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Expert Advice

Episode 244: How to raise resilient kids, even in a pandemic

black boy and girl smiling

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Resilient kids don’t just come out that way! We can help them get through tough times in a way that makes them even stronger.

A black boy and girl, smiling

CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO AN INTERACTIVE TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

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Resiliency doesn’t just happen

Kids are suffering. The kids are going to be fine. Kids are falling behind in learning. Kids are strong and we need to stop coddling them. Give kids a break, even the adults aren’t taking the pandemic well, why would we expect kids to handle it?

Confused? The thing is, those statements are all true…for certain kids.

As our guest Dr. Deborah Gilboa, explained to us, on a societal level, the kids will be fine—statistics show this. But on an individual kid level, many kids are not fine.

The good news is, there are things we can do to help our kids be more resilient! And don’t worry: Doctor G knows that you may be short on time and patience right now, what with all of the homeschooling and extra cooking and never ever being alone. She’s not asking you to do a single extra thing, no seminars, no workshops, nothing to read. Instead, she’s going to tell you how to reframe the things you are already doing!

And while this year has felt sucky for so many of us, as we go into the December holidays, don’t assume you know how your kids feel about it. Instead, you can use the holiday upheaval to build even more resiliency, while creating some special family memories.

Plus, Doctor G has an exciting new project about adult mental health, with strategies, tips, and hacks.

Dr. Deborah Gilboa

About Dr. Gilboa

This is Dr. Gilboa’s third time on our show, and her last appearance, where she explained how she gets her four sons to do chores without stress, is one of our most popular episodes! Here’s more about Dr. Gilboa:

Internationally respected parenting and youth development expert, Deborah Gilboa, MD, is the founder of AskDoctorG.com. Popularly known as Dr. G, she is an industry leading speaker, author, social influencer, and media personality. She inspires audiences with relatable stories and easy tools to develop crucial life skills in children, teens and young adults ages 2-22.

Her beloved, user-friendly parenting activity books, Teach Resilience: Raising Kids Who Can Launch!Teach Responsibility: Empower Kids with a Great Work Ethic, and Teach Respect: That’s My Kid! are designed for today’s busy parents with age-specific tips and ideas for building character in kids. Dr. G is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, How to Get the Behavior You Want… Without Being the Parent You Hate! Dr. G’s Guide to Effective Parenting (Demos Publishing, LLC), which breaks down 60 key challenges faced by parents of kids primarily in their pre-teen years.

As a television personality, Dr. G gives straightforward advice (with a dose of humor) that helps wade through the stress, doubt, and guilt that ALL parents feel at one time or another. She is a regular on NBC’s TODAY and has appeared on numerous other local and national television talk shows and News programs throughout the U.S, including The Doctors, The Hallmark Channel’s Home and Family, Good Morning America, Fox News, and The Rachael Ray Show. Additionally, she regularly contributes to Today.com, Huffington Post Parents, Your Teen magazine, Parents magazine and MSNBC.com.

Dr. G is a board-certified attending family physician at Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill Health Center, caring for diverse patients from 100+ countries, speaking 61 different languages. Her fluency in American Sign Language and her work with the deaf community has received national recognition and was the focus of her service as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow.

A graduate of University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine, Carnegie Mellon University, and as an alumnus of Chicago’s Second City Improv Theater, Dr. G’s diverse background and experiences add to her credibility and lively storytelling.

She is also a Clinical Associate Professor for the University of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine and has received many awards for clinical excellence in teaching, including the Alpha Omega Alpha Volunteer Clinical Faculty Award.

Dr. G resides in Pittsburgh with her four boys.

This Week’s Links

Intro (00:01:20)

Rebecca Levey

Amy Oztan, Amy Ever After

Andrea Smith, technology guru extraordinaire

Dr. Deborah Gilboa, Ask Doctor G

Interview with Dr. Deborah Gilboa (00:03:33)

Episode 70: Got Grit? — Parenting Bytes

We Got You Episode 001: Isolation, with Jeannette Kaplun, Brian Copeland, and Deborah Gilboa, MD

You can see all of the We Got You episodes and subscribe here!

Freedom app

Gift Bytes of the Week (00:36:17)

Amy’s Gift Bytes

My favorite NYC food gifts from 10 New York institutions, for those who can’t get here right now, by Liz Gumbinner — Cool mom Eats

Catskill Craftsmen Over-the-Counter Pastry Board

Pastry board care and instructions:
  • Oil once a month with food-safe mineral oil (once a week for the first month if it’s new); never oil with olive, vegetable, or other cooking oils, which will go rancid over time; try not to use your board for 24 hours after oiling
  • Never wash just one side, which can cause warping; even if you only used one side, wash both
  • Always dry and store standing on an edge, not lying down
  • Never put in the oven to dry
  • If your board becomes rough from absorbing water, sand lightly, wash, allow to dry, and oil

Nutella Swirl Peanut Butter Banana Bread — sally’s baking addiction

Andrea’s Gift Bytes

Osmo Math Wizard and the Magical Workshop

JBL Flip 5 Eco Edition

WowWee Brite Brush Interactive Toothbrush

Rebecca’s Gift Bytes

The Queen’s Gambit — Netflix

No Stress Chess 

Oxo Good Grips Garlic Slicer

Or do it like on Goodfellas:

Subscribe!

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Are you following us on Facebook? It’s a great way to see what we’re reading (including articles that might show up in future episodes), ask us questions, and give us feedback.

Transcript

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Rebecca:
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Rebecca:
Welcome to Parenting Bytes, this is Rebecca Levey, I’m here with Amy Oztan of Amy Ever After.

Amy:
Hello.

Rebecca:
Halloo and Andrea Smith Technology Guru Extraordinaire,

Andrea:
Hello,

Rebecca:
How was everybody’s Thanksgiving?

Andrea:
Good.

Amy:
Small, you know, it was it was really weird because there were only three of us instead of like 18 of us, and I scaled down almost everything, except I still made a turkey. I’m a small turkey, but I made a full turkey. And I somehow made the entire amount of mashed potatoes that I would have made if we had had a house full

Rebecca:
I’m

Amy:
Of people.

Rebecca:
Shocked,

Andrea:
Of course you

Rebecca:
Shocked.

Andrea:
Did.

Amy:
And then, like for the next two days, all I ate was stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Rebecca:
That

Andrea:
Why

Amy:
That was

Rebecca:
Happened

Andrea:
Do

Amy:
It,

Rebecca:
To me

Andrea:
I

Rebecca:
With

Andrea:
Not

Rebecca:
Stuffing,

Andrea:
Live near you like this

Rebecca:
You

Andrea:
Is

Rebecca:
Know.

