It’s 7:43 AM, her boys still aren’t out the door, and our guest is sipping her coffee and saying nothing. Middle school parenting asks you to step back right when every instinct tells you to step in.
On this episode, host Lucy McAfee talks with her friend Kelly Wiethuchter, an ad tech sales leader and mom to fraternal twins, about raising boys through the transition to sixth grade. Kelly’s sons share a birthday, but not the same personality. One is an extrovert who wakes up asking who can hang out, and the other is more introverted and saves his energy for a few close friends. One sits down and knocks out his homework right away, while the other works better with a deadline. Raising twins showed Kelly early that two kids under one roof need to be parented differently.
This year Kelly stopped packing their backpacks so the boys could build their own executive functioning skills, and she explains why she is willing to let them be late. She also shares what happened last year when another boy at the playground pulled up something on his phone that no child should see. What her sons did next is a lesson in online safety for kids, and it proved to Kelly that she had become their safe place.
Her one small shift: start with one. Kelly borrows “10 Before 10” from Chris McKenna of Protect Young Eyes, the idea of having ten short conversations with your child about what they might see online before age 10. She keeps each talk short and side by side, in the car or on a walk, and uses a lesson from her media career, reach and frequency, to space them out so no one dreads a trip to the grocery store with mom. Press play for a middle school parenting approach that helps your sons learn to figure things out while they still live at home.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Welcome And Meeting Kelly Wiethuchter
02:03 Infertility, Loss, And Two Rainbow Babies
06:27 Twins With Two Very Different Personalities
14:48 Why She Stopped Packing Their Backpacks
19:15 Only Six Years Left To Shape Them
21:53 The Phone Moment That Proved She's Safe
29:28 10 Before 10 And Reach And Frequency
35:24 Yardsticks, A Parenting Book She Actually Finished
40:52 Raising Empathetic Boys Who Talk About Feelings
45:33 The One Small Shift: Start With One
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Yardsticks: Child and Adolescent Development Ages 4–14 by Chip Wood
“10 Before 10” by Chris McKenna
Follow Protect Young Eyes on Instagram
Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Dr. Becky Kennedy
Bark (parental controls and home internet filter)
Listen to Sarah Koopmann’s episode of The ManFlu
Connect with Kelly Wiethuchter:
Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn
Connect with Lucy McAfee:
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
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