This is a story of a two mothers, two pandemics, and two births-- three generations apart. It's a story of poetry and hope, and about how good things can come from difficult circumstances.

Donna is a mother of six, a grandmother of 24—including me—and a great-grandmother of 29. She’s also a dancer, a storyteller, and a poet.

She’s delightful and hilarious and quite spicy—I even had to censor her to keep my clean rating—and she gave such interesting insights into what motherhood used to be like that I just had to share her with you.

Perhaps the most interesting insight came when I asked Donna about mom guilt. She didn’t answer at first, just kind of got a puzzled look on her face, like she didn’t understand the question. She definitely had not heard the term before.

If your child struggles with anxiety, you know the balancing act between helping them feel safe and helping them become more resilient. Dr. Mary Wilde is here to help. In this episode she explains what anxiety is and teaches us how to focus on building our kids' (and our own) resources rather than putting our energy into minimizing risk. 

Dr. Mary Wilde is a licensced integrative pediatrician and the mother of 8 boys! You can find more of her resources at drmarywilde.com

Sign up for her free masterclass here: Empowering Anxious Kids. 

Listen to her Ted Talk Here: Compassion Parenting:Transceding the Myth of Perfect Conditions

If you enjoyed this episode, check out: 

How Chantel Allen Manages Anxiety

How She Takes Care of Herself Part 1

How She Takes Care of Herself Part 2

As moms, we are students of child development. We read books. We observe our own kids, and other people’s kids to figure out what’s “normal.” We recognize the different stages they go through. Some pass by as quick as a newborn’s smile, some drag like a morning diaper.

However, we are less likely to recognize our own stages of development, and the remarkable growth we mothers experience as we learn, face and overcome challenges, and perhaps most importantly, chill out a bit.

In this season of the How She Moms Podcast, we’re going to explore this theme of how we mothers evolve and grow, and how our identities shift and develop. I’ll be creating episodes about some of the more universal stages we go through that more or less follow the stages of our children--like becoming mothers in the first place, navigating those early toddler years and parenting elementary kids, teenagers, and eventually adults. But we’ll also talk about some of the stages brought about by circumstances and events that change and shape us as mothers, things like moving, meeting friends and mentors, illnesses for both ourselves and our children, losing people we love, and parenting children with disabilities.

To kick off this theme, I invited three mothers, all in different stages of motherhood, to talk about how motherhood has influenced their growth and development.

Maris Young hosts the Young Honest Mother Podcast and blogs at younghonestmother.com  She is the mother of one son, who is three. You can follow her on Instagram @younghonestmother.

Cheryl Cardall is the mother of five children, from 10 to 21. She hosts the Fight Like a Mother podcast, a show about parenting children with mental health challenges. You can follow her on Instagram @supermamas4real 

Georgia Anderson is a mother of seven grown children (14 if you count their spouses, which she does) and a grandmother as well. She is a Gottman-trained parenting coach and also hosts retreats for women and couples. You can find her at knowhowmom.com and on Instagram @knowhowmomtips.

This summer I fell 30 feet in a rock climbing accident. Here's my story.

Delphine Brandt grew up in France, then married an American and moved to the U.S. shortly after they had their first child. She talks about adjusting to motherhood while adjusting to a new culture, and how they have merged the two cultures in their family--from food to discipline to wardrobe. 

The purpose of this episode is not to make you feel guilty or overwhelmed about  all the things you should be doing with your family photos. The goal today is to help you create a system for managing your photos that works for you, in your current stage of life. We’ll give you some tools and show you how five different moms manage their photos, but also give you permission to do the bare minimum now, to protect and organize your photos so they’ll be there when you get around to doing something with them.

Then the next episode will be about how moms use these photos and videos to tell their family’s story—some of the creative ways people display pictures and make them more accessible.

Resources:

missfreddy.com (Use code howshemoms for 20% off)

chatbooks.com

lubnajamalphotography.com

Nancy Maldonado became the CEO of the Chicano Federation of San Diego in January 2019, which meant she had about a year to prepare for the organization’s COVID-19 response--without any clue that that’s what she was preparing for. I talked to Nancy about how she discovered her passion for helping underserved communities and how she manages her career and motherhood. We also had a great conversation about mommy wars and mom guilt. 

In this episode I’ll share what bedtime looks like for several different moms, some with just young kids and some with older kids and teenagers, including some really sweet ideas about how to connect with your kids at bedtime. Then I’ll share some of the advice and research that’s helped me improve our bedtime routine this year.

Resources: 

howshemoms.com

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth MD

routineandthings.com

jenbrewer.com

thepurposegathering.com

meckmom.com

rebeccabrownwright.com

In the last episode, we talked about why self-care is important and some great ideas of how to make it happen. Today, we’re going to talk to three moms who have figured out how to take care of themselves while taking care of their kids, in three very different ways and in three different situations.

This week, we’re talking about how moms serve. I did not have to look very far to find amazing examples of mothers serving one another, their families, their communities, and the world. In fact, most of the stories come just from my own neighborhood. I could do a podcast episode on this topic every week and never run out of amazing stories to share. In fact, I found so many great ideas that I’m going to split it into two parts. Today I’ll talk about how moms serve their own families and their friends and neighbors. Next week, in part 2, I’ll talk about moms who have branched out to serve in their communities and beyond. Throughout both parts, we’ll also talk about how we can teach our kids to serve, and how to create a culture of service in our homes.

Gini Ewart's teenage daughter was getting in some serious trouble. Just when Gini thought she had tried everything, she learned some key principles that transformed her relationship with her daughter.

Motherhood is a loaded word, full of social, historical, cultural, and familial expectations and responsibilities. Yet, as we all know, there are no prerequisites and no formal training—not even a job interview—required to assume this position. 

We’ve all read articles that break down the many hats moms wear while they juggle balls in the form of children and housework and birthday parties and jobs and side gigs. But rather than being intimidated and utterly overwhelmed by this long list of duties, we can choose to be liberated by it. Since no one person can possibly be good at all of them, we get to choose the ones that we’re going to prioritize, which our spouses are going to take on (if we have one), what we’re going to outsource to someone else, and which of the balls we’re just going to drop. 

 We get to write our own job descriptions.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

“Housekeeping Is Not Motherhood,” by Rebecca Brown Right, rebeccabrownwright.com

Marriagelaboratory.com (Celeste Davis)

Chantelallencoaching.com

Brookeromney.com

Your Kid—A Novel Problem

Raising Seabiscuit

All Joy and No Fun, By Jennifer Senior

Katherine Wintsch struggled with self-doubt and perfectionism for years—even while outwardly achieving all her goals as a successful advertising executive. Then she decided to confront and slay those dragons of fear and doubt, rethink her priorities, and start her own company, where she could redefine work-life culture.

Beth Millward is the mom version of Buddy the Elf. In this episode she shares her many Christmas traditions, from Santa's Workshop to the twelve days of Christmas. I dare you to listen without getting excited to celebrate!

In 1983, Ellen Weir Casey delivered the first "test-tube baby" born in Colorado,paving the way for the more than 8 million in vitro babies that have been born since--including my own miracle baby. She tells her amazing story on the podcast today.

Jasmine and Madison Wilson have made music, love, and laughter their family creed, as well as their Instagram handle (@musiclovelaughter). In this episode, we talk about how Jasmine has cultivated her young daughter's musical talent, helping her write and record original songs as early as age 6. 

