What Fresh Hell: Parenting, Relationships, and Making Life Better, with Two Funny Moms

All too often, we leave our kids' pediatric appointments only to remember what we really wanted to ask when we're on the drive home. Fear not: Dr. Mary Martin is in, and she's answering all our burning pediatric-medicine questions.

Margaret and Dr. Mary Martin cover all the the topics most likely fill parents' search histories and social media feeds, separating medical facts from internet misinformation and offering practical, judgment-free advice.

You'll learn:

How to navigate vaccine misinformation

Why pediatricians continue to recommend the "ABCs" of safe sleep

When it's OK stop comparing your child to everyone else's

The babyproofing essentials that actually matter

Why reading to babies is so powerful, even before they can talk.

How to handle picky eating without turning every meal into a battle

The leading causes of preventable childhood injuries and simple ways to reduce risk

Practical guidance on screen time, social media, vaping, caffeine, and substance use

How to build trust so your child feels comfortable talking about difficult topics like sex, drugs, mental health, and body changes

Why finding a pediatrician you trust may be one of the best parenting decisions you make

Here are links to some of our other episodes we mentioned:

Christina Martin on How Children Learn Through Play

How To Deal With Picky Eaters

Screen-Free Week: How To Survive and Why It's Worth It

Ash Brandin, The Gamer Educator

Catherine Price, THE AMAZING GENERATION

Emily Cherkin on Tech-Intentional Parenting

Mallory Thomas on How to Get Off Our Phones

Gaia Bernstein on Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies

Susan Linn on How “Big Tech” Targets Our Kids

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/⁠
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This month, our "Deep Dive" is into some of our past episodes about screen time: the effects it has on our kids, how tech companies engineer their devices to be as addictive as possible, and how we can allow our kids to enjoy screens with supportive limits.

Is screen use a daily battle of wills in your house? ⁠Emily Cherkin⁠, author of the new book ⁠"THE SCREENTIME SOLUTION: A Judgment-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family,"⁠ explains how to model a healthy relationship with tech for our kids.

Emily Cherkin, MEd., consults with parents, offers school presentations and professional development training, and brings her tech-intentional approach to as many people as possible.

Emily and Margaret discuss:

What "tech-intentional" really means and how it's different from being screen-free

How to align screen use with family values

How to model tech intentionality with your kids

Here's where you can find Emily:

⁠http://www.thescreentimeconsultant.com⁠

Instagram: @thescreentimeconsultant

Facebook: @thescreentimeconsultant

X: @ScreentimeLlc

Buy THE SCREENTIME SOLUTION: ⁠https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9798886451122⁠

⁠Listen to our Fresh Take with Julie Lythcott-Haims⁠

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

What does it really take to build a fulfilling life—and how do we help our kids do the same? Bestselling author and host of the podcast "What It's Like to Be..." Dan Heath joins Amy for a conversation that challenges some of the biggest assumptions parents make about success, careers, decision making, and what their kids will remember most about growing up.

Dan shares why meaningful work often comes from unexpected places and why room for experimentation and exploration is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children.

Dan and Amy discuss:

Why there's no such thing as a universally "good" career

How to help kids discover passions without putting pressure on them

A simple exercise that creates unforgettable family memories

Why experimentation leads to more fulfilling work and life

Four common decision-making "villains"—and how to avoid them

Practical ways to make parenting, work, and everyday decisions with more clarity

Here's where you can find Dan:

www.danheath.com

Listen to "What It's Like to Be..."

Buy Dan's books

LinkedIn

What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables.

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

If you've ever looked at your very different children and wondered how they could possibly share the same DNA, same parents, and same upbringing, you're not alone— and you're not imagining things.

Research shows that while siblings are usually more alike in appearance and intelligence than we sometimes think, their personalities are as different from one another as they would be from a stranger on the street.

Why is that? This week, we discuss:

Why siblings can have vastly different personalities despite common upbringings

How birth order influences family dynamics

Why "de-identification" tends to be more intense when siblings are closer in age

Why "the same household" doesn't actually tell the whole story

Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode:

Alix Spiegel for NPR: Siblings Share Genes, But Rarely Personalities

Dr. Robert Plomin and Dr. Judy Dunn: Why Are Siblings So Different? The Significance of Differences in Sibling Experiences Within the Family

Dr. Frank Sullaway: Why Siblings Are Like Darwin's Finches: Birth Order, Sibling Competition, and Adaptive Divergence within the Family

Daniel Goleman for the NYT: Each Sibling Experiences a Different Family

Dr. Robert Plomin and Dr Denise Daniels: Why are Children in the Same Family So Different From One Another?

Science Daily: Parents’ Comparisons Make Siblings Different

Dr. Alexander Jensen and Dr. Susan McHale: What makes siblings different? The development of sibling differences in academic achievement and interests.

Annie Wright, LMFT: Same Family, Different Survival: Why You and Your Sibling Turned Out So Differently

What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables.

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

This month, our "Deep Dive" is into some of our past episodes about screen time: the effects it has on our kids, how tech companies engineer their devices to be as addictive as possible, and how we can allow our kids to enjoy screens with supportive limits.

How do we untangle ourselves from technology? We give ourselves a hard time for not being able to put our screens down, but the platforms we use are designed to be addictive. It's not our fault.

⁠Gaia Bernstein⁠'s new book: ⁠Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies⁠ shatters the illusion that we can control how much time we spend on our screens by the force of willpower, timers, or yelling.

Margaret and Gaia discuss:

The psychological forces that make us keep scrolling

What Big Tech and Big Tobacco have in common

Why screen time limiters and other similar methods don't work

Here's where you can find Gaia:

⁠https://gaiabernstein.com/⁠

Twitter: @BernsteinGaia

Buy Gaia's book Unwired: ⁠https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781009257930⁠

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