the denmother podcast

How we talk to our kids about sex matters. 

Today, Dr. Janet Rosenzweig is with us to share helpful tips on how to talk to our kids about sex in ways that are NOT daunting!

Dr. Rosenzweig, author of The Sex-Wise Parent, has spent more than 30 years as a sex educator.  She strongly believes that parents — not schools, not the Internet — should be their children’s primary sex educator.  And, she is the perfect person to give them the tools needed to have these potentially tough conversations. She was recruited to one of the nation’s first chi...

Dealing with teen mental health is more complex than ever. From social media to smart phones, Ai, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and coming out of the Covid era, our teens are dealing with a lot. 

Dara Wax is a seasoned global health strategist and the founder of SAM+LEO, a brand dedicated to improving teen mental health through innovative gummy vitamins. As the mother of two teen boys navigating their own mental health and learning needs, Dara brings a personal touch to her professional expertise. With a robust background in vaccine advocacy and resource mobilization, particularly through h...

Fleur Bryant is a mother of three, speaker, coach, disability advocate, and founder of The Make Way Foundation. After spending decades believing she had cerebral palsy, Fleur learned she actually has Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia, while her family's life was also being reshaped by her son Toby's life-limiting neurological condition. In her memoir, Never the Plan: A Memoir of Motherhood, Misdiagnosis, and Unexpected Lessons, Fleur shares what these experiences taught her about motherhood, identity, acceptance, and finding joy without waiting for life to become easier. 

You can find Fleur Bryant on Instagram or on her website and buy h...

Recognizing triggers from the past, healing our hurt and separating our trauma from our parenting and our kids is a long journey, but it's a worthwhile one. Today, Emily Cleghorn helps us take the first step. 

Emily Cleghorn is an award-winning Holistic Trigger Recovery Coach, bestselling author, podcaster, and sought-after speaker on a mission to help trauma-surviving mamas heal while parenting. Through her signature Mended Mama Method, Emily empowers moms to navigate triggers and tantrums with confidence, breaking free from reactive patterns and creating a peaceful, connected home.

You can find Emily on Instagram and o...

Learning to manage our emotions is a skill that helps us throughout our lives and it's a skill that can be learned even at a very young age, according to today's guest. 

Constance Lewis, along with her husband Andre, is the passionate co-creator behind the books,  Miles and the Colorful Capes of Feelings and Mariah and the Colorful Tutus of Feelings, inspired by their son Miles, who underwent brain surgery at just six years old and their daughter Mariah, who oscillates between very big feelings and extreme shyness.  Their journey navigating medical challenges and helping both kids exp...

Your most important partnership is your marriage - especially if you are raising kids. 

Today's guest went to hell and back through a contentious hate-filled divorce that ended up with reconciliation and a happily-ever-after and now she helps other couples do the same.  

Kameran Alareqi is a Gottman certified marriage coach, the host of The Married and Connected Podcast, and the founder of the Recognizing Potential Coaching Program. In this program, Kameran meets couples where they are to help them deepen connection, improve communication, and apply tools needed to create the healthy marriage they envision an...

1 in 4 Americans are currently a part of the "Sandwich Generation" - adults who are or will be simultaneously raising kids while caring for aging parents.

Our guest today is Nicole Hilgenkamp. Nicole spent 30 years fixing broken systems for Fortune 100 companies before turning that skill on the a system that constantly fails families - caregiving for aging parents. She founded of Your Parents Keeper to educate Family Caregivers and also to honor her mom, who she says she could have cared for better if she would have had better information. Today she’s here to talk to us mo...

Sleep issues don't always stop at the newborn phase... but don't you worry. We are in this together. Gemma Reynolds is here to offer professional advice and get you and your little one on the road to sleep.

Gemma Reynolds is a Certified Child Sleep Specialist based in Nottinghamshire, UK but works with parents across the globe. She found sleep coaching after struggling with sleep with her own baby, and realized she had found her life’s work. She is passionate about helping exhausted parents find sleep for themselves and their little ones through gentle methods and sl...

ESPN was always the goal for Sports Reporter Lindsey Thiry, only that goal started to look different once she became a mom to two adorable boys. From being pregnant and "puffy" on the sideline to scheduling work around family and vice versa, Lindsey shares with us the fun and chaos of chasing (and achieving) your dreams as a mom. 

You can catch Lindsey on Sundays on Sunday NFL Countdown, and you can follow her on Instagram to see some sneak peeks behind the scenes. 

Also, we want to welcome the denmother podcast's first ever Guest Ho...

