Access to sexual education for our youth is unbelievably important both from a health standpoint and from an education standpoint. But so many schools these days have sex education as optional and many don’t even require the curriculum to be medically accurate. 

That’s why I’m so excited to talk with Tara Jones all about how she’s helping to change the landscape of sexual education. 

Tara is a black queer sex educator based in Philadelphia and New York. For the last five years that work has consisted of creating sex education, social media content aimed at young adults, writing for various publications and speaking at events. She is also the founder of the Youth Sexpert Program, a digital training program that aims to provide comprehensive sex education for high school enrolled youth. 

Listen in to hear her thoughts on why educating tweens and teens and creating peer advocates is so much more effective than traditional sex education and how she’s affecting this change now. 

The importance of access to sexual education for kids.

Why Tara created the Youth Sexpert Program and what it entails.

The barriers that exist when it comes to accessing sex education.

The Youth Sexpert Program -http://www.theyouthsexpertprogram.org

Instagram -http://www.instagram.com/theyouths3xpertprogram

The Importance of Comprehensive Sex Education -https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/adolescent-sexual-health/equitable-access-to-sexual-and-reproductive-health-care-for-all-youth/the-importance-of-access-to-comprehensive-sex-education/

Sex Positive Families -https://sexpositivefamilies.com/

Good Sex Illustrated -https://amzn.to/4aVxib3

Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life -https://amzn.to/4ca2YKR

Right to Sex-https://amzn.to/4bMAR4L

How did The Youth Sexpert Program come to be?

How was The Youth Sexpert Program's curriculum built and what does it contain?

What have your observations been regarding how students approach talking about sex?

What have your observations been regarding conversations between youth and parents about sex?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

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It is not productive to think negatively of our children's teenage years. Instead we need to find ways to embrace this time period and support the changes they’re experiencing while giving them room to grow, learn, and fail with us. 

But it seems like all the literature out there is designed to scare and dishearten parents as their children reach these later years. What should we be reading? 

Thankfully, Ellen Galinsky decided it was time to share the positive side of parenting teenagers. 

Ellen is President of Families and Work Institute, elected President of the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN), and senior research advisor to AASA, the School Superintendent Organization. Previous jobs include Chief Science Officer at the Bezos Family Foundation and faculty at Bank Street College. Her life’s work revolves around identifying important societal questions, conducting research to seek answers, and turning the findings into action. 

Her research is focused on work-life, children’s development, youth voice, child-care, parent-professional relationship, and parental development. She’s the author of the best-selling Mind in the Making and The Breakthrough Years. She’s also authored 90 books/reports and 360 articles. Career highlights include serving as President of NAEYC, a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, a parent expert on the Mister Rogers Talks with Parents TV series, receiving a Distinguished Achievement Award from Vassar College and the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from WFRN.

Listen as Ellen shares more about the research she’s done and how we as parents can lean into the teenage years in such a way that provides our children with opportunities to practice autonomy and self-determination. 

What teens want most from us as parents.

Ways to give teens autonomy support.

What shared solutions are and how we can use them to help our teens build their executive function.

The five basic needs teenagers have.

Message 1

Understanding Adolescent Development -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/understanding-adolescent-development

Message 2

Talk With, Not At Teens -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/talk-with-not-at-teens

Listening is Where Love Begins -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/listening-is-where-love-begins

A Skill-Building Approach: Don’t Hold the Leash Too Tight-https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/a-skill-building-approach-dont-hold

Shared Solutions: An Autonomy Supportive Approach -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/shared-solutions-an-autonomy-supportive

Introducing a Possibilities Mindset -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/introducing-a-possibilities-mindset

Message 3

The Power of Positive Risk Taking -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/the-power-of-positive-risk-taking

Beyond Queen Bees, Wannabees, Masterminds, and Wingmen -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/beyond-queen-bees-wanabees-masterminds

Age Discrimination Hidden in Plain Sight -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/age-discriminationhidden-in-plain

Understanding Adolescent Development -https://ellengalinsky.substack.com/p/understanding-adolescent-development

What do teens most want from their parents?

