This Is So Awkward

Growing up requires the building blocks of many, many skills over time. From crossing the street to driving a car to working a first job, each new level demands increased self-sufficiency. The hard part for parents is knowing when a kid is ready for each stage and the best ways to let go. This episode offers guidance for the journey that kids (and parents) will travel along the way.  Show Notes: W...

“Find a trusted adult.” Kids hear this endlessly––you probably do, too, if you’re a frequent listener to this podcast. Why? Because it’s one strategy that’s proven to keep kids safe and healthy. In this episode, we take a deeper dive into trusted adults: who are they? What role can and should they play? How and why should they set boundaries? And how can they support themselves as they support kid...

It’s simultaneously wonderful and worrying to launch a kid. The most common denominator question is a version of this: Are they going to be ok when they leave us? We hope – and wonder – if we’ve taught them enough to be out in the world. Christina Geist spent her oldest child’s senior year of high school compiling those life lessons in Before You Fly Away. Her musings are as heartfelt as they are...

If you ask parents what they want for their kid, 99% say some version of: I just want them to be happy! But happiness––and how we achieve it––is complex and layered. We turned to the happiness guru, Dr. Laurie Santos, founder of the Happiness Lab and professor of Yale’s famous class “Psychology and the Good Life,” for answers and insights. You’ll be so happy you listened! Show Notes: Watch the ful...

Show Notes: Watch the full episode on Youtube! Join the LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP HUB Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns.  Download the FREE Playbook for Getting Your Kid to Talk Order our book This Is So Awkward Check out all our speaking and curriculum at www.lessawkward.com and our super comfy products at www.myoomla.com To bring...

The world around kids’ access to technology is changing at lightning speed – from bell-to-bell school phone bans to the re-emergence of the landline to governmental social media limits for those under 16. No one has been more at the center of these shifts than social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He joins us along with his The Amazing Generation co-author Catherine Price for a lively conversation a...

Two particularly powerful forces affecting boys – looksmaxxing and the manosphere – have gone mainstream. If you care about boys and young men, you must educate yourself in order to talk to them. Looksmaxxing and the manosphere have a fair amount of overlap, which is why a conversation that begins about one often lands at the other. To talk about these topics, you need to know what they are, the v...

When people think of gynecology, they usually think of care that happens for older teens and adults, from birth control to pregnancy to menopause. But there’s a whole world of gynecologic conditions that affect young girls and adolescents, too. Dr Nichole A Tyson + Dr. Joseph Sanfilippo, giants in the field of Pediatric Adolescent Gynecology, join us for a wide ranging conversation about painful p...

Exams have always been a stressful part of growing up. But layer on growing college admissions pressure, spiraling teen mental health, and recognition of the wide variety of learning styles, and the volume turns way up. This episode was prompted by a listener's question seeking advice about how to get through exam season from every angle: from the role of AI to the necessity of exams in the first...

What makes kids tick? Even when they appear uninterested, defiant, or lazy, there’s usually much more lurking under the surface. To learn how to pull it out of them––and how to connect and communicate, too––we’re joined by Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes (inspiration for the movie Mean Girls), who has spent her career exploring how to get the best out of tweens and teens. Show...

Emotional intelligence is often called EQ. Some might say it’s a soft skill, but in fact research shows it’s central to lifelong resilience and wellbeing. Building EQ takes years and years––adults are still working on it too!––but starting young, kids can develop self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision making abilities. This episode digs into all the wa...

Sexuality education is proven to have positive impacts on kids’ lifelong wellbeing in all areas and yet, people assume it only covers S-E-X. In fact, as health educator Shafia Zaloom discusses on the podcast, this corner of education provides young people with a wide variety of life-critical skills like emotional intelligence, boundary setting, conflict resolution, and so much more. Yes, science-b...

Gut instinct is only partially innate – it’s also very much learned and developed over time. And it turns out to be a fundamental safety skill kids need to master. To do this, we need to shed the “stranger danger” approach of the 1980s, replacing it with the concept of “tricky people,” because it turns out that those who harm kids are often not strangers to them at all. This episode is all about h...