A conversation with Renee Reina, host of The Mom Room Podcast, about mom guilt, comparisons, toxic mom culture, and the division of labor at home. 

How do you run your family calendar? Manage projects around the house? Keep track of kids' money? Whitney and guest Sami Bedell-Mulhern talk about the top 5 tech tools they use to help their homes run smoothly. 

Here's the link for my weekly Open Studio time, Wednesdays at 10:00 MT. Hope to see you there!

https://riverside.fm/studio/listener-ideas?t=880793c622433a15fcce

This week we'll be talking about your Top 5 Picks for family movie night! (And whatever else you want to talk about.)

Back in August, I recorded an episode called Routine Experimentation, where I talked about several of the experiments I was conducting in my home laboratory with my five little guinea pigs (to switch to another animal analogy). This is actually one of my favorite things about motherhood--troubleshooting problem areas and figuring out creative solutions. I like to play the role of mad scientist.

Of course a lot has changed since last August, as tends to happen where kids are involved, so I thought it was time for an update on how those experiments fared, and to tell you about the new experiments I’m rolling out.

I’ll first cover our three regular daily routines: morning, afternoon, and bedtime, and then talk about a few other experiments like allowance, housekeeping, and exercise.

A strategic level workshop about how to:

• Make invisible work visible
• Show kids what they need to learn how to do to take care of themselves when they’re an adult
• Empower kids to take on more responsibility
• Figure out a deliberate plan for sharing family work
• Identify the individual strengths and talents of family members
• Evaluate your priorities 
• Set family and individual goals

Fifteen different ways to write about your family, from short and simple to prolific. 

LInks to journals, books, and courses mentioned:

Back and Forth Journal

Flecks of Gold Journal

Thriving in Motherhood Journal

Family Yearbook Course by Miss Freddy (code: howshemoms)

The Thank You Project

Connecting with your kids takes effort, creativity, patience--and a lot of experimentation! Whitney Archibald, Angelynn Singley, and Paola Jellings, who have (gasp) 18 children between them, talk about experiments they've tested to connect with their kids, and come up with a few for you to try. Then four contributors share their ideas as well.

Here are the books mentioned in this episode:

The Five Minute Time In by Brittney Smart

Atomic Habits by James Clear 

To contribute to future episodes, email whitney@howshemoms.com

A few upcoming topics:

Dividing home management and caregiving responsibilities with your partner

Getting Kids to Pitch in Around the House

Teaching Kids Hygiene Habits

Building Family Culture

Vanessa Quigley, co-founder of Chatbooks, shares the story of how--and why--they started the company and gives lots of great tips about taking, storing, curating, and enjoying family photos. 

When you're hosting an event are you Inclusive or exclusive? Chill or bossy? These are a few of the controversies we'll cover in today's discussion about the Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, with Whitney Archibald, Angela Halliday, and Emily Bean.

Watch Part 1:

The Art of Gathering Part 1 (Intro and Chapter 1)

Other episodes about gathering:

How She Builds a Village

How She Spends Time with Friends

How She Makes Friends

How Christina Builds Community

Learning how to manage money wisely is one of those lessons that has to be learned from experience, and watching our kids make money mistakes can be painful. This episode discusses brilliant examples of how moms are teaching their kids about money, from establishing family economic systems to setting up bank accounts, to having kids help manage family finances.

Here are some links to additional resources on howshemoms.com:

The Great Allowance Debate — A cheesy mock debate between a commission-based system of paying children, an allowance-based system, and no system at all.

Brataphobia — Afraid of raising spoiled brats? Here are twelve antidotes to the entitlement epidemic, from four great books.

How Lisa Teaches Her Kids About Money — Lisa pays her daughters a weekly allowance, independent of chores.

How Sarah Teaches Her Kids About Money — Beginning at age 9, Sarah's kids earn money for completing their daily chores, and buy most of what they need or want for themselves.

I love a good parenting controversy. And the topic of how (or if) to give kids money is a big one. There are two main sides to this debate: allowance vs. commission. In the allowance model, kids are paid a set weekly or monthly rate, independent of chores or other qualifications. The second approach is a commission system, a work-for-pay system wherein kids are paid for doing chores and making other contributions to the family. And then, of course, there’s a third option: not giving kids money at all.

Links from this episode:

How Lisa Teaches Kids About Money

How Sarah Teaches Kids About Money

3 Reasons I Don't Pay My Kids an Allowance, by Amanda Hamilton Roos

Allowance by Lisa Hoelzer, Betterwayparenting.net

Smart Money, Smart Kids, by Dave and Rachel Ramsey 

The Entitlement Trap, by Linda and Richard Eyre

The Opposite of Spoiled, by Ron Lieber

The Blessing of a B-, by Wendy Mogel. 

This is not an episode about the nitty gritty of homeschooling, though I do plan to do a more comprehensive episode or maybe even a multi-part series about that in the future. This is an episode for first-time homeschoolers and remote schoolers. I’m going to split the episode into two parts: help and hope.

We’ll start by troubleshooting some of the challenges of teaching your kids at home—including how to get your own work done while the kids are all home. Then we’ll play Pollyanna and talk about some of the positive things about teaching your kids at home. The goal here is to focus on what you’re gaining this year rather than what you’re missing out on—to replace some of your fear and dread with hope and maybe even excitement. I am not trying to minimize that fear and dread at all. Those are very understandable emotions to be having right now. This is hard! But after interviewing the moms I talked to for this episode, I felt so much more hopeful and optimistic, and I wanted to bottle that feeling up for you as well.   

Resources:

Jodi Chaffee, host of the podcast The Family Culture Movement: homeandfamilyculture.com

Instagram: @familyculturepodcast

Ceri Payne, life coach: Organizedlife.coach

Instagram: @organizedlife.coach

Family Looking Up Podcast, Episode 150: Combating Homeschool Overwhelm with Jen Bradley

The Self-Driven Child, by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson

This week I boil down the Family Lab philosophy into ten different ideas--mostly things I've learned the hard way through lots of first-hand experimentation. 

Here are some links for things I mention in the episode: 

Open Studio Wednesdays at 10:00 MDT--Please join in!

American Man, Age 10 by Susan Orlean

How She Shares Family Work

How You Do Laundry

The first in a three-episode series about one of the very best parts of motherhood--discovering each of our kids’ unique talents and helping them cultivate those talents.

Teaching children to clean is a daunting task, whether we have one child or 13. In this episode we talk about how to teach kids to clean, with an emphasis on what jobs different moms expect their children to do, how they train their children to do these jobs, and what systems they use, including Emily’s system.

Links mentioned in this episode

Why My Kids Don’t Have Chores

Why I Don’t Make My Kids Do Chores

Books:

The Parenting Breakthrough, by Merrilee Boyack

Blog Posts:

Power of Families: Two Tips for a Clean and Happy Home

Mentoring Our Own: The Remedy to Chore Wars

Podcasts:

Edit Your Life Podcast, episode 149: How to Teach Kids Life Skills

Moms Who Know Podcast, December 17, 2017: Donna Goff: Family Work

NPR, Weekend Edition: How to Get Your Kids to Do Chores (Without Resenting It)

Family Looking Up, Episode 41: How To Raise Kids to Be Independent Adults, with Merrilee Boyack

Other Links:

Song For a Fifth Child

100 Life Skills You Can Teach Your Kids in Five Minutes or Less

Full text:

At the moment, Emily Widdison is a mother to 13 children. This number fluctuates, because she is a foster mom, but nine of those 13 are permanently hers. Mothering this many little people has a whole host of logistical challenges, not the least of which is keeping the house clean. And yet she does—for the most part. Or more accurately, they all do.

She started her current chore system about six years ago, when she went from four children to eight, all nine years old and under, including a brand-new baby. One morning after the kids left the house for school, the kitchen was just trashed, and she realized she couldn’t do this herself. So later that day, she sat her kids down and said, “I need help. It can’t be just one little job or just your room.” And the kids stepped up.“

Today’s episode is “How She Teaches Kids to Clean,” a daunting task whether we have one child at home or 13. Once I started researching, I realized what a monumental topic this is, so I’m actually splitting it up into three episodes: this one, about teaching kids to clean, another about how to teach kids to be tidy, and a third entitled “How She Motivates Kids to Work.”

In this first episode we’ll talk about how to teach kids to clean, with an emphasis on what jobs different moms expect their children to do, how they train their children to do these jobs, and what systems they use, including Emily’s system.

As always, I love a good controversy, and there’s plenty here. I have run across several articles written by mothers who don’t believe in giving their kids chores—even one that said that making children clean is tantamount to child abuse. I’ll link to a few of those articles in the show notes, if you’re interested, but for now I’ll just give a brief rundown of their arguments:

1. Let kids be kids. They have the rest of their lives to work.
2. Mundane household tasks are much easier to learn when kids are older. They’ll figure it out.
3. Kids should still have to pick up after themselves, clean up toys, and bring their plates over, just not do extra things like washing dishes, doing laundry, and scrubbing toilets.

Many of these moms in the no-chores camps were raised with no chores themselves, and they not only turned out alright but they run a household capably now.

If this is your philosophy, I still love you, but it doesn’t make for a very useful podcast episode, because the only tip for that strategy is: Don’t make your kids clean. So the rest of this episode will be based on the assumption that kids shouldbe doing work around the house.

Strategy

First let’s talk about strategy. If you’re new here, I always start each topic by talking about strategy and objectives. What are you trying to accomplish here? When it comes to teaching kids to clean, some obvious objectives are to:

1. Train kids to take care of themselves and a home
2. Teach kids the satisfaction of hard work.
3. Combat entitlement.
4. Lighten your workload.
5. Have a clean house.
6. Clean the house efficiently.

The problem is, some of these objectives are diametrically opposed. At least at first, putting kids in charge of household chores does not lighten your workload, and does not result in a very clean house. It’s a lot more work to teach a kid how to sweep the floor, for example, than to sweep it yourself. Even once the kid has the skills, it often takes you much less time to do it yourself than to actually get them to do it. And it takes kids a long time for a child’s cleaning skills in any given area to match your standards.

So, when you’re defining your personal strategy for teaching kids to clean, be very honest about how you prioritize these objectives, or any others. You also have to decide where you draw your cleanliness line. If you have pretty high standards for how clean you want your house to be, you might be more careful about what type of jobs you assign to kids. If you’re okay with a fair amount of chaos, you might want to delegate more to the kids.

For example, I grew up in a house with a fairly relaxed standard of cleanliness. This was intentional on my mother’s part. Framed on our wall was an excerpt from Ruth Hulbert Hamilton’s poem, “Song for a Fifth Child”:

“Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
But children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.”

I’ll link to the full text of the poem, in my notes. http://aboverubies.org/index.php/ar-blogs/womens-daily-encouragement-blog/entry/song-for-a-fifth-child

As a result of this philosophy, our house was clean but cluttered. My mom taught us how to scrub our bathrooms, clean the kitchen, do our laundry, etc., but we all tolerated quite a bit of daily clutter. A common phrase my mom would sing out when someone came to the door was, “Come in if you can get in!”

On the other hand, my friend Lisa’s house is generally clutter-free and gleaming. I thought that to achieve that kind of clean, a mom would have to be yelling at her kids all the time, but Lisa’s motto is “Calm and Kind,” and she actually follows that motto. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to work really hard to achieve this kind of lofty objective. Especially when her kids were younger, her high standards required a lot of hands-on training. This work is worth it to Lisa, because when the house gets messy, she gets anxious and unsettled.

It’s a great idea to be realistic and figure out where you fit in along this continuum. What kind of clean are you hoping to achieve?

Division of Labor

Part of figuring out your cleaning strategy is figuring out how you want to divide the labor. What tasks are you going to leave to the parents and what will the kids be in charge of?

One way to divvy up chores is to write up a list of all the chores that need to be done on a daily and weekly basis to keep the house running smoothly, and then have the kids help figure out who should do what. I have done this a few times, and it’s a great way for them to see visually how much work it requires to run a house—and how much of it I usually do by myself.

With a bit of creativity, you can think of chores that allow even the youngest members of your household to help. Young children are great at sorting clean silverware or dirty laundry. Sarah Fedotov created a great daily chore for her 6-year-old. His job is to collect any shoes he can find and line them up neatly in the closet.

Be careful about your expectations here, though. Before kids, Lisa had big plans for how she was going to start teaching her kids to clean as early as possible. This led to some very unnecessary power struggles with her three-year-old. She says, “Eventually, I learned to have pretty low expectations for cleaning skills for kids younger than eight. Their efforts are about the process rather than the product. Until age eight, my strategy for teaching my them to clean is to encourage them and make cleaning fun, with low expectations for the actual quality of the work. The goal is to let them practice working and get in the habit of helping.”

Another way to decide what your kids could or should be in charge of is to see what other kids are doing at their age.

You don’t have to start from scratch here, and it’s often better if you don’t, because often other people will think of jobs that hadn’t occurred to you. I have found many lists of age-appropriate chores online, and over the years I’ve cobbled together my own list based those lists.

My favorite list is the one Marilee Boyack, author of “The Parenting Breakthrough” created for her kids. She calls it The Plan, and in addition to cleaning jobs, it includes life skills such as making and keeping your own appointments and opening a bank account. It starts at age three with things like, “dress self,” “use toilet independently,” and “pick up toys,” continues through each age with things like learning to load and empty a dishwasher at age six, and mopping floors and baking cookies at age nine. By the time they’re teenagers, they should be able to do adult things like manage their money, maintain a car, and do minor household repairs. She used this list as a checkpoint with her kids, checking in often to make sure she taught the age-appropriate chores by the time her children reached the next year.

Another great list of chores and other life skills for chores is from Asha Dornfest and Christine Koh, hosts of the Edit Your Life Podcast. I’ll link to their list of 100 Life Skills You Can Teach Your Kids in Five Minutes or Lessand to their podcast episode about teaching kids life skills.

Donna Goff’s answer to the question of what kids should be in charge of is “everything”—eventually. For about 20 years, she used a traditional chore system, in which her seven children rotated through individual chores, complete with various iterations of charts and wheels. She realized that this system of individual chores was isolating her kids and isolating the jobs themselves, so the kids could clean a toilet, but they didn’t understand how to clean a bathroom from start to finish.

