This Is So Awkward

This Is So Awkward

This is so awkward…but it doesn’t have to be. These days, puberty starts earlier, lasts longer, and happens with a cellphone in hand. The most trusted voices on puberty, Dr. Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett, are here to remove cringe from this stage of life – not just for kids going through it but also the adults who care about them. With science, guidance and humor, they cover all the physical, emotional, and social changes that happen between ages 8-18 and beyond. Watch the full episodes on Youtube!

Episodes

The True Story About Hormones

September 30, 2025 • 55 mins
The endocrine system – in charge of making and sending all the hormones throughout the body – is basically the musical conductor for puberty. During puberty, a network of specific glands and hormones work together like an orchestra, eventually leading to a sexually mature reproductive system along with certain smelly and awkward side effects. Listen to how endocrinologist Dr. Gillian Goddard tells the fascinating story of how hormo...
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Caffeine’s Effects on Growing Bodies

September 23, 2025 • 48 mins
Caffeine might be the most socially acceptable addictive substance on earth. For starters, it’s sold in coffee shops on nearly every city corner. It’s also available in gummies and sprays. Kids have become a huge target market for highly caffeinated products. What are the repercussions? How does caffeine work in the body and brain? Does it impact growing bodies? Is it safe for your kid? We cover it all. Show Notes: Join the...
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Big Kids, Bigger Feelings

September 16, 2025 • 62 mins
Parenting gets easier right? HA. As our kids get older our expectations grow right along with them, sometimes outpacing their abilities. We need reminding that they are works in progress, with developing brains and burgeoning emotional intelligence. This combination makes for exciting – albeit sometimes challenging – moments when, despite wanting to do our best, we can’t necessarily get there. Enter Alyssa Campbell, MS Ed and her n...
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Getting Boys to Open Up

September 9, 2025 • 52 mins
The world (wrongly) assumes that teenage boys want to be left behind their closed bedroom doors until emerging years later. In fact, tween and teen boys want connection, meaning, and care; they might just show it in different ways. We welcome the authors of Talk to Your Boys, Christopher Pepper and Joanna Schroeder onto the podcast to share research and strategies for connecting to boys during these formative years. Show Notes...
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R-E-S-P-E-C-T and teens

September 2, 2025 • 59 mins
Individuation is an important theme threaded through the tween and teen years: the formation of independent identity ultimately allows a kid to stand on their own in adulthood. But getting there can sometimes look – and feel – pretty disrespectful. How can we make sense of the challenges, confusion, and sometimes painful moments? (or months?!). Child development specialist and bestselling author Betsy Brown Braun explains this deve...
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Protecting the Joy in Youth Sports

August 29, 2025 • 64 mins
The benefits to kids of playing sports are super clear. But the picture has gotten more complicated with the pay-to-play takeover of youth sports and the increasingly intense pressure on kids (and their families) to perform at higher and higher levels. Amanda Stanec, youth sports expert and author of Protecting the Joy, is here to make sense of the research and offer balanced guidance for families navigating the youth sports indust...
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Back to School Battles

August 26, 2025 • 51 mins
Moving from summer mode into school gear is a tricky transition for everyone – kids and adults. Predictable battles arise over tech use, clothing choices, and summer reading (for starters… we could go on and on!). This episode offers some simple strategies to avoid a bumpy start to the academic year. Alleviate the solvable stressors to make BTS a little more fun! Show Notes: Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS Get your Al...
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Social Media and the Law

August 22, 2025 • 49 mins
Tech, social media, and the law intersect in ever-evolving and highly confusing ways. Rules vary from state-to-state, without any consistent age gate. This leaves minors – and the adults who care about them – unclear about what is and isn’t legal. On topics like child pornography, sexting, sextortion, and revenge porn, Kaitlin Andrews, family lawyer and educator from the Schools Consent Project, offers guidance on where the law is ...
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Normalizing Conversations About Difficult Topics

August 19, 2025 • 51 mins
Most of us would prefer to avoid conversations about big, hard topics with the kids in our lives. But we also know how critical it is for us to talk to them about uncomfortable things like sexual assault, miscarriage, and mental health struggles. Which is why we’re so happy to know Jessica Zucker, author of Normalize It, a psychologist, and a parent. She gracefully navigates the tricky balance of educating kids about the difficult ...
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Stretch Marks, Keloids, and Ingrown Hairs!

