Just Winging It

122 // Teaching Music

When and how does a parent go about teaching kids how to make music? How can you tell whether your child has a knack for it?

Patrick and John discuss their very different backgrounds when it comes to making music and how that has informed their approach with their kids, including how they treat music around the house and the start of formal music lessons.

121 // Routines

A new school year often comes with making and breaking routines, from morning to nighttime and everything in-between.

John and Patrick catch up on life during the first few weeks of the new school year; the start of sick days, disrupted sleep habits, getting out of the house in the morning, and the list goes on.

120 // Developing Emotional Intelligence

How are you feeling? How honestly can you answer that question? All parents have been in the position of helping their kids manage emotions, but maybe we've still got some emotional intelligence to develop ourselves.

Patrick and John talk about research by Dr. Marc Brackett from Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Brackett advocates for a less judgmental and more inquisitive approach to probing into our feelings and learning to regulate them. Sure sounds like a useful parenting skill.

119 // Aligning to Another School Year

We're once again entering the new school year. And to some extent, it seems we've come to terms with the reality of managing COVID through it.

John and Patrick orient themselves to the school year with some summer debriefing and looking ahead to the next year of their kids' development.

118 // Figuring Out Vacation

Planning a vacation was tough enough in the before times. Now the choices we make about where to stay, how to get there, and what kinds of activities to do are infused with the uncertainty of the pandemic.

Patrick and John chat about their recent family vacations, how they managed the logistics, how great it felt to get away again, and how to plan the next one.

117 // Summer Outlets

It's summer, when fun and emotions run high. What are the right outlets to focus all that free time into?

John and Patrick bring on Jake Robertson, father-of-two—including a newborn—to chat about summer, handling emotional outbursts, and whales.

116 // Holding Fear

What does a healthy relationship with fear look like? How do we equip ourselves and our kids to work through fear and anxiety?

After the extended simmering anxiety through the pandemic, John and Patrick dig into how they might look at fear differently and some strategies for helping kids do the same.

115 // Learning How to Adult Again

Remember what it was like to be an adult without kids around? It's easy to forget after a year and a half of relative social isolation. As a parent of young kids, time to be an adult with other adults was already rare.

Patrick and John bring Jeff Deutsch back onto the show to reflect on his transition from the carefree pre-kid years with his wife, to the shock of a newborn, to the emerging stability as a family unit. The dads examine how their identities as adults has transformed in the process.

114 // Re-entry

The pandemic continues to abate in the US, now to the point where some degree of normalcy is sliding back in. What will the transition look like?

John and Patrick process the momentous re-entry stage they are now in as they are able to operate in the world again without masks and with a lot more people and plans, all the while still navigating life with kids who can't yet get vaccinated.

113 // Pandemic Baby

Leaving the hospital with a new baby is already a surreal experience. Taking those steps out into a world where a pandemic was just declared brings a new level of intensity.

Patrick and John bring Ash Kosiewicz onto the show to share his experience over the last year as he and his wife brought their daughter into this new pandemic world. The dads reflect on the future of parental leave and childcare in a post-pandemic world.