This Is So Awkward

How we talk to our kids about complex topics like puberty and sex depends both on our kids’ personalities are ours, too. There is no one-size-fits-all on how to have these tricky conversations. In this episode, Vanessa and Cara break down the cast of characters in both the kid roles and the adult roles, offering up guidance for having these talks in our families while making room for the different temperaments involved.

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Produced by Dear Media

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Wendy Mogel, clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author, discusses raising kids through adolescence, a time of the “greatest anguish and the greatest ecstasy.” With humor and honesty, Wendy advises us to be “emotional archaeologists” with the kids we love and learning to “keep quiet, keep captivated and keep respectful” when navigating this tricky time as caregivers.

Produced by Dear Media

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Andrew Goldberg, co-creator of Big Mouth, the hit Netflix animated series about puberty, and world famous early bloomer, joins us in conversation about what it felt like to be the first of his friends to hit puberty. Andrew shares his experiences from those fraught years, what was talked about and what wasn’t, and he discusses how he and his wife are choosing to raise their own children based on what their adolescent experiences were. This is a heartfelt episode that we think teens in the same boat would appreciate, but there is some language that may not be welcome in all homes so please listen first before sharing with your teen.

Show Notes:

Shafia Zaloom website

Big Mouth on Netflix

Barry Michaels on gratitude

Produced by Dear Media

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There isn’t ONE time to start puberty or end puberty and someone has to go first. In this episode, Cara explains the science behind early puberty and we explore the social and emotional impact of being an early bloomer. Plus you get to learn what an orchidometer is! This is a great episode to listen to with your kids.

Shownotes:

Dynamo Girl 

Guy Stuff by Dr. Cara Natterson

Care and Keeping of You Series by Dr. Cara Natterson 

OOMLA 

Ruling Our Experiences Girls’ Index 

Produced by Dear Media

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Dr. Hina Talib, adolescent medicine specialist and host of the popular @teenhealthdoc on Instagram, joins us for a deep dive on periods. We discuss menstruation as a vital sign, what’s considered normal for teen menstruation and what’s not, when to worry and when to seek advice from medical providers. We’ll cover everything from mittelschmerz (WHAT?!!!) to endometriosis, so tune in for accessible expert advice on all things teens and periods! 

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Produced by Dear Media

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Erections and nocturnal emissions – AKA boners and wet dreams – are big pieces of puberty that often go unmentioned unless they’re punchlines in a joke. Which is a big conversational miss, because these topics can cause unnecessary confusion, shame, worry, or awkwardness. In this episode, we break down the science behind boners and wet dreams (and yes, we use the language that kids use) and then bring in a special guest to offer practical ways to help males manage these unexpected and uncontrollable experiences in puberty.

Note: Listen first on your own to make sure you’re comfy with our language, but we think this is a great episode to listen to with your kids!

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Produced by Dear Media

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Dr. Lisa Damour, New York Times bestselling author, columnist and co-host of the Ask Lisa Podcast, joins us for a back-to-school episode on lessons learned from the previous two school years under Covid. This episode explores the adaptability, emotional honesty and family rituals we developed and how we can use them in constructive ways to create new models for parenting as we move forward.

Show Notes:

Lisa Damour’s New York Times column

Ask Lisa Podcast

Untangled by Lisa Damour

Under Pressure by Lisa Damour

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Produced by Dear Media

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Dr. Molly Colvin helps us understand the upsides and the downsides of the adolescent brain, in and out of pandemic. Her adage that tween and teen brains are “consistently inconsistent” provides critical insights for adults navigating the ways to communicate with and support the adolescents for whom we are caring. Dr. Colvin’s offers guidance for when we should push their “growth edge” and when we should accept that this is how things are going to be for a while... 

Show Notes:

That ‘Brain Fog’ You’re Feeling Is Perfectly Normal

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/04/22/cognitive-change-stress-coronavirus-molly-colvin

Why You Can't Shake Pandemic Anxiety

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/03/09/covid-19-pandemic-psychological-recovery-molly-colvin

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Produced by Dear Media

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The word “puberty” means the process of sexual maturation - by the end of puberty, a person has the ability to reproduce. But the path through puberty is not a stepwise ladder where one part of the body changes, then another, then another. Rather, it’s a winding path, a checklist of physiological shifts that happen in no particular order. This episode walks through the details of what happens to the body during puberty, with an emphasis on the fact that while the list of changes is fairly universal, their sequence is not at all. The body’s going to do what the body’s going to do when it feels like doing it.

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Produced by Dear Media

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Roger Bennett, author of #1 the New York Times bestseller (Re)Born in the USA and co-host of the popular Men in Blazers podcast, shares the hilarious and painful experiences of his English adolescence of the 1970’s & 1980’s. He discusses what passed as sex-ed at that time, what it felt like to be a (very) late bloomer and when was the moment everything changed. This episode is intended for people above the age of 14.

Show Notes:

Men in Blazers 

Reborn in the USA

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