Andrea:
The problem, why do we not live near each other?

Amy:
Because neither one of us would survive on Weight Watchers.

Andrea:
Right, exactly.

Rebecca:
Oh, my God, that’s so funny. Well,

Andrea:
Oh.

Rebecca:
Today on the show, we’re going to talk about, I guess, in the vein of how Thanksgiving was, because we’re coming up on the next round of holidays, we’re going to talk about resilience. We’re going to have a return guest, our friend of the show, Doctor G. I’m so excited to have her back on because we’re going to talk about resilience in a way that I don’t think people talk about it. This is not great. This is not, you know, brush off your booboos and move on. This is our real talk about how we can build resilience in our kids, but also in ourselves, that this is a lifelong process that you did not miss out on. So there is still time to do it. And it might help reframe how you’re thinking about the pandemic and its effect on you and your kids and your family.

Amy:
You mean I can’t just, like, do the Gen-X thing of yelling, suck it up and get over it over

Rebecca:
Yes,

Amy:
And over again?

Rebecca:
Well, I don’t think it’s a Gen-X thing, I think that was like I don’t even think it was a boomer thing. I think it was like the generation

Andrea:
Queen,

Rebecca:
Before

Andrea:
A

Rebecca:
That.

Andrea:
Queen

Rebecca:
Yeah,

Andrea:
Thing,

Rebecca:
The silent

Andrea:
Suck

Rebecca:
The silent

Andrea:
It up.

Rebecca:
Generation. So we’re going to we’re going to talk about their long lasting damage to everybody Hands Full the subsequent to generations to come. But we will be right back with Doctor G.

Rebecca:
We are back with Dr. Deborah Gilboa, known as Doctor G, a board certified family physician and resilience expert and friend of the show and friend of ours. And we are so happy to have you back on.

Deborah:
I’m so excited to be here. Thank you.

Rebecca:
You know, it’s been it’s been a long pandemic. It’s been a while since we talked to

Deborah:
There’s a country song there somewhere.

Rebecca:
There really is some sad country. So I have to say it’s December and I. I don’t think any of us will maybe we thought we might be here, but, boy, we were hoping we wouldn’t be. And, you know, when we started talking about wanting to do this show, we thought, like, it is time we have to get someone on to talk about sort of mental health and resilience, because I think parents are running out of just,

Deborah:
Reserves.

Rebecca:
You know, not just reserves. Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s like you, especially moms who a lot of the remote schooling has fallen on

Deborah:
Yeah, the

Rebecca:
And

Deborah:
Low,

Rebecca:
Our kids.

Deborah:
Low fuel light has been on since like August.

Rebecca:
Right, it’s like tick, tick, tick,

Deborah:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
Triple, AAA is like waiting

Deborah:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
To tow

Deborah:
Exactly.

Rebecca:
You somewhere,

Deborah:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
So thank you for coming on the show. And, you know, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about what you’re seeing in terms of what parents are asking for, you know, in terms of a lifeline. But also, you know, how you how you’ve been helping the people you’ve been speaking to.

Deborah:
It’s really interesting because I think in the first time that I can think of in history, we’re studying this while we’re going through it, maybe because we have time, but people are more aware that there are mental health struggles from what we’re experiencing. So we have research from May and from July and from October about what families are going through and how we perceive it and how kids are experiencing this and what adults are saying. Seven out of 10 adults in the US have been saying since June that this is the hardest year of their adult lives. And because we know that normalization, that feeling like you’re not the only person who’s really struggling is actually helpful from a brain chemistry, mental health standpoint. I really want to bring that out first, that, yes, this is quantitatively and qualitatively hard, period. The research shows that kids actually perceive it a little differently. This isn’t having as much from a population standpoint of a negative impact on kids mental health. Or just recently, we got a study from the U.S. Department of Education looking at academic slide, and it’s not nearly as bad as was predicted. So in general, when people say online, kids are all right, in general, the kids are all right. The problem is I don’t have in general kids in my house. I have my kids in my house and you have your kids in your house. So for populations, public health is always about populations. But for individuals, some adults, many adults and some kids are really struggling.

Rebecca:
You know, it’s what’s interesting to me is that you’d think, like everyone’s online now, but it hasn’t bridged what it’s like to be in person. And those small interactions that I think we took for granted that you don’t even realize they were interactions, whether it’s just your kids on a playground

Deborah:
Smiling

Rebecca:
Playing with lots

Deborah:
At somebody

Rebecca:
Of other kids,

Deborah:
In the coffee line, right? Totally,

Rebecca:
Being in a coffee line. Right. It’s not six

Deborah:
Yes,

Rebecca:
Feet apart.

Deborah:
Right.

Rebecca:
Yeah. All those small things that add up. And and I do wonder, you know, what the what the resilience factor becomes when you’re sort of craving just human connection. And this is for people who maybe don’t live with a bunch of people or have a ready

Deborah:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
Made community with a bunch of driveways around them who, you know, are single and single parents who feel very alone. You

Deborah:
And

Rebecca:
Know

Deborah:
What

Rebecca:
How.

Deborah:
You’re talking about chemically is oxytocin and dopamine, oxytocin is that chemical that we may remember from when our babies were little because it’s the chemical you get when you’re nursing or holding your baby skin to skin. But it’s also the chemical that you get when you run into a friend or you get a letter in the mail from someone handwritten. It’s not for anything except to tell you that they love you. We get oxytocin when we feel connected to another human and we get it in the biggest dump when we get to be in physical proximity, hug, touch, hold hands with whatever someone that we just feel really good about. But we get little bits of it in lots of ways. And so those little bits that we didn’t notice because it was just smiling at someone in a coffee line or watching kids play together on a playground while you, like, nodded in solidarity of exhaustion with the

Rebecca:
No.

Deborah:
Other parent or whatever. We we’re missing all of those. So many of us have become oxytocin deficient and our kids in general are better at finding their oxytocin in this current environment than we are as adults.

Rebecca:
Why why is that?

Deborah:
Part of it is programing, we think that online relationships and interactions aren’t as real, our kids don’t make a distinction between online friends and real friends, much

Amy:
Oh, wow.

Deborah:
To our dismay. Right. They’re

Rebecca:
Right.

Deborah:
Just friends. Whereas, you know, Rebecca, if you and I had not had the opportunity to take a school trip together and we’d only knew each other online, if I was telling someone about you, I’d say my online friend, my kids would just say, oh, your friend. And

Rebecca:
Ray.