What are teenagers' 5 basic needs?

What are shared solutions? How can these help our teens with executive function?

How to support our kids with risk taking?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

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If there was a program out there that could help you plan your weekly meals, come up with fun activities for your kids, give you gift and party ideas and so much more… would you use it? 

Fun fact, this does exist! It’s called AI and tools like Chat GPT and Gemini are an amazing way to take off some of the mental load and stress of making day to day decisions. Here to share more is Michelle Tangeman. 

Before opening Michelle Tangeman Behavioral Health as a child and family therapist, Michelle served as a Clinical Manager for STAR of CA, where she oversaw a clinical team providing children's behavioral treatment programs. Michelle has extensive experience and individualized behavior intervention, functional behavior assessments, school based services, family focused intervention, Early Start services and social skills training, and has provided these services to families across Ventura, and Los Angeles counties. She has also completed the training as part of the Postpartum Support internationals advanced perinatal mental health psychotherapy training program. 

When she's not helping parents and families as a therapist. She is a mother of two beautiful children. As a parent, she knows how challenging it can be combining her personal experience as a parent. Along with her behavioral health background, she launched her online education company thriving toddler through thriving toddler courses and free resources. She aims to help as many people as possible become the parents they want to be. Michelle is also a podcast host and the Co-Founder of the Parenting Understood Podcast. Michelle and her co host are passionate about teaching parents about evidence based interventions grounded in science to make a positive impact on the parent child relationship.

I know that we can all use more time in our day. Using AI to help take some of the mental load off our plates can definitely change the way we tackle all the responsibilities of life and parenting for the better. 

In this episode, we discuss: 

Ways to use AI assisted tools like Gemini or Chat gpt in your daily parenting.

Which prompts make your life as a parent a little easier.

Badass Matriarch-https://lynzyandco.substack.com/

Michelle Tangeman -https://michelletangeman.com/

Pocket Parent Membership

https://www.thrivingtoddler.com/pocketparent

Toddler Tantrum Master Class -https://www.thrivingtoddler.com/

What exactly is executive functioning?

How can parents promote executive functioning skills in toddlers?

What is toxic stress and how does that play into brain development and child development outcomes?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Media addiction among children is a huge problem. We know this and you know that I’ve been talking about it for a while. Thankfully there is a movement out there working to make changes at the policy level. 

Enter MAMA - Mothers Against Media Addiction, founded by Julie Scelfo.

Julie is a former New York Times journalist, Media Ecologist and founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, otherwise known as MAMA, a grassroots movement of parents fighting back against media addiction to create a world where real life experiences remain at the heart of childhood. 

She is also a mother of three, and her years of reporting on the issue of phones and social media exposed her to the epidemic of youth mental illness, including increased suicide rates among teens and tweens, and the crisis that media addiction and unchecked Tech was causing. This led her to recognize the need for a movement of parents and allies focused on addressing the crisis of media addiction among our children.

Listen as we talk about everything from appropriate ages to introduce phones as well as what you can do at the local level to start enacting change and how MAMA can help. 

In this episode, we discuss: 

What inspired Julie to found Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA).

What their goals are.

How parents can get more involved on a community and national level.

How to handle phones and social media under your own roof.

Badass Matriarch-https://lynzyandco.substack.com/

Mothers Against Media Addiction -https://www.joinmama.org/

NY Times - Suicide on Campus and the Pressure of Perfectionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/stress-social-media-and-suicide-on-campus.html

HuffPost - How To Prevent Suicide Among Tweenshttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/suicide-prevention-teens-tweens_n_5f764841c5b6374c558b68ca

NY Post – Opinion: Violence, bullying, suicide: It’s time to fight digital addiction in kids like drunk drivinghttps://nypost.com/2024/03/30/opinion/violence-bullying-suicide-we-must-fight-digital-addiction-in-kids-like-drunk-driving/

SF Chronicle – Opinion: The surgeon general warns that social media is dangerous for kids. Why aren’t medical professional associations?https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/social-media-teens-surgeon-general-18115800.php

What inspired you to found Mothers Against Media Addiction?

