What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

This month's Deep Dive series is about flouting parenting rules and advice that don't work for us. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the episodes in the series here. We asked our listeners to tell us all the things that others might call crazy but which totally work for them.From packing the laundry to eating the same lunch every day for five years to toothbrushes in the kitchen, these are the ideas that don't sound so crazy, come to think of it.Following us on Instagram? Join the fun! http://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcastWhat Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, bad advice, bad parenting advice, parenting rules, family rules Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The task of feeding kids "the right foods" can give parents a lot of anxiety. Jill Castle, author of the new book KIDS THRIVE AT EVERY SIZE, explains how we can set our kids up with healthy eating habits they'll maintain for life.Jill Castle is a pediatric dietitian and childhood nutritionist, founder of The Nourished Child®, and the host of the Nourished Child podcast. In this interview, Jill and Margaret discuss: The 8 Pillars of Wellness: Family Culture, Sleep, Movement, Feeding, Eating, Food, Screens, and Self-Love Useful tips for fostering your child's healthy relationship with food What we often get wrong about the relationship between a child's size and their health Here's where you can find Jill: jillcastle.com @pediRD on X @i.am.pedird on IG @thenourishedchild on FB @JillCastle on YouTube Buy THE NOURISHED CHILD: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781523521838 What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, feeding kids, kids eating, kids nutrition, kids diet, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe asked our listeners for their randomest, most tenuous claims to fame, and as usual, they delivered. Whether it's first place in a two-person pie-eating contest, or dating someone just four degrees removed from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, here are their stories.Join our Facebook group to see the thread with all of our listeners' randomest claims to fame!We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, claim to fame, celebrity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This month's Deep Dive series is about flouting parenting rules and advice that don't work for us. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the episodes in the series here. Are you a rule breaker or a rule follower? Are you married to your opposite? We're both rule followers, and when one builds a life with someone who sees the "NO DOGS IN THE LAKE" sign as an invitation to let the golden retriever go for a swim, one is caught between two bad choices: swallow the horrible anxiety that others might think *you* are the sort of person who has zero consideration for clearly posted signage, or be the stick in the mud who can never loosen up a little.In this episode we discuss why both kinds of people exist, and bump up against each other– and why the "no rules pool" isn't as fun as it sounds how rules limit possibilities, good and bad why humans tend to create more rules during and after times of struggle whether kids are born to be rule followers It's worth the struggle to find the balance for our families. In order for our kids to have the secret thrill of breaking a rule, there need to be a few rules there in the first place.Here are links to some of the writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode: Michele Gelfand: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World Diane Spear: Play By the Relationship Rules! Michele Gelfand for The Guardian: Why countries with 'loose', rule-breaking cultures have been hit harder by Covid Wikipedia: Rumspringa What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, bad advice, bad parenting advice, parenting rules, family rules Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Judith Warner’s book AND THEN THEY STOPPED TALKING TO ME: MAKING SENSE OF MIDDLE SCHOOL investigates what can be a truly painful period in any adolescent's life. Warner explains that our "personal fable" is deeply affected by our own experiences during that developmental period, even if our memories may rely on flawed or incomplete information.That matters because it can affect how we parent our tweens as they enter the middle school stage themselves. Are parents sometimes inadvertently reinforcing the narrative that middle school is a Thunderdome of social aggression?In this interview, Judith tells Amy the history of middle school, the brain science behind its intensity, and what parents can do to make their children's path through these years an easier one.Buy AND THEN THEY STOPPED TALKING TO ME: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781101905890What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, middle school kids Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every kid is afraid of something. Sometimes their fears make sense; sometimes their extreme anxiety over every ant that crosses their path can seem a little excessive. But our job isn't to make sure our kids never see ants; our job is to help them learn to navigate those feelings on their own.In this episode, Amy and Margaret discuss: Why kids facing their fears is an appropriate part of their emotional