Ryann Watkin is a speaker, educator, podcaster and mom. She helps educators, parents and aspiring leaders feel happier at work and home through workshops, keynote talks and podcast interviews focusing on joy, resilience, and purpose. She’s here today to have an honest, soulful conversation with us about the identity shifts we experience throughout motherhood.

You can find Ryann on Instagram and LinkedIn...

And download the Raising Wild Hearts podcast or watch it on YouTube!   

Rebecca Stewart has staffed some of the most elite houses in Hollywood with childcare help. She shares the ins and outs of this glitzy, driven world and what some of the top-tier parents ask their potential childcare that we often don't. This is a fun, eye-opening episode you won't want to miss! 

To find out more about V.I.P. Nannies, click here.

And you can follow the agency on Instagram. 

Power struggles can make you feel powerless, frustrated and hopeless as a parent. But today's guest is here to offer guidance and hope! (And she even challenges me a little bit on my own parenting.)

Katherine Sellery is a three-time TEDx speaker, an Amazon Best-Selling author and founder of the Conscious Parenting Revolution. She is a trusted voice for parents seeking to create more connected, respectful, and empowered relationships with their kids. With over two decades of experience teaching tools that build trust and dismantle power struggles, Katherine is here to shift the conversation around how we...

What does true joy look like? Does it look like a life free from suffering or pain? Or does it look like a fight to find and keep joy wherever we can?

Today's guest knows first-hand the realities of joy and the fight for it. 

Candace Payne is an author, speaker and a podcast host, but you may know her best as “The Chewbacca Mom” after her Facebook Live video trying on a Chewbacca Mask went viral in 2016, back before viral videos were as common as they are today. That single video sparked joy across the c...

The United States has the highest rate of children in single-parent homes in the world, with 80% of those homes led by women. 

In many cases, women find themselves in this situation unexpectedly due to death, divorce, military deployment or other factors. 

So how do you navigate and prepare for something like this? Today's guest has the answers. 

Julie Barth is a mother to six children. She is also the the CEO and founder of the Colin James Barth Outreach, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping women-led households with the resources and aid necessary to...

How do we know if our baby's and toddler's language is developing normally? And what, if anything, can we do to help develop their language and speech?

Page Maughan is a mom to two adorable girls. She is also a certified Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) who specializes in neuro rehabilitation. She works with children in schools and in the hospital setting and she’s here today to answer all our questions about speech - what’s normal, what needs to be addressed with our kids. This is something we don't talk about nearly enough as parents. Listen in!

No matter what stage of parenting you're in, parenting is challenging. 

Today on the denmother podcast, Dr. Lindsay Emmerson joins us to share tips and insight into every childhood stage of difficulty from toddler tantrums to teenage drama. 

Dr. Lindsay Emmerson is a clinical psychologist who built Parenting With Psychology from a traditional therapy practice into a thriving online business supporting thousands of parents worldwide. After years as a therapist, researcher, and college professor, she created the Better Behavior Blueprint and her signature 5 C's parenting framework—a complete system that transforms overwhelmed parents into what she...

Carrying someone else's child comes with a whole host of emotions, and sometimes complications, but can provide expected parents with a life-changing gift: the gift of a family.  Today's guest knows first hand what surrogates go through. That's why she created her surrogacy agency, Joy of Life. 

After years of working in the fertility field, Joy Millan felt called to create her own agency, one that honors the extraordinary gift of surrogacy and ensures every journey is approached with dignity, respect, and care. A defining moment came in 2016 while Joy was advising international intended parents during a su...

We, as women, have been shaped by advertising, diet culture, the beauty industry and so much more. And often, the messages we received early on start to affect our eating in negative ways. So, how do we navigate our own relationship with food while also working to help our kids have a healthy relationship with food? That's where Jessica Setnick comes in.

Jessica Setnick is known by eating disorder professionals worldwide for bringing a new vision of eating disorder care to the field. Through her training workshop, Eating Disorders Boot Camp, and hundreds of conference and community...

How does childhood trauma affect how we experience motherhood and parent our own children?

Today's guest, Adriene Caldwell, would tell you that after experiencing and/or witnessing several traumatic events in childhood from emotional and physical abuse to suicide, death, pedophilia, sexual assault, severe mental illness and more, she was terrified to become a mother.

Still, she says having her daughter was the single defining moment in her life. That doesn't mean it was easy, though. She first had to make the choice to be a mother to her baby, then she had to take...