So she called her kids into the living room for a family meeting and ripped up the family chore chart. She told them they had a new system now, which she calls “Family Work.” She started this new plan of “Family Work” by going through and refining her household systems. Then she taught her children how to run each of those systems, according to their age and maturity level. Her young children became her shadows, making the daily household rounds with her, helping in whatever ways they could. For example, if she was doing laundry, she’d have a little one come along and help with the sorting, folding, and putting away. Eventually, this became more of an apprenticeship, with the child doing most of the work, under her guidance. Eventually, the children rotated through each of the systems, taking complete ownership of one system at a time, from deep cleaning to meal planning and prep. Then, when they left home, they had all the skills they needed to run an entire household.

You can hear Donna talk about her Family Work system on the Moms Who Know Podcast. You’ll have to go back a ways to the episode that aired on Dec. 27, 2017: Donna Goff: Family Work. Donna also runs her own website, mentoringourown.com.

Training

For most families, teaching kids to clean works like an old-fashioned apprenticeship. We can’t expect kids to jump right in and know how to sweep or start the washing machine. It usually starts with the child observing, then helping, then eventually taking over, like Donna Goff’s system.

This training can begin earlier than we think, if we’re willing to follow the example of indigenous Mexican and Guatemalan families. My brother sent me an amazing article from NPRabout researchers who studied a fascinating phenomenon. Children in these cultures not only did the chores their parents asked them to do, but they also were also self-motivated to see what needed to be done and do it without being asked. Every parent’s dream!

What was their secret? “Embrace the power of toddlers.” Often parents tend to shoo two-year-olds away so they can get work done. But toddlers are really eager to help. In the Mexican and Guatemalan cultures from this study, parents encouraged their toddlers to help and work alongside them. We could learn a lot from this, and start harnessing the power and enthusiasm of our two-year-olds. Of course it will be messy and take more time. But it’s an investment, and the payoff in relationship building, confidence, and gradual skill building is big.

The whole article is just fantastic. I’ll include a link in my show notes.

My favorite system for training kids to work is from Merrilee Boyack again. We already talked about her list. She uses this list as a guideline for her training program. First, she makes sure the kids know what skills they’re going to be learning. They become kind of a right of passage. Then she chooses who will train that child in each skill. She does a lot of the training herself, but she also likes to enlist other people to help train, like grandparents, teachers, church leaders, neighbors, or older siblings. For example, a neighbor taught one of her sons to change a bike tire. Of course she was careful not to have the trainers be people she knew and trusted and her kids were not alone with these other adults.

She then makes notecards with detailed instructions on them so the kids can practice after they’ve been trained. She sometimes supervises those practice sessions.

Saren Loosli, who runs the website poweroffamilies.comand has five children, trained her children to do specific chores, then actually certified them with a test and a bona fide certificate to prove their competence. Once they were certified, THEY became trainers for their younger siblings. 

Mary Price utilizes her older children as well. They’re in charge of making the list of Saturday chores and assigning them out so they take ownership. Then they choose a younger buddy to work with so the younger siblings can learn how to work. They love working with the big kids.

In the summer, Lisa likes to assign a “special helper” each week from among her four daughters. The daughter of the week helps her deep clean the kitchen, do the laundry, grocery shop, and plan and prepare the meals. It has worked really well because it’s easy for Lisa to remember who to call on for help, they enjoy spending time together that week, and the girls enjoy the extra attention. It’s also a great way to fill in the gaps if there are any skills her daughters haven’t yet mastered.

To check the quality of their kids’ work, Nanieve French and her friend used to dress up as cleaning fairies, complete with white gloves, and swap houses to inspect the the cleaning their friend’s children had done in their houses that day. The kids worked extra hard so they’d pass inspection.

Chore systems

OK, so now that the children have some training, it’s time to talk about work systems—how teaching kids to clean actually works on a day-to-day basis. This is usually where charts come in. The moms I talked to have differing thoughts about charts, and most of us have cycled through lots of them. This doesn’t mean they didn’t work. Most charts do work—until they don’t. They lose their novelty, kids grow out of them, or they need some tweaks. I collected photos of several different charts as I researched this topic, which you can find at howshemoms.com on the page for this episode, which I’ll link in my show notes.

A lot of these moms have landed on a system that finally worked for them, and they’re sticking with it. Others, like Merrilee Boyack think it’s good to mix things up and change systems regularly on purpose. To quote her once again, she says, “To use the same method of assigning chores all the time is incredibly dull; it’s no wonder the kids lose interest. So spice it up! Try new things! Switch it around after a few months.”

Every time I come up with a new system, I think I’m brilliant and that this will be the one. I’ve tried magnets, clipboards, checklists—you name it. But they all quickly fail because I have realized that I really hate maintaining charts. The best thing that works for me is just keeping an updated list of what I expect the kids to do before they can play, like cleaning their rooms and bathrooms and practicing their piano, and a using a simple wheel to rotate kitchen jobs.  

Lisa Hoelzer’s system is also pretty simple, mostly because she’s trained her daughters so well to be clean. We’ll talk a lot more about Lisa’s tidiness training in the next episode. But as for her chore system, her daughters rotate who has kitchen duty each day. Otherwise, they all pick up after themselves throughout the week and then have bathroom, vacuuming, dusting and other chore assignments on Saturday.

Rather than a set list or chart, Audra Schwenkler makes new lists for her kids each day, based on their schedules and what they need to get done.

Saren was tired of devoting every Saturday to cleaning, with kids scattering to finish job lists and parents getting after them to complete half-finished jobs. So she created a new system she calls bite-sized daily housework. Each day, each child picks one task from the list of chores and completes it in 5-10 minutes. Then on Saturdays they just do a few larger jobs together, like yard work or deep-cleaning one area of the house. 🧽
You can print Saren’s list at https://poweroffamilies.com/two-tips-for-a-clean-and-happy-home/ 

As we talked about at the beginning of this post, Emily’s chore system starts with a wheel that specifies which kitchen jobs and extra jobs her kids have to do each day. But she also has a magnetic chart with lists of the morning and afternoon jobs that don’t rotate, so they can keep track of what they’ve done. Once they finish their morning chores, the reward is that they get to have “morning free time,” which means they can   

The other layers of wheels have a dinner job and then a room that they’re in charge of keeping tidy. Recently, however, Emily has been ignoring that outer layer and just asking her kids to come to her to tell them what job she needs done at the moment. She calls these mom jobs. She also assigns extra mom jobs:

The other part of her system is a magnetic chart with the rest of their jobs. It’s split into two parts—their morning jobs and their after school jobs. So each morning before school, they have to get ready for school, do their morning kitchen chore, clean their room, make their bed, make their lunch, put their stuff by the door, and practice their instrument. If they get their morning jobs done, the big reward is that they get morning free time before school. Emily’s job is monitor them all to make sure they get all their morning chores done before morning free time.

After school, they have to put their stuff away, eat a snack, do a 10-minute speedy cleanup, do their homework, and do their dinner jobs. The kids keep track of what chores they do on their magnet charts, and then their allowance is based on that. Emily’s husband, Kyle, resets the board every night and keeps track of the allowance. They pay the youngest kids in fake gold coins, which they can redeem at “The Mom Store” for prizes she keeps in her closet, but pays the older kids with real money. Emily and I are working on a blog post that will go into more detail of her whole system. I’ll let you know when I post it.

In case any of these examples made it seem way too easy to teach kids to clean and then get them to actually do it, I will unabashedly admit that this is a weak spot for my family. On the very day that I’m finishing this episode, my children spent all of two minutes pulling the weeds we asked them to pull, and our kitchen is a mess. Some days are better, some are worse. But we keep trying. And now I have a lot of new things to try.

It’s sometimes easier to think of things you love about motherhood when you're looking backwards or forward, thinking about what you miss from past stages, or what you look forward to in future stages. So I asked my Instagram readers what they loved and I came up with my own list. Then I asked my mother and mother-in-law for their lists. This was actually the best part about writing this post, and I encourage you all to ask your moms and mother-in-laws, or any other special moms in your lives, what they loved in each stage. I treasure their responses! 

This episode lists some of the things to love in each stage of motherhood (recognizing that these stages overlap if you have more than one child). The goal is for you to be able to look at your own stage from a different perspective, to make sure you don't take these lovable things for granted.

Links: 

"Treating Teens with Respect," blog post and video by Kristin Duke

All Joy and No Fun, by Jennifer Senior

I'm offering my complete Meal-Planning Workshop for free during the COVID-19 craziness, since we're all cooking at home more than ever. You can hear the entire introduction to the course in this podcast episode to see if it's something that will help you and your family. Go to howshemoms.teachable.com to enroll. God bless!

Stay-at-home mom? Homemaker? Simply "mom"? In this episode we try to answer the elusive question: What is the best job title for a woman who makes a career out of taking care of children and managing a home. 

Traveling when you have kids takes patience, planning, and creativity—even if you're leaving them home—but it can be done! And, usually, it’s worth all the pain. In this episode, we talk about family travel strategy, packing, flying with kids, road trips with kids, and more. 

Here are links to some great blogs and podcasts that I mention in this episode: 

Podcasts

Extraordinary Moms Podcast: "Tips for Packing with Jennica Woodbury"

Jessica Dahlquist interviews Jennica Woodbury of mommyconvos.com and they both share great family packing ideas for both air and road trips.

Family Looking Up, Episode 31: "Traveling as a Family" 

My favorite podcasting trio talks to Kam and Shani of Our Family Passport about how and why they travel to exotic (and some not-so-exotic) places as a family. It's a fun listen, and packed with great ideas. It will inspire you to be adventurous. 

Family Looking Up, Episode 79 “How To Travel as a Family and Actually Enjoy It”

If you’re hesitant about traveling with kids this interview with Jessica Dabelich may just change your mind. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but the memories are worth it!

The Mom Hour, Episode 185: Road Trips and Air Travel with Babies, Toddlers, and Kids

Sarah has flown a lot with kids, and Meagan is an expert at road trips. Together, they created a great podcast episode full of great traveling hacks.

What Fresh Hell, Episode 20: Vacationing with Kids: What to Pack

Great packing tips with a dose of humor and a slight ziplock obsession.

Travel Blogs

Flyingwithfour.com: Jessica Dabelich shares her family travel adventures with four small children, including lots of great articles with travel tips, packing lists, and great destinations.

Our Family Passport: A family of ten that has traveled to over 40 different countries together. They share tips for the logistics of traveling, plus location-specific, family-friendly recommendations for what to do once you get there.

Power of Moms: If you haven't yet discovered Power of Moms, you'll thank me for hooking you up. Saren Loosli has written the definitive family road trip article here. It also links to several other great travel posts from the site. 

CSGinger.com Candice is an intrepid traveler with her twins, now three years old. She has great tips for traveling domestically and abroad with littles. 

3kidstravel.com One of the best parts of this site is the interviews with other families that travel. Elise has great insights of her own and a knack for finding other intrepid traveling families. 

Adventure Together Christina McEvoy and Rachel Von share fabulous tips and destination-specific travel guides for families. 

travelmamas.com A great resource for traveling with kids, including some fabulous packing lists.

thepointsguy.com Go-to resource for travel deals and navigating credit card, airline, and hotel points.

Today, I’m delighted to share some of the highlights from a conversation I had with Chantel Allen, a mom of four and a life coach. She’ll talk about some of the different stages of motherhood, and her career path from preschool teacher to life coach. We also talk about how she has learned to live with anxiety and help her children through some of the same challenges.

To work or to stay home with your baby. That is the question. Or that used to be the question. Or maybe we just thought it was the question. The truth is, we have more than two options when it comes to motherhood and work—more options than mothers have ever had, thanks in part to pioneering feminists who came before us, advances in technology, and changes in the way we do business. Not to mention the fact that our life spans are getting longer and longer, so we have more time to reimagine our careers in different stages of life. Today, we’ll focus on this pivotal time for making career decisions, right after you have your first baby. 

One day you're the same you you've always been--the next day you're a mom. In this episode I talk to moms about how becoming a mom affected their sense of identity, from defining this new role to reevaluating goals and behaviors to rekindling past interests. 

Links: 

• How Maria Teaches Kids to Work (Howshemoms.com)
• How Nichole Builds Family Relationships (Howshemoms.com)
• Teaching Your Children Responsibility by Linda and Richard Eyre
• How To Teach Your Kids to Do Chores without Resenting It (npr.org)
• The Anthropology of Childhood by David F. Lancy
• The Truth About Employee Engagement by Patrick Lencioni
• 3 Battles You Can Let Your Child Win (Episode 27, 3 in 30 Podcast)
• Getting Unmotivated Kids to Help (Episode 1, 3 in 30 Podcast)
• How to Keep Your Head Above Water (Family Looking Up Podcast)
• Good, Clean Fun for the Whole Family! (howshemoms.com)

 To read the full text of this episode, go to:

https://www.howshemoms.com/home/2019/9/9/how-she-motivates-kids-to-work

Ten tips from sixteen different moms (and one dad) about how to support each other, make healthy comparisons, and just be good neighbors. Cue Mr. Rogers.

A Mother's Day tribute to my funny mom. She shares some great stories!

As a mom, you know what human beings need and how to take care of them. So why don't you take care of yourself? In this episode, I talk to 10 different moms about self-care—the why, the what, and the how.

I like to think of my house as my laboratory, And one of one of my favorite places to experiment is with daily routines—in the morning, after school, and bedtime. They're self-contained periods of time in which specific things have to happen, but there are endless variations of how those things can happen. 

If one part of our day is particularly dysfunctional (and there's always something), I analyze it, identify the major pain points, and try different solutions until I find one that works for my five little lab rats. Then, I find myself actually looking forward to those tricky situations, so I can try my latest experiment.

This year I have more potential solutions than ever, thanks to the great ideas shared by my fabulous contributors. I have so many new experiments to try!

In this episode, I’m going to talk about some of the routine experiments we’ve tried. Some worked for a while and then stopped being relevant, some failed quickly, others are still going strong.

Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

Transcript of this episode, including photos of sock dispensers

Beyond Good Intentions, Episode 75, "Simplifying Your Family Schedule"

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth

We’ve all experienced resets in our lives, both bad and good—things like job loss, illnesses, divorce, deaths, trauma, and tragic events like 9-11, and also positive things like marriage, moves, babies, graduations, new jobs. This time, Corona keeps pushing a giant reset button over and over—sometimes several times a day. No gatherings over 150, wait, make that 10. School’s going online for two weeks. Make that a month. Make that the rest of the school year.