Parenting brings up so many difficult emotions like: disgust, disappointment, anger and more. Layer on top the shame parents experience for having those feelings! Two mental health professionals, Hilary Hendel and Julie Fraga, authors of Parents Have Feelings Too, join us to normalize the full emotional landscape of parenting and offer tools for moving forward in loving and constructive ways. Show...

Kids are constantly analyzing and expressing their views on fairness––they do it in school, at home, on the sports field, basically everywhere. There are two different interpretations of fairness: equity and equality. We explore the difference between meeting each person’s individual needs vs slicing the pie the same way for all. While the constant refrain of “It’s not fair!” can be irritating to...

It’s easy to feel untethered in a modern world filled with stressors and tech-laden realities, but research tells us that the secret sauce is mattering: a combination of feeling valued and offering value back. Mattering fuels wellbeing. Journalist Jennifer Wallace, author of Mattering, joins us to explain this beautiful concept, sharing data-driven ways to achieve it for ourselves, our families, a...

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence is affecting every aspect of our lives, including education. When it comes to the impact of AI on kids’ learning and overall wellbeing, we don’t have the luxury of waiting on long-term studies. There is, however, a new “pre-mortem” study out from Brookings, looking at whether AI does more good or more harm in education. Here with the answers is Dr. Re...

The pressure to look a certain way and perform at peak athletic levels keeps moving younger and younger. It begs the question: what’s actually healthy and safe for growing bodies? This episode starts with the science of growth spurts and then answers some of the most common questions we get: is it safe for tweens + teens to weight train? If so, at what age? How important is cross-training really? ...

Teaching kids about consent begins in their earliest years as they learn what it looks like to give and receive permission for any number of things. Hand in hand is their developing sense of privacy and safety in relationship to others. All of these skills become critical as kids grow and mature. Pediatrician and author of Eyes, Knees, Boundaries Please!, Dr. Krupa Playforth, joins us for a joyful...

We’re not big believers in New Year’s resolutions, but we ARE big believers in resolving to make change and do better. This episode is about learning lessons from the past, recognizing where we want to (and need to) take a do-over, and harnessing that wisdom as we head into the new year! Show Notes: Watch the full episode on Youtube! Join the LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP HUB Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD fo...

There is another F word – no, not that one. It’s FAWN, the under-appreciated fourth companion of the well-known coping responses: fight, flight, and freeze. Fawning means people-pleasing, and it can be used for survival – truly! Listen to this fascinating conversation with psychotherapist Meg Josephson on how to recognize fawning, break the cycle, and replace it with other coping strategies. She h...

Headlines blare with the dangers of tech, frightening parents and shaming kids. Making sense of the data requires research-based guidance rooted in an understanding of adolescent development. Enter Erin Walsh author of It’s Their World: Teens, Screens, and the Science of Adolescence for ways forward that both set limits and foster connection with young people.  There is a Snapchat sponsored segmen...

Secure attachment is a term that gets thrown around, but it’s often not clear what it means or why it matters! In fact, it’s a decades old psychological concept that points to the protective impact on a child’s lifelong wellbeing of having just one caring adult. Therapist and author of Raising Securely Attached Kids, Eli Harwood AKA the Attachment Nerd, joins the podcast to dissect the critical ro...

A life with more independence, generally has more risk. As kids get older, they might start walking to school alone, playing on travel sports teams, sleeping at friends’ houses, driving on their own, or exploring outdoors… all increasingly without adult supervision. Expanding autonomy demands new tools for safety, including the rationale behind the rules. This episode is chock full of common scena...

Longevity isn’t just about living longer, but living well. Yes getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet, and regular exercise are important for longevity, but so is recognizing and releasing feelings. Dr. Elisha Goldstein joins us to explore overwhelm, and then helps outline small, actionable steps we can take to improve our well-being to model emotional longevity for our kids.  Show Notes: Wa...