Deborah:
So because we read it differently, we actually rob ourselves of a little oxytocin that we could be getting if we didn’t believe in that qualifier and the opportunities that we have to we have the same opportunities our kids do. We can play among us with our friends online, or we could Netflix party and watch a TV show with a friend who recommended it. And yet we tend to think of certain things as activities you only do when you’re physically with someone. And our kids, again, don’t really make that distinction as much. So in that way, we could learn from them a little bit about one of the skills that builds resilience, which is building connections.

Rebecca:
So let’s talk about that idea of building resilience, because I know Amy brought this up before we before we started recording that this everyone wants to say kids are resilient. You know, it’s like the first time your baby falls off the couch or something and everyone says babies bounce and you’re like, my baby’s not going to bounce. But, you know, this this myth that kids are resilient is always sort of used to kind of wipe away, you know, you’re getting a divorce. Don’t worry. Kids are resilient. You know, their dog died. Don’t worry. Kids are resilient. And let’s talk about that a little bit about this inborn idea of resilience.

Deborah:
Yeah, resilience is what I call a container term, we all know the word, but we have different ideas inside the container of what it means resilience. When I ask audiences, they most often define it for me as the ability to bounce back, but I push back on that. That’s true if you are describing a rubber band or a Tupperware container. But if you’re describing, then it’s the ability after stress to bounce back into its original shape. But if you’re describing people, we are by definition changed by every experience we have. The good, the bad, the neutral were changed by every experience we have so we don’t bounce back. Resilience in humans is the ability to go through a change and come out of it the kind of person you want to be or closer to the kind of person you want to be. And that is to do that takes certain actions and certain skills. The idea that resilience is a character trait and you’re just born with it or you’re not, that that’s something that we believe as a society. We believe that it’s mostly how you’re born and maybe a little bit what you go through as a kid. And in there we had this idea that if you’ve gone through hard things, you must by definition be more resilient. But that’s also not true. Going through hard things can build resilience, but doesn’t by default build resilience.

Andrea:
So what does build resilience like, how do you go through these things and have it shape who you are and, you know, turn you into whatever new shape that rubberband becomes?

Deborah:
Right, the so the the simplest answer is intentionality, meaning going through something, anything and reflecting on it. You remember how when kids are little, if you point out the thing they’re doing that you don’t want, they’ll do more of it. And if you point out the thing they’re doing that you do want, they’ll do more of it. Kindergarten teachers do this all the time. But an example is when two kids drop food, even if they knocked it off the table by accident. If you point out that they dropped the food, everyone else in the kindergarten classroom will knock food off the table. If you point out how they got down to help clean it up, all the kids in the classroom will go to grab paper towels to help clean it up. And again, sweeping generalizations, obviously not all. But whenever you point out something that someone is doing, they are likely to give you more of it. And so that intentionality of noting the recovery, noting the actions, noting the advantages or the learning point, or noting the suffering and noting the discomfort, we should recognize all of it. But when we tell the story afterwards, when we focus on what we can gain from it, the intentionality of saying, OK, that part was lost and I really didn’t like that or that part was lost. And I’m so sorry you have that experience and I have empathy for that. And that part was really uncomfortable and that’s icky. And then you made a choice. I think the best example, because most of us have had this now in our families is a pandemic birthday. So, I mean, I can’t think of a family. I know that hasn’t least had one birthday during the pandemic. Right.

Rebecca:
Yeah.

Deborah:
So the first thing that happens when we experience that is we realize like, oh, that birthday, that kid’s birthday, that my birthday, whatever is going to fall during the pandemic, the first thing we feel is the loss. I wanted to do this this year or he wanted to do this this year. I’m not going to get to be like this. It’s not going to get to be like that. The next thing that happens is that we don’t trust it. And this is a resilient cycle. We don’t trust it. Maybe we could get away with it anyway, or maybe it’s really OK. Or maybe those restrictions aren’t necessary. And as soon as we realize we’re really going to have a pandemic birthday and it’s still definitely going to be the pandemic, then we start to feel uncomfortable. Well, I’m going to be sad. It’s not going to feel like my birthday because I’m not going to get to do this or this or this person’s going to feel left out because they don’t live whatever. But as soon as we remember that we have choices within the structure of of it’s a pandemic and there’s things we can’t do. But we do have choices. Do I want to have a car parade or do I want to have a Zoom birthday or do I want to postpone my birthday until twenty, twenty one? I have choices. Then I’m starting to act in a resilient way. And it doesn’t mean that I’m not feeling loss or distrust or discomfort, but but I’m starting to behave. I’m starting to use my skills and my actions to be resilient. And I can do that no matter how I’m feeling. And when I choose one of those, I’m engaging with having my birthday either next year or in a different way. And I might still be feeling loss and discomfort. And that’s OK. I’m still acting in a resilient way because resilience isn’t about having rules about your feelings. It is simply about your actions.

Rebecca:
That’s so interesting to me because I think, you know, a couple of years ago, there was the idea of grit, right? Grit, like took the media by storm and in

Amy:
Oh,

Rebecca:
A lot

Amy:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
Of the

Amy:
We

Rebecca:
Eye.

Amy:
Did a whole upset about it.

Rebecca:
Yeah. And the whole idea of grit was really about like failure and overcoming failure. It wasn’t really about choices. It was about like

Deborah:
Perseverence.

Rebecca:
Not letting your kid. Yeah. It’s about perseverance, not letting your kid just give up. Right. And then every parent would ever let their kid, like,

Deborah:
Quit

Rebecca:
Dump

Deborah:
Soccer.

Rebecca:
The violin

Deborah:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
Lesson. Yes.

Deborah:
You’re

Rebecca:
Which

Deborah:
Totally

Rebecca:
Was me. I mean,

Deborah:
Right,

Rebecca:
Literally

Deborah:
Same.

Rebecca:
Joking with my daughter the other day how many uniforms she just always wanted the uniform or whatever it was

Amy:
Oh,

Rebecca:
The outfit.

Amy:
My God, mine, too.

Rebecca:
If it had an outfit she wanted to be involved in, it lasted a month till she got the outfit. And, you know, and now it’s a funny story. But then I had this horrible, you know, feeling like, oh, my God, I’ve let my kids quit. And I like your framing much better. So because even that ACT of deciding that maybe you truly didn’t like something, like you shouldn’t have to stick with it just because and I know there’s going to be a fine line between letting your kid quit saying so just because it’s difficult and maybe they don’t like that feeling. But there does seem something really refreshing about reframing it as you still have agency here, like you can make choices that determine how you respond rather than feeling like you’re constantly reactive.