August 15, 2025 • 56 mins
The skin erupts with surprises across the tween and teen years… and it’s not all acne! Stretchmarks happen when bodies grow out or up quickly. Keloids are 3-D scars. Ingrown hairs aren’t permanent like the other two, but they still present their own challenges and stressors. We dig into what causes each of these skin challenges and what (if anything) can be done about them. Show Notes: Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS ...
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When Kids Leave the Nest

August 12, 2025 • 54 mins
It’s simultaneously wonderful and worrying to launch a kid. The most common denominator question is a version of this: Are they going to be ok when they leave us? We hope – and wonder – if we’ve taught them enough to be out in the world. Christina Geist spent her oldest child’s senior year of high school compiling those life lessons in Before You Fly Away. Her musings are as heartfelt as they are practical, whether you have a child...
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Consequences + Discipline with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

August 8, 2025 • 64 mins
We are rereleasing one of our most popular episodes addressing one of the biggest challenges for caregivers: How do we discipline kids with the goal of teaching them how to do better next time? Tina Payne Bryson, psychotherapist and our personal guru, gives us a clear and empathic pathway to instituting consequences in our families. Show Notes: Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit h...
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Our Kids Know More + Less Than We Think

August 5, 2025 • 50 mins
It can be really hard to gauge what tweens + teens actually know about the biggest ticket topics. That’s because, in this age of information, they are pummeled with “facts” about sex, drugs, alcohol, nutrition, wellness, and so much more. It can seem like they have encyclopedic knowledge sometimes… until you get past the confident tone and actually listen to what they are saying. This episode will make you feel less alone (you are ...
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Leaving Our Baggage at the Door

August 1, 2025 • 42 mins
In this Season 1 re-release: Our own puberty stories are seared into our brains and the temptation is to share those experiences, the good and the bad, with the kids in our lives. Except, kids need to have their own puberty journeys without carrying our puberty baggage on their shoulders. Adults need to find their own trusted adults with whom to share these memories and Cara and Vanessa do just that in this episode. Show Notes...
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When We Care and They Don't

July 29, 2025 • 51 mins
Parents know better, right? Maybe. While we may have brains mature enough to anticipate what’s coming down the road 5, 10, 20 years from now (and the lived experiences to back it up), we can’t force our kids to care about the things we deem important. This power struggle occurs throughout the tween + teen years, on everything from minor issues like wearing deodorant to major tensions like grades or substance use. How can we adults ...
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Parenting the Emotional Roller Coaster with Dr. Aliza Pressman

July 25, 2025 • 42 mins
We’re rereleasing one of the very first episodes we ever recorded because it’s also one of the best. Developmental psychologist, Dr. Aliza Pressman, joins us to discuss the ways to respond to the emotional ups and downs of parenting adolescents. Aliza’s practical and actionable advice boils down to this: What’s going on for our kids and how can we meet them in a kind and constructive way? Show Notes: Join our LESS AWKWARD E...
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Setting Boundaries with Other Adults

July 22, 2025 • 53 mins
Setting boundaries takes practice: kids need to learn this skill and most adults need to evolve it. Practically speaking, boundary-setting starts with drawing lines on our kids’ behalf. In doing so, we show (more than tell) what is (and isn’t!) okay for strangers, family, and friends to do and say — from comments about body changes or clothing choices to judgments about life paths. The trick is to set boundaries while still encoura...
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Deep Dive on Periods

July 18, 2025 • 52 mins
Dr. Hina Talib, adolescent medicine specialist, joins us for a deep dive on periods. We discuss menstruation as a vital sign, what’s considered normal for teen menstruation and what’s not, when to worry and when to seek advice from medical providers. We’ll cover everything from mittelschmerz (WHAT?!!!) to endometriosis, so tune in for accessible expert advice on all things periods! Show Notes: Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIA...
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How to be a Friend

July 15, 2025 • 50 mins
Human connection is critical to wellbeing for people of all ages. But it's also a skill that can be taught and honed. We’re big believers in not glossing over conversations with kids about how to be a friend. How can you approach this conversation that feels all at once very basic and also can be very charged? Start by appreciating the cultural myths about friendship, then move into some of the more obvious tenets of being a friend...
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How to Respond When Kids Treat Us Like Crap

July 11, 2025 • 36 mins
We’re rereleasing this episode because a heartfelt listener question offered up a common parenting challenge: My teen daughter treats me so badly that I just want to pull away from her. Our advice starts with the science behind adolescent mood swings and then moves into setting limits in the heat of the moment and beyond. Show Notes: Join our LESS AWKWARD ESSENTIALS Get your Alloy prescription today. Visit https://myal...
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