How are we as a society misunderstanding social media and smartphones?

One of MAMA's main goals is phone-free schools. Can you speak about why that is such an important policy for you and do you find teachers, parents and students receptive to that proposal?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

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Some really important things are happening in the world of women’s health and reproductive rights. In case you weren’t aware or if you’ve heard of EMTALA and the case that is with the Supreme Court coming out of Idaho, I wanted to bring on an expert to explain what is happening and what it could mean for health care providers in the future. 

Alexa is a deputy director at the ACLU reproductive freedom project located in New York City. For almost 20 years, Alexa has been litigating in states across the country, including at the US Supreme Court to protect and expand access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. A number of those cases have concerned EMTALA, the federal law that guarantees hospitals provide abortions to pregnant patients facing a medical emergency. 

Alexa decided when she was 15 that she wanted to be an ACLU lawyer. Since graduating college, she has essentially never worked anywhere else. She started as an assistant paralegal doing racial justice, First Amendment and national security work one week after 911. Then she went to law school and came straight back during college and law school she was always involved in abortion rights advocacy, and when a fellowship opened up at the ACLU reproductive freedom project in 2007. She applied and has been there ever since.

In this episode, we discuss: 

The background and history of EMTALA.

How and why it was started.

The recent case in Idaho that went to the Supreme Court.

What the future of reproductive rights would look like for patients and providers if the court sides with Idaho

Amicus brief: The ACLU, ACLU of Idaho and law firm Cooley LLP filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court to explain that Idaho’s arguments cannot be justified.https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-brief-in-emergency-abortion-care-case-highlights-idaho-politicians-deeply-flawed-legal-arguments

TIME: What Blocking Emergency Abortion Care in Idaho Means for Doctors Like Me: An op-ed by Dr. Caitlin Gustafson, a family physician in Mccall, Idaho, and the co-president of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare.https://time.com/6968774/idaho-abortion-doctors-essay/

ACLU: Supreme Court to Determine Whether Politicians Can Deny Medical Emergency Medical Care to Pregnant People: A press release from the ACLU on the United States Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States.https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/supreme-court-to-determine-whether-politicians-can-deny-emergency-medical-care-to-pregnant-people

What is the background/history of EMTALA? This act started with protecting pregnant people; how did we get here?

Since the Supreme Court took this case, Idaho has been allowed to prevent doctors from providing emergency abortion care, which has long been protected under EMTALA. Can you talk about the effects this has had on people in Idaho?

What are the possible outcomes of this Supreme Court case? Who would be impacted the most? Will this impact states outside of Idaho?

What threats does this case pose to medical professionals who are trying to provide care — alongside those trying to build their families?

There is also a Supreme Court case before the justices on access to mifepristone — a pill used for medication abortion and miscarriage care. How will this impact reproductive health care, and are there other federal threats looming?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your teenager is meant to make mistakes and push the envelope when it comes to boundaries and expectations. They’re learning who they are as individuals rather than as sons or daughters. 

So how do we keep them safe while still letting them try and fail? 

It all starts with the boundaries you’re setting with your young children today. If you’re having your very first talk about curfews and drinking with your child as you drop them off at a school party, you’re too late. 

Dr. Jenny Rose joins me to share more about how we can get inside the teenage mind and how to start laying a sturdy foundation upon which to build our future relationship with our children. 

Dr. Jenny is a clinical psychologist specializing in work with teens and children. She has her PhD in attachment based parenting and works at an inpatient psychiatric institution. She is on a mission to support kids and teens amidst a pandemic of heightened mental health struggles. She is also all about preventative interventions rather than just jumping in for treatment when things go awry. 