development Why just our presence, when they're feeling fear, can be a great support How more anxious parents tend to create more fearful children—and what to do about it Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode: Lior Abramson et. al for Developmental Science: "The effects of parental presence on amygdala and mPFC activation during fear conditioning: An exploratory study" Dr. Cara Goodwin for Parenting Translator: "New Study Alert: Your Presence Matters More Than You Think" NYU Langone Health: "Proven Strategies for Anxious Parents Who May Pass Their Anxiety on to Their Children" Naître et Grandir: "Fear in Children" Canadian Paediatric Society: “Helping children deal with their fears” Butterfield, Moira: Everybody Feels...Scared! What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, kids fears, kids scared Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This month's Deep Dive series is about setting aside the parenting rules and advice that just don't work for us. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the episodes in the series here. As soon as you become a mother, unsolicited advice-givers are everywhere, telling you to “sleep when the baby sleeps.” Or “it gets easier.” Or “enjoy every moment.”Out of all the advice (parenting and otherwise) that we and our listeners have ever received, here is a selection of the very worst.What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, bad advice, bad parenting advice, parenting rules, family rules Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You hear that parenting teens is a wild ride. But as Amy Betters-Midtvedt, author of the new book YOU'LL MAKE IT (AND THEY WILL TOO), says, it can also be baffling:“So much weirdness comes when they go back-and-forth between staying their old selves and becoming their new ones. Conflict will suddenly flow out of nowhere over nothing.”But you'll make it. And they will too.Amy Betters-Midtvedt is a Today Parenting contributing author with more than a million readers and twenty-five years of experience working with adolescents and families. In this episode, she and Amy Wilson discuss Why teens are constantly flipping from cuddly to crabby Why we owe it to our kids to be the best versions of ourselves When texting—or GIFs—is the best way to communicate Here's where you can find Amy Betters-Midtvedt: amybettersmidtvedt.com FB: @Amy Betters-Midtvedt TikTok: @hidingwithcoffee  IG: @Amy.Betters-Midtvedt X:@amymidtvedt Buy YOU'LL MAKE IT (AND THEY WILL TOO): https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593601129 What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, parenting teens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's easy to compare our parenting—often as measured by our kids' achievements—with their peers' achievements. As in, how other parents might be doing it better.This week, we're talking parenting tips for resisting “mompetition”— and how we can use comparison to create healthy perspectives instead of "compare and despair."Amy and Margaret discuss: Why competition is a biological imperative The effects of social media and other societal forces on parenting How to know if we're putting too much pressure on our kids Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode: Matthew Hutson for The Atlantic: "Why We Compete" Aruna Raghuram for ParentCircle: "Are you a competitive mom? Here are the many ways in which mompetition can harm your child" Urban Dictionary definition of "mompetition" Eileen Kennedy-Moore for Psychology Today: "How to Resist Competitive Parenting" What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, mompetition, parenting competition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This month, we're doing a deep dive series into letting things go—arguments, unattainable standards, you name it! You can find the playlist with all of the episodes in the series here. It's hard to admit things aren't perfect. It's especially hard for moms. Psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett described three types of perfectionism in the 1990s: self-directed (I must be a size 2), others-directed (do that piano exercise again until you get it right), and "socially mediated" perfectionism, which comes from society making unrealistic demands of a person or a group and punishing that person when she falls short. Sound familiar?Turns out the amount of socially mediated perfectionism a parent feels is directly related to her level of "parental burnout," defined as exhaustion in one’s role as a parent, feelings of being fed up as a parent, and even emotional distancing from one’s children. Not the place any of us want to get to. So why is it so hard to admit things aren't perfect? And how can we start?Here are links to some of the research on the topic that we discuss in this episode: Fatemeh Ghanbari Jahromia et al: The relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and depression: The mediating role of maladaptive cognitive schemas  Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett: Perfectionism in the Self and Social Contexts Matilda Sorkkila and Kaisa Aunola: Risk Factors for Parental Burnout among Finnish Parents: The Role of Socially Prescribed Perfectionism What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltourWe love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, self-conscious, mindfulness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices