Raising Boys & Girls

Sherman Bucher shares that while boys today are more open to getting help, many are also more anxious, less confident, and unsure how to take their next steps. He highlights the impact of online messages shaping boys’ views of strength and encourages parents to redefine it through emotional awareness and resilience. The conversation emphasizes helping boys take healthy risks, build real-world frie...

This episode highlights how boys develop true capability by practicing risk, emotional regulation, and perseverance in everyday moments. David and Sissy explain that modern life often removes these growth opportunities, and encourage parents to allow healthy struggle, teach regulation tools, and step back from rescuing—so boys can grow into resilient men whose strength becomes safety.  Resources m...

Kari Kampakis shares why today’s girls need both grace and grit—the ability to stay kind while also developing strength and resilience. She encourages parents to help their daughters build discernment, confidence, and identity, while preparing them for challenges like comparison, friendship struggles, and fear of failure. Ultimately, Kari emphasizes raising kids who are willing to take risks, trus...

This episode explores how to raise capable girls by addressing three key challenges—feelings, failings, and fear. Sissy Goff shares how girls often feel deeply, internalize failure, and face increasing anxiety, but reminds parents that these struggles don’t define them. By helping girls understand their emotions, practice kinder self-talk, and face fears with courage, we can guide them toward livi...

Dr. Arthur Brooks shares that happiness isn’t a feeling to chase, but a direction shaped by habits—cultivating enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. He highlights the importance of investing in faith, family, friendships, and meaningful work, while cautioning against the impact of screens and constant distraction. With practical insight, he encourages parents to prioritize time together, model lov...

Dr. Aliza Pressman shares five research-based principles—relationship, reflection, regulation, rules, and repair—that empower parents to raise resilient, capable kids, emphasizing that growth comes not from perfection but from consistent connection, healthy boundaries, and allowing kids to experience manageable challenges.  Resources mentioned: The 5 Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide t...

David and Sissy explore how modern parenting has shifted toward anxiety, over-helping, and outsourcing wisdom to experts—often at the cost of building real capability in kids. They encourage parents to move from relief-driven reactions to resilience-building practices by combining empathy with clear boundaries, trusting their instincts, and giving kids space to struggle and grow. Ultimately, capab...

Catherine Price explores how technology is shaping kids’ attention, mood, relationships, and development, while offering a hopeful path forward for families. She emphasizes that the goal isn’t just reducing screen time, but helping kids build fuller lives through real friendship, freedom, and fun. Catherine encourages parents to delay smartphones, create phone-free rhythms, model healthy habits, a...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas explore what they call a growing “crisis of capability” among kids today. Drawing from what they see in their counseling offices, they discuss cultural shifts that have contributed to kids feeling less able to handle normal challenges—including the rise of smartphones, the loss of play-based childhood, “language inflation” around mental health, and increasing avoidance...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas sit down with Jay and Catherine Wolf to talk about resilience, suffering, and what it really means to raise capable kids. After Catherine survived a catastrophic brainstem stroke shortly after the birth of their first son, their family’s life was forever changed. Through their journey of disability, grief, faith, and hope, the Wolfs share how suffering can actually expa...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas introduce the idea behind their book Capable and discuss the growing mental health struggles they are seeing in kids today—anxiety, isolation, and a lack of confidence in handling challenges. They explain that being “capable” doesn’t mean being fearless or perfect, but having practiced coping with emotions, developing real-life competence, and learning through challenge...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas introduce the Capable series—a conversation about the growing “crisis of capability” they’re seeing in kids today. Drawing from decades of counseling experience, they share why many kids feel anxious about growing up and how parents can intentionally build resilience, confidence, and emotional strength through everyday moments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...

In this conversation with Tara-Leigh Cobble, founder of D-Group and host of The Bible Recap, Tara shares how moving from “Bible exposure” to true “Bible engagement” transformed her faith and led to the creation of The Bible Recap for Kids and its companion podcast. She encourages parents to model a genuine love for Scripture, invite kids into conversations about who God is (not just behavior modif...

In this deeply moving conversation, Sissy and David sit down with beloved children’s author Sally Lloyd-Jones to talk about her newest book, Jesus, Our True Friend. Sally shares how her own childhood—being sent to boarding school at eight and clinging to Jesus as her best friend—inspired her lifelong desire to help children know they are never alone. The conversation weaves through themes of perfe...

This episode features a powerful conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Lee Warren about trauma, faith, and the science of hope. Drawing from his experience serving in Iraq, battling PTSD, and losing his teenage son, Dr. Warren shares how we can’t always control what happens to us—but we can influence how we experience it. Through the lens of his book, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery, he e...

In this deeply grounding conversation, Sissy and David sit down with longtime mentor and educator Melissa Trevathan to talk about what kids need spiritually right now. Melissa shares that while children’s core longings—to feel safe, loved, and significant—haven’t changed, the intensity of anxiety and pressure has. She emphasizes that spiritual formation happens primarily through relationship, not...

Sissy and David sit down with Andy Crouch to talk about what kids need in a tech-saturated world—and why their deepest needs haven’t changed. Andy explores how today’s screens foster “parasocial” connection, how AI companions could become adolescents’ most trusted voices, and why frictionless digital relationships can keep kids from growing through real-life conflict and disappointment. He encoura...

Kristen Jenson, founder of Defend Young Minds and author of Good Pictures Bad Pictures, talks with Sissy and David about why parents need to start conversations about pornography early—ideally as soon as kids have access to screens. She explains how porn often finds kids through friends’ devices, social media, apps, and even AI, and why proactive, calm conversations help build an “internal filter”...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas talk with Dr. Preston Sprinkle about how parents and the church can help kids navigate identity, gender, and sexuality with both clarity and compassion. Preston emphasizes being a non-anxious presence, starting age-appropriate, Jesus-centered conversations early, and building strong relationships that keep hard conversations open. Together, they explore how conviction a...

Sissy and David are joined by Megan Michelson and Mary Flo Ridley from Birds & Bees for a practical, hope-filled conversation about protecting kids in today’s fast-moving, tech-saturated culture. Together, they share how resilience, discernment, and safety are built through connection, calm parental leadership, and ongoing age-appropriate conversations—rather than one big “talk.” From body boundar...

In this episode, Sissy Goff and David Thomas sit down with Justin Giboney for a timely, thoughtful conversation about what kids need right now in an increasingly polarized world. Justin weaves together faith, history, and parenting wisdom to explore how compassion and conviction are not opposites but essential partners in forming resilient, grounded kids. Drawing from the Civil Rights Movement, pe...

Sissy and David unpack five things kids need culturally right now: conversation (parents as the calm, safe first source), protection in the real world (body-safety skills and wise supervision), online protection (tools + ongoing check-ins), critical thinking (helping kids evaluate what they see and hear), and a spiritual foundation (identity, hope, and guidance). Their main point: culture will sha...

Dr. Juli Fraga invites parents into the often-overlooked work of tending to their own emotions as a foundation for raising emotionally healthy kids. Drawing from her book Parents Have Feelings Too, she explains how parenting can activate old wounds, how to tell when a big reaction belongs to us rather than our child, and why calm, repair, and self-compassion matter more than getting it “right.” Ju...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas sit down with Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to talk about helping kids—and parents—understand, express, and regulate emotions with wisdom and compassion. Drawing from his own story and decades of research, Marc unpacks why all emotions are information, explains the RULER framework in a practical, parent-friendly way,...

Sissy Goff and David Thomas welcome Devon Kuntzman, founder of Transforming Toddlerhood, for a practical conversation about what toddlers need most right now. Devon reframes challenging toddler behavior as communication—not defiance—explaining how immature brain development, limited language, and sensory overload shape big emotions. She encourages parents to focus on co-regulation, connection, and...