Jenny is also a mother of three, and is launching a book in just two months, called mindful meals. This book is about nutrition for the entire family. It will feature a section that concentrates on raising conscious eaters and helping children to develop a healthy relationship with food. It is the first of its kind to focus on the psychology of eating and how as parents, we can safeguard our kids.

In this episode, we discuss: 

How the teenage brain works.

Why they are more prone to taking risks.

How we can better connect with our teens.

Breaking down the complicated aspects of parenting a teen.

RECIPE for Jenny’s Chicken Stew

Ingredients:

1x brown onion

1 x pack of chicken breasts

half a bag of butternut

half a bag of pumpkin / sweet potato

3-4 baby marrows (zucchini)

one bag of cauliflower / broccoli mix

corn on the cob (1-2)

Chicken stock

seasoning

Recipe:

Fry your onions until golden and add in chicken breasts (cut into fours).Season chicken with salt, pepper, and chicken spice / seasoning.

Once your chicken is browned, add in all your veg. Add in your chicken stock (you can even use 2), and fill your pot with boiling water. Make sure your water covers all the veg.

Let it boil for about half an hour (until the veg is nice and soft).

Once veg are soft, use a masher to mash all the veg (this will also pull the chicken apart). Add salt and pepper to taste.

This recipe is so easy and versatile, remove whatever you don’t enjoy, add other veg you do like, and if you want to make it indulgent, and a dollop or two of cream!

The sauce will be nice and thick (if too thick just add a bit of water). You can serve it on rice or pasta, but we actually eat as is (sometimes on the rice it can be a bit dry and loses the delicious, slurpy goodness).

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Help us understand how the teenage brain works?

What is the biggest thing teenagers need from parents?

Why are teens struggling so much?

What typical difficulties do you see with teenagers?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever heard your child say something truly negative about themselves? Do they do it often? We all have a mental talk track that plays in our head through which we process our lives and emotions. So do kids. 

What do we do when our kids start to display signs of their talk track becoming negative? Joining me today to share more about why negative self-talk occurs and how to navigate it with our kids is Dr. Emily King. 

Dr. King is a child psychologist and former school psychologist who has worked with neurodivergent children and teens for the last 20 years. She received a PhD in School Psychology from UNC Chapel Hill, where she worked at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. 

She spent five years working as a school psychologist and public schools in Houston, Texas, where she specialized in providing school based mental health services. Dr. Emily now works in private practice in North Carolina specializing in supporting the mental health needs of neurodivergent youth. 

Listen as Dr. King shares her tips, tricks, and advice for becoming an effective advocate for our children… to our children. Because they need us to be the ones to help them navigate their feelings and emotions. 

In this episode, we discuss: 

Negative self-talk and what it is.

How negative self-talk presents in children.

Ways to determine where negative self-talk is stemming from and how to respond.

Why it’s important to get curious rather than to simply react when your child says something negative.

Different ways to help your child find their “thing”.

Learn with Dr. Emily -https://www.learnwithdremily.com/

Learn with Dr. Emily Substack -https://learnwithdremily.substack.com/

How do we know if children really mean what they say when they engage in negative self-talk?

How can we respond in a way that supports and doesn't invalidate when a child is feeling negative about themselves?

Why are neurodivergent children more likely to engage in negative self-talk?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Traveling with children is not for the faint of heart. Leaving everything you’ve ever known along with family and friends to pursue a different lifestyle in a whole new country? Not a decision to be made lightly. 

But when you know that you’re being called to something different, you take the leap and see where you land. Christina Dismuke and her husband did just that and she’s here to tell us all about it. 

Christina was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and has her undergraduate and master's degree in education from Texas A&M. She has lived in Perth, Australia for the last four years with her husband and four kids all under the age of seven. When their twins were born, she took a career pause from the classroom, and has enjoyed the impact this has had on her family as they moved abroad. 

Their move to Australia and having four kids in general has really moved them toward simplicity, access to next day delivery materials for social media worthy sensory play invitations, etc. Just isn't a thing in Perth, one of the most remote cities in the world. It has steered her ship in a different direction and has invited Christina to be a better noticer picking up on what her kids are watching and giving them access to it. 