Deborah:
My mom of blessed memory used to say to me when I was telling her how awful something was, she would say, well, if you’re still breathing, you have choices. You may not like any of them, but you have them. So pick one. And that idea, because what you’re talking about in terms of not quitting soccer, whatever it is, one another resilience skill is learning how to manage discomfort, and that’s absolutely necessary. But perseverance, forsaking boundaries and forsaking priorities does not actually make us more resilient. As a matter of fact, it can make us and it can make us more fragile. It can really put us at risk setting boundaries, both modeling that for our kids and also doing it as a person that builds our resilience as well, because understanding what what you do have control over and what you don’t and what is acceptable to you, what is meaning, what is uncomfortable but not unsafe, and what is truly unsafe for you. That is a really important skill in order to be resilient.

Rebecca:
Yeah, that’s so interesting, I never really thought about it that way of learning so much today,

Deborah:
Cool.

Rebecca:
So into this. So let’s let’s get down to brass tacks here about you. Let’s just say you’re a parent. You are on month 10. You know, you’ve had it. You’re the school is just declared like we are remote for the rest of the year. You’re working at home. You know, you’re in a small space all together

Deborah:
I feel like

Rebecca:
And

Deborah:
You’re in my kitchen this morning. This just

Rebecca:
I’m

Deborah:
Happened

Rebecca:
In mine.

Deborah:
With my kids. Yeah.

Rebecca:
But, you know, like, how can you sort of build this resilience in yourself and your kids? You know, because let’s face it now, you’re also going to have to do both without just feeling I don’t know, like you just need to give up or you just like kind of put the blinders on and you’re like, we’re going to push through, push through, push through, which, you know, becomes very hard to do because you’re repeating the same things over and over. But you don’t know how to get out of that that hamster wheel.

Deborah:
I hate telling people here’s what you have to do, because what I hear is that listening when I go to a talk or I listen to a podcast is I don’t have time to do anything else. Right. Don’t add anything to my to do list. But what I want to encourage adults to think about is I’m not asking you to do anything differently than how you’re doing it now. I’m asking you to frame it differently. I’m asking you to think about it for yourself and speak it to your kids a little differently. That’s all. You already, for example, set boundaries at home. You already when your kid says, hey, can we can you get me the ingredients for this online? Make the Christmas cookies thing I want to do. You I hope, think about if you can actually do that or not. Like if it’s in a week, probably. Yes. If it’s in five minutes, the answer is probably no. That’s setting boundaries. And when they push back and they’re like, oh, but I want to do this thing. And you told me to be more and be like, yes, the boundary is I need three business days. If if it requires me to get out of our home to go pick something up for you. I need three business days and all I’m doing and I understand that that’s uncomfortable for you or frustrating for you, because empathy for yourself and for other people is a crucial attribute of people who are resilient. It is not about being stoic. It is not about that. Like just put your head down and pretend that this doesn’t suck empathy for yourself and for other people, even when you’re disappointing yourself or other people, is crucial.

Rebecca:
That’s so funny because this is going to sound so bizarre, but having just finished the crown

Deborah:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
Where people talk a lot about the resiliency of Queen Elizabeth and I was actually thinking my husband, I were talking about like what terrible advice she gives everybody.

Deborah:
Yes,

Rebecca:
She’s the worst

Deborah:
Yes.

Rebecca:
If I didn’t give her. And she’s so here she is, this paragon of resiliency. And yet her advice to everyone literally is, you know, stick your head in the sand. Things just get better, you know,

Deborah:
Lay back and think of England, yes,

Rebecca:
Keep

Deborah:
I

Rebecca:
Going, keep

Deborah:
Agree.

Rebecca:
Calm and carry on. Right. And so it’s really funny to think about this. I don’t know, a very stiff upper lip sort of version of

Deborah:
But historically,

Rebecca:
Resiliency.

Deborah:
Empathy was not valued at that time, historically,

Rebecca:
Well, or

Deborah:
Empathy.

Rebecca:
Still, it appears.

Deborah:
Well, historically, empathy wasn’t valued in the 80s and 90s, right. Kids would

Rebecca:
That’s

Deborah:
Get bullied

Rebecca:
For sure.

Deborah:
And we’d say kids are kids, suck it up. Empathy. It was seen. And and I have to say, I think that sometimes as parents, we still when our kid is pitching a huge fit because we said, I know all your friends are going to hang out on the street corner, but you can’t because pandemic

Rebecca:
And.

Deborah:
And they threw a big fit. We think if I say I see that you’re frustrated, I see that you’re embarrassed, I, I hear that you’re hurt and that you’re you just feel just devastated by this. We think if we say that they’re going to say, cool, change your mind and that we’ve put ourselves somehow in a position of saying that we’re wrong. But that’s not the case. We can have empathy for our kids without moving our boundaries.

Rebecca:
Wow, that’s a tough one. I like that is very impressive to me because I think that is the biggest thing I have heard from friends, is managing their kids, saying everyone else is having a sleepover, is hanging out, is whatever. And of course, a lot of times a parent’s reaction to that is like, well, we’re not everybody else and like, too bad. And I know I’m the worst mom ever. Like, it sort of escalates in that

Deborah:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
Direction

Deborah:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
Very quickly. I think, particularly if a parent is feeling very little gratitude for all they have done. So, you know, how do you, like, kind of de-escalate that? If that has become the pattern at this point, if that has become an entrenched pandemic

Amy:
Especially

Rebecca:
Thing.

Amy:
When the child in question sees all of her friends on Instagram doing all of the stuff she wants to do with seemingly no consequences, like none of their families have gotten hit with covid. So there comes a point when she’s like, why are we bothering?

Deborah:
Absolutely, the thing is, our kids pressure, OK, have you guys ever been on a roller coaster and I mean like a serious roller coaster where there was a harness and OK, so you’re let’s imagine that you’ve waited in the line. You’re you sit down in the roller coaster, you’ve stowed all your stuff. You’re holding your cell phone hopefully below your, you know, your thigh, hoping it doesn’t crash and you put on the harness. And then a 16 year old kid walks down the line checking that you’re locked in.

Rebecca:
Marie.

Deborah:
Right. And and then they and like you could die if this doesn’t work out. But this 16 year old kid shakes it. They go down to the Analon. They give a thumbs up to a different 16 year old kid who hits a button and sends you flying. After that 16 year old checks your harness. What do you do?

Amy:
You

Rebecca:
You

Amy:
Check

Rebecca:
Reach

Amy:
It.

Rebecca:
Neckbeard.

Deborah:
You really check it right now? Are you are you rocking it then after they’ve checked it, hoping that it will open so you can have a more exciting ride because now you won’t get caught? Right. They already checked it. You’re through the security check. No, you’re checking it to make sure it will really hold you. That’s what our teenagers do. We put a boundary in place. We lock it in and then they push it and they rock it and they shake it. And ninety nine percent of the time they’re not doing it so they can fly free and get Coronavirus or kill their grandparents by accident. They’re doing it to see if we will really hold them.

Andrea:
Wow, I have never heard of it that way, and that makes such perfect sense, I just want to redo my whole child’s upbringing. I just want to go back and, like, keep

Amy:
The.

Andrea:
It those boundaries because I always gave in.

Deborah:
The hard part about parenting is knowing when is it the one percent where they’re making a really reasonable argument and you were too strict or you were not compassionate or flexible enough? Because one percent of the time what they’re saying is you’ve put a boundary in place here and it’s not the right boundary and they’re correct. So I want you to think about the pandemic in particular. Are you correct from your world view and what you know, are you doing this for the wrong reasons or have you put this rule like no sleepovers for the right reasons so that you can sleep at night, not worried that your child is getting infected or said that you can, you know, get online and say, hey, you guys, we’ve all got to do the right thing. Here I am. I hope you will. Whatever your reasons are, are they the right reasons for your families? Do your reasons match your priorities that you’re raising your kids with? And then if they do, let them rock and shake as much as they want and you’re just going to let them ride the ride with the harness in place?

Rebecca:
We need you to be all our moms.

Amy:
Seriously?

Deborah:
I don’t like giving adults those kind of boundaries because I think we’re more fun without

Rebecca:
No,

Deborah:
Them,

Rebecca:
Of

Deborah:
So.

Rebecca:
Course, yeah, we

Amy:
And.

Rebecca:
Want to ride without the harness, dammit.

Deborah:
Exactly.

Rebecca:
You know, well, like, of course, right. That’s who’s actually even though we feel like it’s all these teenagers who want to be rebellious, not do it, it’s actually adults who are driving the entire like not wearing masks and, you know, threatening government leaders and whatever. But it’s interesting. I was even thinking about that when you were talking about choice. And you know that maybe part of the problem, aside from the sort of swirling political insanity around all of this, was that people didn’t see their choices. Right. It became sort of an all or nothing thing. Instead of giving people like, here’s what happens if you wear a mask, we can reopen restaurants. And instead it was like we’re just going to reopen everything and see how it goes. And if you don’t wear a mask, it’s going to be a disaster. But we want you to wear a mask

Deborah:
Listen,

Rebecca:
Or

Deborah:
One hundred

Rebecca:
We’re making

Deborah:
Years

Rebecca:
Your

Deborah:
Ago,

Rebecca:
Mask.

Deborah:
We had the Spanish flu pandemic, and when you look back at it historically, there were huge anti mass protests. So this idea in our country of valuing liberty over life has been true for our entire history. But when your liberty impacts your life, that’s your call. When your liberty impacts my life or someone else’s life, then that’s our society’s call. But it doesn’t surprise me historically that everybody’s trying to figure out where they fall in this. When we’re raising our kids and we’re trying to help them be resilient, we are giving them room like just enough. I don’t want to use this any kind of trick going right. But that that idiom about just enough rope, we want to give them autonomy. When your two year old was getting dressed to go outside and it was snowing, you would say this long sleeve shirt or this long sleeve shirt.

Rebecca:
Right.

Amy:
Knomo.

Deborah:
But when your 14 year old is getting dressed to go outside and it’s snowing, you just say, get dressed. And if they wear shorts and their knees freeze and everybody thinks you’re a terrible parent, they’re still learning and they won’t die.

Rebecca:
Nobody

Deborah:
So we give

Rebecca:
Thinks

Deborah:
Our.

Rebecca:
That they just know you have a teenage boy, by

Deborah:
Exactly,

Rebecca:
The way.

Deborah:
Totally, exactly. So one of the most recent articles I’ve ever been quoted in was about letting your kids wear shorts in the winter in the northern part of our country like they will be OK and and they’ll learn. So figuring out where do we Lucene and where don’t we? It makes total sense to me that in the pandemic, most adults who are concerned about the pandemic said, hey, we’ve never done this before. So now we’re in charge like you are four years old again. And it makes total sense that our kids went, wait, whoa, what? But that is necessary and we’re going to figure this out in a year from now. We’re still going to have some restrictions. We’re going to look at socializing a little differently and we’re going to give our kids more space to make their own decisions, but not as much as they want. That’s parenting.

Rebecca:
Right, that is parenting, isn’t it, and it never stops. That’s what’s so sort of crazy about it. So let’s talk a little bit about your new project.

Deborah:
Oh, thank you, yes, so I’m really worried about the mental distress that adults are feeling because we know that 18 percent of kids and adults live with chronic mental illness, but that means that 82 percent of us don’t. The thing is that in the last in June, there was research that showed that over 90 percent of adults said they were experiencing symptoms of mental illness. So we’re calling that experience mental distress. And being in a period of mental distress in twenty twenty is a nearly universal experience. I’ve been lucky enough to get together with two other great co-hosts and a couple of really good producers. And we’ve created a limited series YouTube show with just 30 minute episodes on different aspects of mental distress. The first episode was about feeling isolation. The second one is about fear. The next one will be about overwhelm, and the last one is about failure. And we’re talking to experts to help you look at those topics differently than you ever have before. And we’re giving strategies and tips and hacks. So I hope that people would be willing to check it out. It’s called We Got You.

Rebecca:
I like that because I’m going to tell everyone a secret, which is last week I missed our podcast recording for the first time in six years. I literally did not it didn’t even occur to me. I was doing a bunch of work and I turned my Internet phone up. I have my Internet off and I’m doing that. And it’s like I didn’t know what day it was. I didn’t know what time it was. And it wasn’t until hours later that I saw a million messages from Amy and Andrea saying, where are you people? Are you OK? And I thought, oh, wow, I have reached a place where even my alarm has failed. So I am going to

Andrea:
But

Rebecca:
Check

Andrea:
See,

Rebecca:
Out your

Andrea:
I

Rebecca:
Serious.

Andrea:
Was just I was just in awe of the fact that you could so immerse yourself in what you were doing and shut out the world, because I tried to sit here and write. And if my text goes or if my phone rings, forget it. I’m completely distracted. So I was in awe of how you were able to just ignore us and get lost in what you were doing.

Rebecca:
Yes, that is because I turn everything off, but I turned everything off, not realizing that I needed to have my alarm, I needed to have one thing

Andrea:
All

Rebecca:
On

Amy:
I’m going to

Andrea:
Right.

Amy:
Introduce

Rebecca:
On

Amy:
Both

Rebecca:
That

Amy:
Of

Rebecca:
Day.

Amy:
You to the Freedom App, which will let you choose what gets through. So the important

Andrea:
Oh.

Amy:
Stuff

Rebecca:
Knomo.

