built for ADHD and what systems I’ve put in place to make life more manageable. My hope is that we can find more understanding for those of us with different, but wonderful brains. If you have ADHD, how would you change your school or workplace t...

Recently, we had the privilege of going on family vacation in the Caribbean and one of the activities we planned was snorkeling. He was particularly excited about seeing the “nerf shark.” (Yes, he said nerf shark instead of nurse shark.) Penn is very smart. He’s one of those annoying people who took the SAT and got an amazing score the first time. So, I cannot tell you how happy it made me that he...

We have very fun (but weird) jobs where we have to always be producing something. Small business owners know that you have to hustle in order to make a living. Your success (or failure) is a direct correlation of your work. And it’s a lot of pressure. This week on our podcast, we interviewed Celeste Headlee, author of Do Nothing: How To Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underli...

I am pretty sure I didn’t do “gentle parenting” with my kids. To be clear, Penn and I don’t really have to discipline our children. They are wonderful kids and on their way to be amazing adults. But when they were toddlers having a tantrum, I can’t say that I was gentle. But should I be? Is it too late to change my parenting? Enter our dear friend, Dr. Hope Seidel , a parenting coach and pedi...