Uncertainty is one of the trademarks of this reset. The uncertainty of how long it will last, how many people we love will get this evil virus, if and when we will get it ourselves, and how our bodies will react. We’re all constantly monitoring ourselves for signs of sickness, trying not to become a hypochondriac every time our throat tickles.

Sure, we could panic, and hunker down in fear. But we’re moms—and we don’t have time for that. We have mouths to feed, budgets to tighten, bottoms to wipe, toddlers to entertain—plus we’re trying to channel our inner Little House on the Prairie as we manage our own one-room school houses and make cheese using the lining of a calf’s stomach. OK, not that last part, but we are having to dig deep into our pantries and use stuff we didn’t even remember we had. Hello SPAM.

In this episode I talk about several of the specific ways Covid-19 is resetting motherhood both temporarily and long-term.

Here are some of the resources I mention in this episode:

Articles:

“This Togetherness is Temporary” by Mary Laura Philpott

 “Staying at Home With My Kids for Six Weeks: A Story About Boundaries.”  By Celeste Davis

“Coronavirus Is Not a Motherhood Competition.” By Brooke Romney

Awesome video by the Heller family:

https://vimeo.com/404483016?fbclid=IwAR1C8ZodQJZbLoFfvp7sQa-nZA8B0InhK_h8gmtjE8AkRmFNoszSR_uuPS8 

Podcast episodes:

“How To Be The Mom You Are (Instead of the Mom You Think You Should Be)” Episode 16 of the 3 in 30 Podcast

“Homeschool Moms: “You’ve Got this. Here’s What’s Most Important,” The Mom Hour Podcast

We can plan and prepare and imagine what this new world of motherhood will look like for us, but there’s only one guarantee: the element of surprise. In this episode, fourteen different moms share about how their expectations of motherhood met reality. 

Inspiring stories of women who love and serve their communities and the world and teach their children to do the same. 

My kids help me evaluate all of our summer experiments, from jobs to swimming to family reunions and lots of bravery. 

It's been a wild year and a half in the Archibald home--deep in survival mode. Here's a peek into the experiments--intentional and unintentional--that we've tried in the wake of my rock-climbing accident. Including simplifying, kitchen cleaning experiments, new hobbies, and more. 

Episodes mentioned:

How She Falls Off a Cliff

How Jessica Goes from Surviving to Thriving

Essentially and Simply with Greg McKeown

Every year, Leisle and Vinh Chung take a couple retreat to come up with a new version of their Plan with a capital P--a 30-year blueprint for their family. In this episode you'll learn about their plan and how they infuse their values--including hard work, compassion and service--into parenting and family life.

Traveling when you have kids takes patience, planning, and creativity, even if you're leaving them home, but it can be done! And—usually—it’s worth all the pain. This episode shares creative tips and tricks from planning to packing to entertaining kids in the car and making it through the airport, and then to the adventures themselves. Happy travels!

Welcome to Season 4! Here's a teaser of some of the topics and guests I plan to feature in this season, plus a behind-the-scenes look at how I put the podcast together. 

Ten experiments going down at the Archibald home, from a family retreat to chore routines to bedtime bribery. 

Seven ways to create a healthy digital culture and connect with your kids. Featuring advice from seven different tech-savvy moms: 

Andrea Davis, betterscreentime.com

Hillary Wilkinson,  healthyscreenhabits.com

Catherine Pearlman, thefamilycoach.com

Jen Brimhall, raisethegood.com

Alex Fales, mindfulwithmedia.com

Kailan Carr, quietbookqueen.com

Chanelle Neilson, chanelleneilson.com

On March 6, 2025, Elise Caffee was in a terrible car accident in Cancun. The car she was in was hit by an asphalt truck, and she was rescued, but severely burned. She is now in a hospital back home in Utah, still in critical condition, undergoing a series of surgeries. You can follow along with her recovery at instagram.com/elisecaffeeupdates

I decided to change my planned schedule to bring you a conversation I had with Elise about friendship in 2022. I used clips from it in two different episodes, but never released the entirety of it. Elise had so many beautiful things to say about friendship and kindness. Please enjoy her wisdom today and say a prayer for Elise and her family. 

Donate to the driver's family here: Go Fund Me

3kidstravel.com

Lubna Jamal immigrated to the United States from Pakistan about 20 years ago to marry her husband, a recent immigrant himself. Last week, I invited her into my fancy podcasting studio/aka my bedroom closet to talk to her about how she teaches her two sons about their cultural heritage and family history.

Hillary Wilkinson, one of the founders of Healthy Screen Habits tells the story about how she helped start this organization, shares research about kids and screens, walks us through some safeguards we can put in place, shares some great ways we can connect with our kids through tech,  and teaches us some healthy screen habits.

It’s that time again—about three times a year, I do a whole episode updating you on the experiments we’re trying here in the Archibald home—from sleep to chores to allowance to travel.

The first of three episodes focusing first on the strategic level of managing stuff, then decluttering, then organizing. In this episode, we delve into our objectives for decluttering and organizing our homes, our relationships with our stuff, how our personalities affect the way we manage our stuff, and how we decide what to keep and what to chuck.

Naming a baby is one of the first big decisions we make as parents—and it’s a huge one! Talk about pressure! This is the name they’re going to be known by their whole lives. It sounds so stressful--so why is it so darn fun?

In this episode we’re going to talk about some of the common—and uncommon--ways parents come up with names, and how they actually come to an agreement on those names. We’ll also take a fun intermission with a little quiz we’ll call Spot the Urban Legend.

Sources: 

How To Name a Baby, by Tim Urban

Baby Name Voyager

Fourteen tactics for connecting with teens, from ten different moms. 

Devan James and Alexis Mayberry have known each other since middle school. They’ve supported each other through relationships, babies, and more babies. Last year, they decided to spread the love and support to other moms by recording season one of their podcast, Word2yamuva. We had a great conversation, from mommy wars to mom guilt to discipline to career choices.

Kathryn Thompson was having a great day--just killing it. But then self-doubt tried to creep it's way in. Right then and there, she stopped those thoughts and started a new practice--collecting drops of awesome, little successes that add up to a full bucket of awesomeness. She tells her story and other practices that help her keep self-doubt at bay. 

Entitlement is a first-world problem. And it's an embarrassing problem to admit, because it sounds like we're whining about our good fortune: "It's just so hard to raise kids when we have enough money to buy them things...." But just because we're embarrassed that we spoil our children doesn't mean we should ignore the fact nor let it persist.

This month I went on a quest for an antidote to the raging entitlement epidemic. I gravitated to four main books on the topic, though there are many more great ones out there: 

The Opposite of Spoiled, by Ron Lieber

The Entitlement Trap, by Richard and Linda Eyre

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel

Smart Money, Smart Kids, by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze

As I was researching, I compiled a list of 12 things we can teach our children so they don't turn into spoiled brats:

1. Scarcity

2. Contentment

3. Gratitude

4. Generosity

5. Perspective

6. Hard work

7. Ownership

8. Patience

9. Thrift

10. Consequences

11. Transparency

12. Good Role Models

To read the article this podcast was based on, click here.

Dr. Catherine Pearlman, author of the fabulous book, First Phone, talks about how we can empower kids to make good choices about how they use technology. 

