The world (wrongly) assumes that teenage boys want to be left behind their closed bedroom doors until emerging years later. In fact, tween and teen boys want connection, meaning, and care; they might just show it in different ways. We welcome the authors of Talk to Your Boys, Christopher Pepper and Joanna Schroeder onto the podcast to share research and strategies for connecting to boys during these formative years.

Show Notes:

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. 

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Individuation is an important theme threaded through the tween and teen years: the formation of independent identity ultimately allows a kid to stand on their own in adulthood. But getting there can sometimes look – and feel – pretty disrespectful. How can we make sense of the challenges, confusion, and sometimes painful moments? (or months?!). Child development specialist and bestselling author Betsy Brown Braun explains this developmental stage and teaches us how to draw lines, set expectations, and not personalize what’s happening!

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The benefits to kids of playing sports are super clear. But the picture has gotten more complicated with the pay-to-play takeover of youth sports and the increasingly intense pressure on kids (and their families) to perform at higher and higher levels. Amanda Stanec, youth sports expert and author of Protecting the Joy, is here to make sense of the research and offer balanced guidance for families navigating the youth sports industrial complex.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Moving from summer mode into school gear is a tricky transition for everyone – kids and adults. Predictable battles arise over tech use, clothing choices, and summer reading (for starters… we could go on and on!). This episode offers some simple strategies to avoid a bumpy start to the academic year. Alleviate the solvable stressors to make BTS a little more fun!

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech, social media, and the law intersect in ever-evolving and highly confusing ways. Rules vary from state-to-state, without any consistent age gate. This leaves minors – and the adults who care about them – unclear about what is and isn’t legal. On topics like child pornography, sexting, sextortion, and revenge porn, Kaitlin Andrews, family lawyer and educator from the Schools Consent Project, offers guidance on where the law is clear, where we’re still looking for clarity, and what to do while the ground shifts under our feet.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

FBI resources on teen sextortion, Contact your local FBI field office, call 1-800-CALL-FBI, or report it online at tips.fbi.gov.

Schools Consent Project

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most of us would prefer to avoid conversations about big, hard topics with the kids in our lives. But we also know how critical it is for us to talk to them about uncomfortable things like sexual assault, miscarriage, and mental health struggles. Which is why we’re so happy to know Jessica Zucker, author of Normalize It, a psychologist, and a parent. She gracefully navigates the tricky balance of educating kids about the difficult issues without dumping our own baggage on them. TW: this episode contains conversation about miscarriage and sexual assault.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The skin erupts with surprises across the tween and teen years… and it’s not all acne! Stretchmarks happen when bodies grow out or up quickly. Keloids are 3-D scars. Ingrown hairs aren’t permanent like the other two, but they still present their own challenges and stressors. We dig into what causes each of these skin challenges and what (if anything) can be done about them.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 practical, whether you have a child who is about to fly the nest, one who flew away long ago, or one so young you can hardly imagine that stage of life.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

Before You Fly Away: Life Lessons From Home

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are rereleasing one of our most popular episodes addressing one of the biggest challenges for caregivers: How do we discipline kids with the goal of teaching them how to do better next time? Tina Payne Bryson, psychotherapist and our personal guru, gives us a clear and empathic pathway to instituting consequences in our families.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It can be really hard to gauge what tweens + teens actually know about the biggest ticket topics. That’s because, in this age of information, they are pummeled with “facts” about sex, drugs, alcohol, nutrition, wellness, and so much more. It can seem like they have encyclopedic knowledge sometimes… until you get past the confident tone and actually listen to what they are saying. This episode will make you feel less alone (you are not the only one who has been dumbfounded by an adolescent!) and help you help them sort fact from fiction.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS

Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myalloy.com/SOAWKWARD today for $20 off your first order!

Head to http://lumen.me/AWKWARD for 10% off your purchase.

Go to Quince.com/AWKWARD for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. 

Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code AWKWARD199 to get started. 

Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets, at BollAndBranch.com/AWKWARD

Head to phyla.com and use code PUBERTY for 25% off your first order

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 us to your school or community email [email protected]

To submit listener questions email [email protected]

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Produced by Peoples Media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices