“How can I create space for my kids to talk about what matters to them?” Justine asks her family to the podcast to talk about what family time looks like for them, how we stopped worrying about a picture-perfect family dinner and started enjoying a little TV, and how family meetings are good but not a time our kids see as good for discussing hard things. They do, however, agree about when and where is a good time for that.
Nate is my spouse and my favorite skeptic. He makes it a policy never to listen to or talk on a podcast, but I convinced him to let me record our conversation because I knew that he had interesting tidbits to share. For Nate, parenting has included a lot of self-discovery and very little guilt or shame about not parenting in the “right” way. Nate has led teams of people at work as well and rounds out our conversation with the parallels of running a work team and a home team.
Charlotte is 11 and Genevieve is almost 14, and while they don’t always agree on what’s fun in life, they do agree on when they find me most approachable (hint: if you need to reach me, you’ll find me at the bottom of a neverending pile of clothes to fold).
Show Notes:
- Books I mentioned are linked here in an affiliate list on Bookshop.org: The Family Dinner by Laurie David; The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler (who also agrees it doesn’t have to be dinner when you connect with your kids); Dinner: A Love Story: It All Begins at the Family Table by Jenny Rosenstrach
- The Family Breakfast Project commercial I mentioned while talking to Nate was the product of a local Massachusetts non-profit organization called the Family Dinner Project’s partnership with Cheerios. It aired during the Super Bowl in 2014! You can view it still here. The link to the family breakfast project materials is no longer live via Cheerios, but if breakfast is your thing, you can still find out more on the Family Dinner Project website
- Information about PANDAS, including diagnostic criteria and treatment, is on the NIMH website
- For Charlotte’s treatment, we used a combination of a longer course of antibiotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy with a clinical psychologist who specializes in chronic medical conditions, recommended by our excellent pediatrician
- Shows we like for the 11 to 14-year-old family time include but are not limited to: The Amazing Race, Parks & Rec, The Great British Baking Show, The Great Pottery Throwdown, Lego Masters, Baking Impossible, Planet Earth, The Who Was Show, and Survivor (this show is hard to like, but the kids love it).
- How to create space for your kids to talk about difficult subjects:
- Realize that it’s probably not going to happen during the time that you have specifically set up for discussion about difficult subjects–while family meeting is a chance for us to mention topics the kids might find challenging, it’s not a time they consider to be when they would want to bring up the tough stuff
- Be open to it happening when they think the time is right
- Listen without trying or pretending to have an answer
- Validate that their concerns are important
- We are collecting more vignettes about family life for future episodes in our Crib Notes series. If you’re interested in recording your family (note: it makes a great time capsule!), email us at podcast@somenerve.blog.
Some Nerve is a weekly podcast for people who have the nerve to show up, talk about hard things that matter, and share our secrets. On Some Nerve, we discuss all the stuff your grandmother wouldn’t have wanted you to talk about at her bridge party. Topics will include whatever makes us feel human, like mental health, grief, trust, boundaries, and joy. We hope that understanding each other better will help us build deeper connections in our lives.
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Some Nerve: A Podcast 