Amy:
Gets through and everything else turns off.

Rebecca:
Yeah, I think turning off might be key to some parents right now for whatever, you know, however that means. And, you

Andrea:
Statistics

Rebecca:
Know, and I think

Andrea:
In

Rebecca:
Just

Andrea:
Schools.

Rebecca:
Maybe we’ll end on. Do you have any advice for what may be a very different holiday no matter what people celebrate? You know, this is going to look different. And so how do you you know, what kind of talk to need to have as a family? What how do you kind of prepare? And again, you know, your kids are probably all right, because, you know, if you’re in a position to buy them lots of gifts, they’re still going to have that Christmas morning. And maybe they didn’t even like going over to grandma’s or whatever. Who knows? But, you know, how do we start to think ahead to, you know, Zoom Hanukkah, Zoom Christmas, Zoom Kwanzaa.

Deborah:
I think that you can use this holiday season in the way that I hope that we can be intentional and use this whole pandemic experience to create a little bit more resilience in our kids, not just assume that because they’ve been through something hard, they will be more resilient, but actually help them with it. And it’s this first of all, you are totally right. Don’t assume that they’re bummed about it. Ask, ask, what are you picturing for this next holiday for this holiday experience? Winter break. Let’s just call it that. What are you picturing for winter break and what’s hard about it and what’s good about it? As you’re starting to brainstorm, think about that resilience cycle. That’s you having empathy for their loss or their discomfort, but then talk about choices given the restrictions that we going to live with as a family. These are the choices we have. Can you think of any choices I haven’t thought of and then let’s pick a few and engage with them. That helps them practice the cycle that they’ve done and will do thousands of times in their lives. The thing I really want, the gift I really want to give to parents is to consider we know all of our kids will go through other periods in their lives personally of major upheaval and disruption, because we all do. We will lose people we love, not get the job we wanted. Miss out on an opportunity to have a relationship, break up, job loss, all kinds of things. Usually we have those first experiences of major upheaval and disruption as adults alone when most of the people around us look like they’re doing great here. Our kids are shaped in a great way by going through something that they know everyone else is going through and they get to have their parents near them, like it or not, helping them with strategies to be able to handle this better so that when they do experience those things as adults, they’re more ready.

Rebecca:
Oh, that’s a great way to look at it. We learned so much when you’re on. I love

Deborah:
Thank

Rebecca:
It.

Deborah:
You. It

Rebecca:
Well,

Deborah:
Has the

Rebecca:
Thank

Deborah:
Added

Rebecca:
You.

Deborah:
Advantage of being true.

Rebecca:
That is what they got.

Deborah:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
That would be Audible if that was Doctor G. And who knows?

Deborah:
None of

Rebecca:
You

Deborah:
That was accurate, though, yet.

Rebecca:
Know,

Andrea:
You

Rebecca:
It’s

Andrea:
Know,

Rebecca:
It’s.

Andrea:
I just want to pipe in for a second, because, you know, the way you describe things, I mean, sometimes the analogies you use are so effective in helping people to understand. I see this is this is the way it is. And I think the whole idea of that rubberband. Right. Stretching out and then stretching back, we all think we’re going to go back to normal. We all think we’re going to go back to the way it was when in reality we’re not there’s no going back. It’s forward. It’s sideways, it’s lumpy. It’s it’s complicated. And we just become who we become as we go through all of these processes, even not just the pandemic, but life. And when you described it that way, it just you know, you really can visualize the process. So thank you.

Deborah:
I’m really glad maybe one of the things that we could do this year, instead of thinking about New Year’s resolutions, because honestly, we’re all doing the best we can already. So there’s really no point in January 1st trying to do a whole bunch of things differently. How about New Year’s reflections? What would you keep from this year? What do you want to be part of your new normal that you never thought about before? Twenty. Twenty

Andrea:
Oh,

Deborah:
Made

Andrea:
I love

Deborah:
You.

Andrea:
That.

Amy:
Yeah, that’s really interesting because in this past year, I’ve tried really hard not to say well, on the bright side, you know, because so many horrible things have happened, it’s hard to highlight the things, the good things that came out of it, but especially in dealing with our daughter, who, you know, has had a really hard time not being able to to have a normal junior year of high school. We found ourselves saying yes to a lot of things that we wouldn’t otherwise have said yes to because they’re safe and they’re OK right now. And so we’ve had some experiences and some things that that wouldn’t have happened without this pandemic.

Deborah:
Nice. So maybe if we all find a couple of pandemic keepers, then getting to a new normal won’t feel like such a sacrifice.

Andrea:
Good, we’ll have to have you back in January for our reflections,

Deborah:
Awesome.

Andrea:
You

Rebecca:
And

Andrea:
Can help guide

Deborah:
I would love

Andrea:
Us

Deborah:
That.

Rebecca:
Just once a month, good to have you on someone to, like, check in with us and

Andrea:
And

Rebecca:
Make

Andrea:
I

Deborah:
We’ll

Rebecca:
Us

Andrea:
Think

Deborah:
Just

Rebecca:
Make

Andrea:
That’s

Deborah:
Have a standing

Andrea:
A great

Rebecca:
Good.

Deborah:
Appointment.

Andrea:
Idea.

Deborah:
Yeah,

Rebecca:
Yes,

Deborah:
See my see my front desk on the way

Rebecca:
Yes.

Deborah:
Out. Absolutely.

Rebecca:
Tell us your hourly rate and if you take insurance and all that. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. Really, this was fantastic. And we’re glad that you’re safe and your family safe. And we will put links to everything we talked about today, certainly to ask Doctor G Dotcom and to We got you. We’ll have links to anything else you want to suggest for parents to on the show page. And thank you. Thanks for

Deborah:
Thanks

Rebecca:
Coming on with us today.

Deborah:
By.

Amy:
Thank you so much.

Andrea:
By.

Rebecca:
But we will be right back with our Bytes of the Week..

Rebecca:
We are back with our Bytes of the Week., Amy, what do you have?

Amy:
Ok, so for my last set of gift bytes, the first one was actually inspired by an article by someone that that at least two of us knows. My friend Liz Gumbinner, who has the site, Cool Mom Eats, and she wrote this really great round up called my favorite New York City food gifts from 10 New York institutions for those who can’t get here right now. And while that’s a great list and I’m going

Andrea:
I

Amy:
To link to

Andrea:
Saw

Amy:
It.

Andrea:
That and but I didn’t get to read it, so they tell

Amy:
It’s

Andrea:
Us.

Amy:
Yeah, no, it’s it’s a really good list, but really my recommendation is a great thing to send to somebody for the holidays is just food from a place that they can’t visit right now. So, you know, if there’s like a place that your family goes to every year or a vacation that you had planned that had to be canceled because of the pandemic, what a great way to kind of acknowledge that and still celebrate it is, you know, with with a piece of food from wherever it was or if that place doesn’t have food, maybe something else special that that place is known for. Because I think that the thing that I see my friends hurting from the most, like the things that they haven’t been able to do in the past year, is travel. You know, I have so many friends who just live to travel. And I think that that would be a nice gift for anybody. So that’s that’s the first one. And then my second recommendation is something that I never, ever, ever would have recommended without the pandemic, because it’s very like Kiki Baker ish. But so many people who had never made homemade bread made homemade bread during this pandemic.

Amy:
So I think it’s now a valid recommendation. This summer, I tried to make some bread for a friend and I make bread all the time. And I discovered that I couldn’t use my mixer for this one because I was only making half a loaf and like, you know, the mixer, it’s like too big to actually mix it. So I tried doing it by hand and I totally screwed it up. And I realized that I hadn’t needed dough by hand in years. Like I had just gotten in the habit of using my stand mixer for everything. And I had, like, lost the ability to need dough. And there will always be a place in my life for my stand mixer with dough like there are enriched shows that you just you just want to do them in a mixer and like, really loose what dose that you want to slap around in a mixer. But since that day this summer, I have not used my mixer for bread. I have hand needed every single loaf that I’ve made.

Andrea:
You’re my idol.

Amy:
And it’s

Rebecca:
That upper body workout,

Amy:
It. Listen, I’m building muscles,

Rebecca:
Huh?

Amy:
I’m burning calories. And I also just find the process really relaxing. And it doesn’t take long. It’s like ten minutes. You can need any loaf of bread in like ten to twelve minutes.

Andrea:
You just need my cat, who just needs all the time on my legs

Amy:
Oh,

Andrea:
When I’m sitting down,

Amy:
Oh,

Andrea:
Just

Amy:
That feels

Andrea:
Put

Amy:
So

Andrea:
The cat

Amy:
Oh, we call

Andrea:
There.

Amy:
Those kiddy massages, they’re

Rebecca:
Cat

Andrea:
Yes,

Amy:
So

Rebecca:
Hair,

Amy:
Good

Andrea:
Exactly.

Rebecca:
Cat hair.

Amy:
And you have to, you know, disinfect their paws because the last thing they stepped in was a litter box,

Andrea:
Is the

Amy:
But.

Andrea:
Litter box. Yes, you are right, though. Hamilton Beach told me I was chatting with them last week about some new products and the number one product that they are selling. And the product that has had the most increase in sales year over year is bread machines.

Amy:
That’s interesting. Somebody asked me for a bread machine recommendation a couple of weeks ago and I was like, I’ve never used

Andrea:
All

Amy:
One, I can’t

Andrea:
Right,

Amy:
Help you.

Andrea:
Just Amy, just

Amy:
Yeah,

Andrea:
Me, Amy.

Amy:
But

Rebecca:
That’s funny.

Amy:
But so so what I did, you know, I hadn’t needed dough for years. And, you know, I have a counter that’s good for it. But then, of course, it’s like you’re you know, you have to have a lot of space in your counter, has to be totally clean and maybe you don’t have a counter that’s a good surface for kneading dough, whatever. And I tried to do it on a couple of big boards that I have, but they slid around everywhere. So then I used that old trick of putting a wet paper towel under it, which just ruined the underside of the wooden board, because you can do that with a plastic cutting board. You can’t do that with a wooden board because then you just ruin it. So what I ended up doing was spending not a ton of money. It was like fifty five dollars on one of those big gorgeous, like, pastry boards that has a lip at one end that keeps it in place on your counter or on your table or wherever you want to use it. And the one that I happened to get is reversible.

Amy:
One side is totally blank and then the other side has all these measurements and circles for if you’re going to use it for like pie crust or something. And it’s wonderful, like I can put it on a table, I can put it on the counter, I it’s big enough to do like, you know, big pie crusts, but it’s perfect for a big loaf of bread or pizza dough. And it’s also just beautiful. It’s just it’s a nice gift for somebody who might be getting into this and who doesn’t have the proper tool. And then when you buy them this bread board, you also want to buy them some mineral oil because you have to take care of these things or they warp. It’s not difficult to take care of them. I can even write out some simple instructions on our site. But you want to oil it and you want to make sure that you wash it the right way and you will have this beautiful thing forever. Like I could see passing this down to one of my kids scorches.

Rebecca:
Andrea.

Andrea:
Ok, I’ve got some gift ideas, one, you know, I haven’t talked a lot about kid toys and I was trying to narrow this down since we’re you know, we’re not doing a whole huge gift list this year. And the one kid, too, I want to talk about people ask me all the time, what do I get for kids? And you know, how much I love STEM. toys. You know, I like toys with creative, imaginative play, but STEM. toys are really up there for me. And they’ve gotten so, you know, kind of immersive for kids that that it’s really not like learning. And when I say STEM., it’s not yours how to code or, you know, it’s really about teaching kids to think differently, about teaching kids to think out of the box, about teaching kids that there’s not just a right way in a wrong way, but it’s you know, you got to try different things. And so one of my favorite toys this holiday season is from a company called Osmo. I think I

Rebecca:
And.

Andrea:
Mean, you might have seen them a few times. It’s Osmo mouth wizard and the magical workshop. And this works with either an iPad or a fire tablet. They’ve got a couple of different ones. I’ve been looking at the I think it’s ages six to eight grades one and two. And it’s math. It’s addition and subtraction. It’s just super easy. It’s digital gameplay, it’s interactive, it’s hands on. And kids can kind of go about their levels or parents can select the game level based on where their kids are, their abilities. I feel like now with the pandemic and school being what it is, you know, a lot of parents are looking for things to kind of, you know, give their kids a little extra extra curriculum based fun. And so this is definitely a fun learning game. I’m trying to see. I had how much it was. I think it’s on Amazon. It’s on a special. It’s it’s about fifty nine dollars on Amazon right now and we’ll link to it. But you can go and you can look and you can see all of their other games that you can do. So that’s it. Osmo Math Wizard, which I really like. And then the other gift idea I have is for really the whole family. It’s the GBL, it’s a JBL Bluetooth speaker. It’s called the JBL Flip 5 KiwiCo edition. And I like this because since we’re home, you know, you’re really you’re kind of like maybe the kids are, you know, in one room or you want to maybe set up something. You know, you’re having, you know, a family dinner and you want some music in the background or you’re playing. It’s a it’s a portable speaker. It’s got about twelve hours of play time on the battery. And of course, it’s rechargeable. It’s what I like about it is it’s called an eco edition because it’s made from 90 percent recycled plastic

Amy:
Oh.