Listen in as she shares all about their life now and why they couldn’t have made a better decision for their family.

Their decision to live and raise their children internationally.

Her pregnancy and postpartum care in Perth and how it differs from the United States.

The differences in childcare and the schooling system in Perth.

Practical tips for traveling or living abroad with kids in general.

Instant Pot Texas - Style Brisket Tacos https://thedefineddish.com/instant-pot-texas-style-brisket-tacos/

Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/christinadismuke/?hl=en

Why did you and your husband decide to raise your kids abroad?

Is pregnancy and postpartum handled better in Australia?

How does the school system in Australia compare to the United States?

What are some tips for people traveling and or moving abroad with children?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

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Protecting our children online is so important. We all know that we need to teach our kids not to share their personal information with strangers online, but what else is there? How can we approach this monumental task with grace and understanding? 

Here to share her thoughts is Fareedah Shaheed.

Fareedah is an award winning Internet safety expert and a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree. She uses her background in cybersecurity and online gaming to help parents protect their kids online. Her work has been featured in CNN, The Wall Street Journal, NASA, Fox, Yahoo, and many more for Rita offers a course on how to protect your children on their phone, and it will be linked in the show notes below. She's also currently working on a Roblox safety webinar launch and additional free webinars throughout this year.

This was a brilliant conversation that provided really important insights on ways to have conversations with your children at all ages and stages and why you might need to look internally before discussing with your kids. 

How Freedah came to be an internet safety expert.

How the landscape of internet safety has changed over the years.

Sextortion and how to talk to your children about it.

Thoughts on parental control and monitoring software.

Dr. Nicole Le Pera: The Holistic Psychologist - https://theholisticpsychologist.com/

Train Live with Marisa Peer - https://marisapeer.com/

The Hidden Threat: Protecting Your Child On Their Phonehttps://sekuva.mykajabi.com/protecting-your-child-on-their-phone

PKO Ambassador:https://sekuva.mykajabi.com/partner-with-cyberfareedah-pko-ambassador-info-page

My free Protect Kids Online (PKO) Resource Library:https://sekuva.mykajabi.com/get-your-internet-safety-resource-library

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/cyberfareedah/

What's the number one mistake parents make when it comes to protecting their kids online?

What's your thoughts on parental control and monitoring software?

What are some effective ways to educate kids on internet safety?

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the next few months, I’ll be mixing in some of our earlier Motherhood Meets Medicine interviews with new episodes. These ‘best of’ episodes are the most shared and listened to episodes of all time!

Here is today’s featured episode with Kate Mangino, PhD all about unlearning traditional gender norms in the household. 

Gender norms are slowly changing in the everyday household. Men used to be the income providers and bring home the money while women would take care of the children and house chores. Since times have been changing, women are expecting more from their partners even as little as switching caregiving roles so the women can have some time to themselves for a minute or two.

The women in my community have loved Kate's book Equal Partners and requested to have her on as a guest. Kate's role and expertise in social changes provides incredible insight into hard hitting questions from the community and change.

Kate Mangino, PhD is a gender expert and professional facilitator who works with international non-profit organizations to promote positive social change. She has written and delivered curricula in over 20 countries about issues such as: gender equality, women’s empowerment, healthy masculinity, HIV prevention, and early and forced childhood marriage.

She brings her lens of gender and social change to her debut book, Equal Partners, which addresses household gender inequality in the United States and offers practical advice as to what each of us can do to rewrite gender norms.

While we are still working on changing social norms in this generation. In today's episode, we talk about gender norms and creating household balance. Kate will share what she learned during her research for her book, and she gives some excellent suggestions on how to raise conversations with your partner about gender. She will also share some data on raising boys and give some tips on how we can raise our boys to be caregivers as they grow older.

In this episode we discuss:

Resources:

My sponsors:

Navy Hair Care:

Connect with Lynzy:

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

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