For more resources from Catherine, go to thefamilycoach.com

In this episode we’ll talk about many different ways to approach mornings, from moms in all sorts of different situations, moms with little kids and moms with teenagers, moms who home school and moms who send their kids to school, moms with different work situations, moms who love mornings and moms who hate them.

As usual, you can access the full transcript at howshemoms.com.

Links:

• The Lazy Genius Podcast: Episode 58, The Lazy Genius Morning Routine 
• Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, PhD
• Morning People Vs. Night Owls: 9 Insights Backed By Science, Fast Company Magazine
• 3 in 30 Podcast: Episode 64, How to Make Over Your Mornings with Crystal Paine of Money Saving Mom
• What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, by Laura Vanderkam
• Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod
• Establishing School-Year Routines, by Karen Loosli, powerofmoms.com
• How Juliana Does Mornings, howshemoms.com
• How Emerald Creates Routines, howshemoms.com
• How Sharolyn Creates Routines, howshemoms.com
• How Josie Does Mornings, howshemoms.com

So you have never been a room mom. (Guilty!) Look how many books you read with your kids, or magnificent meals you made, or epic hikes you went on. In this episode Maria Eckersley and Whitney Archibald talk about the tradeoffs that come with discovering and leaning into our superpowers. You can't do everything all at once. But you can build different strengths in different seasons and turn out to be amazing in your own unique way. 

To learn more from the wonderful Maria Eckersley, check out this episode of How She Moms: 

How Maria Makes It Fun

And you can find fun ideas, printables, and her scripture study courses at Meckmom.com.

To join my open studio on Wednesdays, go to this link: 

Open Studio Wednesdays, 10-11 MT

My dear friend Kelley Durrant tells about the unexpected paths she has traveled as a mother. Paths that have included a lot of challenges: infertility, the loss of a daughter; a son with special needs; but also lots of learning, giving, and adventure, including a surprise, record-breaking physical talent; a year living abroad; and a cow named Tina.

Whitney interviews moms from the village that helped raise her. They talk about friendship, the work that goes into building it, and some of their kids' shenanigans. 

Time to tackle larger events, like weddings, funerals, family reunions, and community events! In this third installment, we talk about the structure of events, from the invitations to the send off. This week Whitney is joined by Angela Halliday and Debbie Siebert. The book we've been discussing is The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.

To listen to the other two episodes about this book, click the links below: 

Art of Gathering Part 1

Art of Gathering Part 2

Do your kids have good manners? What does that even mean? Today we talk to Brooke Romney, author of 52 Modern Manners for Today’s Teens, Volumes 1 and 2, and 52 Modern Manners for Kids. We discuss this idea of manners and how we can teach our kids social skills that will help them connect with other people and become more confident.

You can find more resources from Brooke Romney at brookeromney.com and follow her on Instagram @brookeromneywrites.

Brooke was also featured on another episode of the How She Moms podcast: 

How Brooke Learns from Other Moms

And she contributed to several other episodes, including:

What She Calls Herself and How She Discovers Kids' Talents

Find all past episodes and other resources at Howshemoms.com

With as many kids as I have, and all the reading I do on the topic, you might think I’m somewhat of an expert on raising kids. Yes, I generally know how to keep them alive, clothed, fed, and sheltered, and I keep the family more or less afloat. But one thing that has surprised me the most about parenting is how many skills are not transferrable from one kid to the next. If they were, we’d only need one parenting book to teach us everything we need to know, instead of the hundreds that are out there.

But over the past couple of years, five different people have shifted how I think about this: Malcolm Gladwell, in his podcast, Revisionist History; Mary Reckmeyer, in the book Strengths-Based Parenting; Ross W. Greene, in his book, The Explosive Child; Brittney Smart, in her book, The Five-Minute Time In; and my family’s own behavioral coach, Karly Allen.

Links: 

Full Text of this episode at Howshemoms.com

Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

Revisionist History Season 4 (Episodes 6, 7, 8)

Strengths-Based Parenting

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

The Explosive Child

The Five-Minute Time In

Monster-Free Mothering

Brooke Romney is one of my favorite writers on the topic of being a mother and being a good person in general. Her first book, I Love Me Anyway, released this fall, and it’s as beautiful and inspiring as I expected. Here, I talk with Brooke about some of the different stages she’s experienced in motherhood, and what she’s learned along the way, especially from other moms.

This week’s episode is another bonus interview, and a glimpse of what life is like for a mom of 11 children! I recorded this conversation with the incredible Emily Fillmore about a year ago for my episodes “How She Teaches Kids to Work” and “How She Teaches Kids to Be Tidy,” and I thought it was time to bring you the whole interview, now that we’re all figuring out our fall routines.

Links:

Family Do Dots

Janet Thompson, a mother of six and one of my motherhood mentors shares eight tips to create an inviting family culture.

Jessica Jackson’s framework for transitioning from surviving to thriving might just transform your whole way of looking at motherhood and life (because survival mode isn’t exclusive to motherhood). Best of all, Jessica has given me words to describe the transition from survival mode to re-entry to normalizing to exploring to thriving and even soaring. Don’t worry. She’ll explain the whole thing.

Find Jessica at thrivinginmotherhoodpodcast.com

In this episode, nine different women share how they discovered their passions, from law to flamenco. Some of these women have pursued their passions through their careers, some through hobbies, some through volunteer work. Others weave their passions through everything they do. This episode will be especially helpful if you are not quite sure what you’re passionate about right now, if you can’t figure out how to fit your passions into your current circumstances, or if you’ve lost sight of what lights you up.

Maria Kemp’s kids start riding horses as soon as they can ride along in a front pack. For them, work is a way of life.

In this episode we’ll  talk about 10 tactics to bring a little more play into parenting. Along the way, we’ll dig into the guilt a little bit and examine that pressure we feel to entertain our kids, we’ll talk to moms about specific ways they play with their kids—including march-madness style taste tests, airborne pancakes, and competitive toilet wiping—and we’ll even learn some techniques for making those pretend-play sessions something you can actually enjoy once in a while.

Twelve tips about making new friends from seven different moms. 

Leslie Graff rediscovered her passion for creating art around the time she also became a mom. What she didn’t anticipate was how much each of these pursuits would enrich the other.

Most of us haven’t been in a sitcom-style, hurl-mashed-potatoes-across-the-room kind of food fight, but I’ll bet most of us have been in fights about food with our kids. There are so many potential conflicts here, from picky eating to table manners. The goal of this two part series is to help make eating with your kids a positive experience—with a lot of great ideas from moms on the front lines. In this first episode, we’ll talk about two potential battles: picky eating and house rules about what types of food you eat. In part two, we’ll talk about battles over when kids eat—especially snacks—and how kids eat—how they act at the table.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Podcasts:

Your Picky Eater, What Fresh Hell Podcast

Baby Food, Our Parents Did What? Podcast

The Beast Hiding in Your Pantry, Didn’t I Just Feed You? Podcast

Books:

Bringing Up Bebe, by Pamela Druckerman

French Kids Eat Everything, by Karen Le Billon

Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss

Little Pea, by Amy Rosenthal

Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell and Lillian Hoban

I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, by Lauren Child

Video Clip:

There’s a Party In My Tummy,  Yo Gabba Gabba

Workshop:

How She Moms Meal-Planning Workshop

How do you gather with your family? And how could you make gatherings like dinnertime, family scripture study, driving kids around, and family meetings more purposeful?

Join Whitney and her friend Angela Halliday as they discuss the intro and first chapter of The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. This episode will focus on gatherings of your nuclear family. 

Here's the schedule for the rest of the book: 

February 11: Art of Gathering Part 2--Chapters 2-3. We'll talk about hosting informal gatherings with friends and extended family

March 11: Art of Gathering Part 3--Chapters 4-8. We'll talk about hosting more formal gatherings like weddings, funerals, reunions, and parties.

Have you discovered the amazing and ever-expanding world of kid podcasts? In this episode Whitney gets recommendations from two kid podcast experts, Merideth Kelly (founder of Storitopia.com) and Andi Smiley (host of The Friendly Podcast Guide). All three of us share our top five (Ok, I shared eight) podcasts for kids, and we talk about how we use podcasts with our kids in our daily lives--including that elusive challenge of getting our kids to go to sleep! 

Here are our lists, with links for where to find these fabulous podcasts, including recommendations for good episodes to start with. 

Andi Smiley: Top 5 Sleep Podcasts

Snoriezzz (fav episode: The Selfish Giant)

Bedtime History (fav episode: Unsinkable Sam the Battleship Cat)

Sleep Tight Science (fav episode: Dolphins)

Story Train (fav episode: No Dancing at the Dinner Table)

Nothing Much Happens

Merideth Kelly: Underrepresented Favorites

Armchair Adventures (fav episode: The Shakespeare Adventure)

Reading Bug Adventures (fav episode: Inner Space)

Culture Kids 

The Story Forest (fave series: Dash Away Detectives)

Solve It for Kids (fave episode: How Do You Study Manatees)

Whitney Archibald: Kid Podcasts that are also Fun for Adults 

Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest

Whose Amazing Life

Circle Round

Kidnuz

Six Minutes

Adult Podcasts that are Fun for Kids

Radiolab (fave episode: colors)

Radiolab for kids/Terrestrials

Everything Is Alive (fave episodes: Maeve, lamppost; Vinny, Vending Machine; Alligator, Alligator)

Twenty Thousand Hertz (fave episodes: The Sound Design Behind Bluey, Soundalikes, The Dark History of Popular Nursery Rhymes)

Friendly Podcast Guide Episodes

Circle Round

Nothing Much Happens

Three Excellent Podcasts My Five-Year-Old Loves

My Son’s Current Favorite Kid Podcasts: Something Scary, Fun, and Adventurous

Mary Van Geffen is spicy. Which is why she's made it her mission as a parenting coach to help parents understand their own spicy children. In this episode, Mary teaches how to manage our own reactions as we parent these amazing kids. 

Get Mary's guide to Finding Your Calm here: https://maryvangeffen.ck.page/42c9542683

This episode gives you permission to celebrate birthdays in whatever way fits your personality and family. But--it also includes a piñata full of great ideas about how different moms do birthday parties, gifts, food, and relationship-building traditions. 

I have so many great stories to share with you in this podcast episode, from five different mothers who serve their community and the world in beautiful ways. I truly believe that being a mom is specialized training in how to identify and serve the needs of others—a skillset we can then take into our communities and the world, when the time is right. 

Here are some links I mention in this episode: 

Slade Family Christmas Video 2011

Slade Family Tiny Home for the Holidays Video

Micah Slade's YouTube Channel

JustServe.org

Aging Resources of Douglas County

Pikes Peak Challenge

Giving Quiz for Kids at Coloradocares.org

Light the World Giving Machines

Light the World Service Advent Calendar

Midlife Mixtape, Episode 54: Giving Circle Founder Jacqueline Jacobs Caster

Charity Water

In this episode, How She Reads, we’ll talk about how moms read to their kids, how they fit in some reading time for themselves, and how they create a culture of reading in their homes.

There’s plenty of evidence that reading is good for our brains—and for our kids’ brains. We know that reading to our kids improves their own reading skills and helps them with other academic subjects too. The importance and value of this cannot be overstated.

But all this research—all the quotas of the number of books we’re supposed to read to our kids by the time they enter kindergarten—is not the only reason we should read to our kids. It misses all the magic.

Reading is also about connecting with other people—the people who wrote the books, the characters inside them (real or imaginary), and whoever you read the book with or talk about it with.

Full Transcript: Howshemoms.com

Links from this episode:

Read-Aloud Revival Podcast hosted by Sarah Mackenzie

• Episode 130 : Reading Aloud as an Obstinate Act of Love, with Meghan Cox Gurdon
• Episode 125: Master Class: Creating a Book Club Culture at Home (Part 1)

Village Book Builders

Everyday Reading

What Should I Read Next? Podcast, hosted by Anne Bogel

10 Things to Tell You Podcast, episode 1, When I Read, hosted by Bri McKoy

The Lazy Genius Podcast, hosted by Kendra Adachi

Book Lists:

Mensa K-3 reading list

Newbery Medal Winners

Read Kiddo Read

Everyday Reading

Books mentioned in this episode:

On Writing, by Stephen King

The Enchanted Hour, by Meghan Cox Gurdon

Read-Aloud Family, by Sarah Mackenzie

Read-alouds mentioned:

Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood, by Mike Artell

The Little Engine that Could, by Watty Piper

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White

Ramona Quimby series, Beverly Cleary

Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling

Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls

The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes

A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

Today’s episode is part two of a two-part series about how to take the fight out of food. In the first episode, we talked about picky eating and house rules about what kind of food you eat. In this episode we’re going to talk about two other potential battles: When kids eat and how they eat.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

SNL sketch: Dysfunctional Family Dinner

Didn’t I Just Feed You Podcast: The Beast Hiding In Your Pantry

What Fresh Hell Podcast. House Rules that Work

A Helping of Happiness Blog, by Hillary Hess

French Kids Eat Everything, by Karen Le Billon

In which we talk about all the expectations in the winter season, plus parenting expectations in general. I also talk about some of the experiments going on here in the Archibald home from family discussions to chores to Christmas gifts, plus a new podcasting adventure for me. 

Christmas is coming--portly goose and all--whether that fills you with glee or stress. Today we’re going to dig into this dichotomy, and hopefully get rid of any dread. Christmas should be a season of joy and dare I say peace—even for moms. Fear not! You too can enjoy Christmas.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Audibletrial.com/howshemoms
• Ceri Payne coaching
• Family Looking Up Podcast
• The Mom Hour Podcast
  • December Intentions for Busy Moms: 2018 Holiday Special #2

• Light the World Advent Calendar
• The Lindsay Report
• Helping of Happiness Podcast
  • Episode 34 Power in Motherhood with Paula Wood
  • Episode 32 Christ-Centered Christmas with Merrilee Boyack

• How She Moms Facebook Group
• Everyday Reading
  • Janssen’s Christmas book list
  • A Valentine Banner Made from Christmas Cards
• Brooke Romney
  • Scripture Advent
  • Gift lists for boys
• Arabah Joy
  • Christmas Traditions
  • Christmas Scavenger Hunt

The How She Moms Podcast is coming soon!

Ten ways to help your kids connect with their ancestors.

Are Mommy Wars real? And if so, how do we end them? Today, we discuss the history of the Mommy Wars, what they're all about, and how we can end them, already.