“Healthy Gamer” sounds like an oxymoron. But not necessarily according to our guest, psychiatrist Dr. Alok Kanojia, who untangles the upsides from the downsides of video games. Why are kids drawn to gaming? Why is gaming more addictive today than ever before? How does it build community and shape identity? Does it feed into toxic masculinity? And how in the world can parents be in partnership with their kids to develop healthy gaming habits?!

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Get 10 FREE meals at HelloFresh.com/FREEAWKWARD

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

How to Raise a Healthy Gamer

Healthy Gamer

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

Parents and other trusted adults screw up. We’re human. Not to mention, tween and teen’s time of incredible transformation is a breeding ground for errors – ours and theirs. But it’s also a perfect time to take do-overs, a form of repair that creates connection, builds empathy, and offers grace. Cara and Vanessa share their own shame-inducing mess-ups, including the beautiful positives that emerge out the other side.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Get 10 FREE meals at HelloFresh.com/FREEAWKWARD

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

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

How can we foster kids' independence while setting limits? This sits at the heart of helping develop their autonomy as they move from childhood to adulthood. We’re joined by an incredible guide for this journey: Dr. Emily Edlynn, licensed clinical psychologist specializing in pediatric health psychology. We promise she makes it fun!

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Get 10 FREE meals at HelloFresh.com/FREEAWKWARD

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

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

Tween and teen brains are like bumpy dirt roads under construction and will be for quite some time! Neuropsychologist Dr. Molly Colvin helps us understand the upsides and downsides of the adolescent brain and offers practical pathways to communicate with and support the kids in our lives.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

For FREE breakfast for life, go to HelloFresh.com/FREETISA. That’s one free breakfast item per box while subscription is active!

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

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

Substance use and abuse is a massive, ongoing conversation with tweens and teens. These layered conversations happen over years. But here’s what they all share in common: at some point – often at many points – most kids find themselves faced with a choice to use or not. So how do we inform and empower them? And when should we be concerned? Dr. Joseph Lee, psychiatrist and CEO of Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, shares all.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

For FREE breakfast for life, go to HelloFresh.com/FREETISA. That’s one free breakfast item per box while subscription is active!

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Monitoring the Future

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

Spoiler alert: the only life hack for sleep deprivation is… more sleep! Lisa Lewis is the journalist who helped pass California’s new later school-start time law, all in an effort to prioritize teen sleep. This episode makes you look at sleep needs – for our kids and us, too – in a whole new light.  

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

For FREE breakfast for life, go to HelloFresh.com/FREETISA. That’s one free breakfast item per box while subscription is active!

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

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

Adults often bring their own baggage into conversations with tweens + teens. Nowhere is this more evident than with body image. It’s a fraught and complex issue to begin with – helping kids achieve positive (or at least neutral) body image becomes nearly impossible when we entangle their feelings about their bodies with our feelings about our own. Psychologist and leading expert in body image research, Dr. Charlotte Markey, offers invaluable advice. 

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

Adultish

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

Listen more and lecture less. It’s the golden nugget piece of advice about being in conversation with tweens and teens. But zipping your mouth can be tough – because you know the right answer or because your worry overruns your self control or because constructive conversation gets hijacked by your frustration. This episode is all about how, why and when we need to shut our mouths.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get $25 off any Gabb smartphone GABB.com/AWKWARD

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

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

People often ask for advice about talking about tricky topics when there are big age gaps between kids in the home. The short answer is that there are some conversations everyone can be a part of, and others need to be handled individually. The longer answer, which we get into with journalist Ericka Sóuter, speaks to which conversations might be age-segmented and how to help kids understand what they should — and shouldn’t — share with their siblings.

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get $25 off any Gabb smartphone GABB.com/AWKWARD

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

How to have a Kid and a Life

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

As technology has evolved, family communication has changed right along with it. Enter the family chat – which can take place on messaging apps or social media platforms. This space might be a forum for political arguments, meme sharing, telling kids it’s time for dinner, or all of the above. It’s fun! It can be LOL funny! But how can we use text “conversations” to stay connected without further increasing our tech dependence?

Show Notes:

Join our LESS AWKWARD MEMBERSHIP 

Go to Quince.com/awkward for free shipping and 365-day returns

Get $25 off any Gabb smartphone GABB.com/AWKWARD

Get 25% off your first order of Phyla, when you visit PhylaBiotics.com and use the code PUBERTY at checkout!

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