Andrea:
And they’re moving towards that whole eco friendly packaging, which any company that’s starting to do that all in it’s about 90 bucks. I think there’s some Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Week month specials going on. But, you know, there’s nothing like a dance party. And when we’re all out of this pandemic, it is time to have a dance party, take it outdoors, you know, take it wherever you’re going and play your music or even play your podcast or whatever it is you’re listening to. So that’s. Oh, and there’s one more really silly, silly thing. But it’s fun. You know, the whole electric toothbrush thing going on right now with Philips and Oral B in there, like two hundred dollars for these toothbrushes. And I know what a struggle it is just to get your kids to brush their teeth when you’ve got little kids. So WowWee, which makes really fun toys, has a toothbrush called Wowee Brite Brush. And it’s a game brush. It’s an interactive game brush. You know, you don’t have to connect it to an app. You’re not, you know, doing that whole thing where it’s showing you where you missed. It’s just a fun. It’s got sensors. It guides your kids to make sure that they’re brushing all the teeth. It’s got music and sounds and it’s all of twenty bucks. So if it’s a bust, well, and you spent twenty bucks, but I don’t think it’ll be a bust because it looks really fun.

Rebecca:
That sounds awesome. I think we need, like, things that we know we can all do together.

Andrea:
You

Rebecca:
It’s going to be

Andrea:
Can

Rebecca:
A long

Andrea:
All brush

Rebecca:
Winter.

Andrea:
Your teeth together.

Rebecca:
Why not? Everything you. Anything you can make fun at this point is like

Andrea:
Yep.

Rebecca:
A winner. OK, so mine are actually kind of stocking stuffers. One is for kids, although it could be for adults, too. I don’t know if you guys watched The Queen’s Gambit,

Andrea:
I

Amy:
Not

Rebecca:
Which

Andrea:
Loved

Amy:
At.

Rebecca:
Kind

Andrea:
It.

Rebecca:
Of hit everyone by Staub. So if you are interested in learning how to play chess or if you have kids who are interested in learning to play chess and you don’t play chess or you feel totally intimidated to teach it, there is a great chess set called No Stress Chess Set. It’s looks like a board game like, you know, but it’s not. It’s No Stress Chess Set and it really teaches kids or adults how to move the pieces. I mean, it’s not going to teach you how to be a grandmaster, but it’s going to teach you how to play chess with. And it demystifies the whole thing and it makes it incredibly accessible and easy. When my daughters to chess in elementary school, this is what they use to sort of intro the kids initially. And they loved it and it was easy. And kids could teach each other like it’s so simple. It’s I don’t know, it’s like thirteen dollars at Target. So it’s a great sort of stocking stuffer that wouldn’t really fit in the stocking. But it’s a little gift. And again, is something that your kids can then do while they are pandemic, whatever, lolling around schooling, but also something the whole family can do. You know, it’s it’s Chess’s for all ages, you know, really like seven and up, maybe a little bit younger. But anyway, that is my tip. If you would like to bring chess into your kid’s life or if your kids have expressed an interest in it seems like too crazy of a thing to tackle. My other thing is a total stocking stuffer or I under the menorah, like one of those eight nights where it’s just a dinky gift,

Andrea:
Wait, aren’t all eight, nine stinky gifts,

Rebecca:
Neitz one three seven

Amy:
All right, you guys are really selling Hanukkah here.

Andrea:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
Because one through seven crappy gifts and then one good one. But you know, you’re getting eight, you know, so there is that. So Amy knows very well that I do not believe in things that can only be used in the kitchen. For one thing,

Amy:
Whereas I want all of those things

Rebecca:
Yes,

Amy:
All

Rebecca:
We

Amy:
The time.

Rebecca:
Are the opposite. But this is my one of my few one thing things, and it is an Oxo Good Grips Garlic Slicer.

Andrea:
Oh.

Rebecca:
It’s basically a mini mandoline

Amy:
Oh,

Rebecca:
That

Amy:
You

Rebecca:
You.

Amy:
Send me the link to this one, I was I was making fun of myself for cutting

Rebecca:
Yes.

Amy:
Garlick like like like what’s his name on Goodfellows with the razor blade.

Rebecca:
Yes, and I was like, you don’t need that, you literally drop the clothes in and put the little hand protector thing over them and you just slide it up and down, up and down, up and down, and you get perfectly thinly sliced garlic. It also works for ginger, which I find to be a really hard thing

Amy:
Knomo.

Rebecca:
To kind of deal with. Sometimes very Woody and I imagine would work for anything that’s really little. Probably a schallert. It is awesome. And your hands are totally protected. And it’s ten bucks on Amazon. It’s like nine ninety nine.

Andrea:
Wow, I love OKso products,

Amy:
Yeah,

Andrea:
Love

Rebecca:
I do

Andrea:
Them,

Rebecca:
Too.

Andrea:
Yeah.

Amy:
Oh,

Rebecca:
And

Amy:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
It has a really good grip. Like it’s not going to slip. You’re not going to cut yourself and it stores in the drawer really easily because it’s so small. So if you don’t want to have like a big old mandolin with a whole bunch of different blades and things, that this has been great for me because I don’t really use a mandolin for anything else. So I highly, highly recommend it. I think slicing garlic is like one of the things that people really hate.

Amy:
I

Rebecca:
So

Amy:
Didn’t get

Rebecca:
Those

Amy:
It when

Rebecca:
Are my

Amy:
You first sent it to me, I’m going to get it now.

Rebecca:
Now get it now you are going to be so happy, such an Amy Oztan you’re going to like, allow your little garlic. They call it the slicer. I

Amy:
And.

Rebecca:
Love it. I actually saw it on Rachael Ray of all things like the first time. And I was like, what? I was like. They make that so highly recommend. Anyway, that is our show for today. You can find links to everything we talked about at our show page, Parenting Bytes dot com, of course, on Facebook, dot com, such Parenting Bytes you’ll find links to our shows. You can leave us comments, ideas. Let us know how you are celebrating the holidays through the pandemic or if you’re going to do New Year’s reflections this year, which I love until next week. That is it. Please write reviews, subscribe and share

Andrea:
Happy

Rebecca:
Happy

Andrea:
Parenting.

Rebecca:
Parenting.

Deborah:
Hey, this is our Parenting Bytes disclaimer, everything we talk about on the show is our own opinion, any products we recommend, it’s our own personal recommendation for entertainment purposes only. If you buy something through our affiliate links or you just happened to buy or see or read or watch something that we recommended, it’s at your own risk.

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