As moms, we are always advocating for our kids. Whether it's asking for more tests at the doctor's office, standing up for your parenting choices with friends and family, or holding fast to your faith during turbulent storms - moms are the backbone of many families. Today's guest knows, maybe more than most, how to stand up for and fight for her kids.

Joslynn Jarrett-Skelton's dream of performing on Broadway took an unexpected turn when, during her junior year of college, she became pregnant and embraced motherhood as a single mom at 20. Despite the challenges, Joslynn continued...

Imagine finding your your husband's body at 31 and realizing you're now a widow and a single parent. Then, imagine finding out DAYS later that you're also pregnant with his second baby. 

Dr. Liz Fiedler Mergen has spent the last five years navigating grief, loss, explaining death to one child who knew her daddy and one who never met him, then working toward her own healing and ultimately finding love again. 

Her story is one unlike any other and you won't want to miss it. 

You can learn more about Liz on her website.

After twenty years of nonstop climbing in the corporate world, Jon Hord hit a wall: his first panic attack. That moment made him realize he wasn’t showing up as the dad or husband he wanted to be. So he stepped off the predictable path he was on and built The Engaged Father Project to help other driven dads slow down, reset, and start leading at home with real intention. Jon’s eight week course uses a simple S.T.E.P. framework to help dads shift from autopilot to meaningful connection. 

You can learn more about the E...

Her whole life, Katie Britton strived to be perfect. The pursuit resulted in her physical beauty, and a thrilling modeling career that opened many doors, but it also led to stress and an eating disorder. Years later, the word perfect would be used again to describe her first marriage: the allure of flying wherever she wanted, driving whatever car she wanted, buying whatever she wanted. But her life was far from perfect.

On today's all new episode of the denmother podcast, Katie gets real about modeling, being seen as a trophy, emotional abuse, struggling with perfectionism and...

I know so many moms who feel unfulfilled creatively, yet for one reason or another they have the very important task of being the default parent at this stage in life. Many want to create, some just want to earn an income from home. Well, the world of Voice Over Acting may be the solution to both. 

Today, on a brand new episode of the denmother podcast, Amber Faith joins us to give us the inside scoop on breaking into the VO world. 

Amber Faith began her Voice Acting career by accident when a producer ha...

If you're like me, you wanted a big family when you were younger but either the realities of giving birth or raising kids or birth trauma or some other factor played a role in your decision to keep things small.

Today's all new guest on the denmother podcast, however, did not keep things small. Not only does Jennifer Turnquist-Linn have a big family (she's raising eight kids), but she's kicking butt at it and raising good people. Jenn has been married more than 20 years and together with her husband, they have eight kids ranging in age from...

Whether you're on your first kid or your third, you can probably agree that there is so much to prepare for with a new baby that often we don't prepare enough to actually feed said baby! Maybe that is one reason why nearly 50% of moms give up on exclusive breastfeeding by three months. 

But have no fear, Holly Hill is here! Holly Hill is a registered nurse of 20 years and a certified IBCLC lactation consultant of 10 years with both hospital and private practice experience. She works to shine a light on lactation, teaching the basics, and helping t...

As moms, we are always pivoting, and some more than most. 

Today's guest, Surae Chinn, not only has had to adjust to the unexpected when she got divorced, but then becoming a single mom when her ex left. Then, adjusting to an ADHD diagnosis, and again to the news that her ex was arrested for domestic violence. With one unexpected turn after another, Surae has had to put in the work and be intentional about who she wants to be, how she shows up in the world, and how she parents her two kids. 

Surae Ch...

How cool would it have been to see yourself in a book when you were a kid? For Sarah Tubert, not only did she not see anyone like her in print or on screen, but she didn't see anyone like her in real life either. 

At the age of three, a surgeon's error left Sarah with facial paralysis and hearing loss, but Sarah's indomitable spirit led her to overcome these obstacles. Today, not only is she is a series regular on Disney's "Primos," making history as the first Deaf Latina Voice Over actress in an animated series, s...

Doesn't it feel like we're always waiting for something? For a new job, for a friend to call, for inspiration, for purpose... But what if we didn't have to wait? And what if we could model for our kids what it means to create real momentum and really go for it in life and in work?

Today's guest, Screenwriter and Author Meredith Lavender, knows first-hand what it means to create your own path. From transitioning from acting to screenwriting and then screenwriting to being an author, Meredith is not afraid to pivot whenever the need arises.

How can we teach our kids to be true to themselves when we are all constantly putting our best selves forward on social media and in the real world? 

Actress Charlotte Hemmings joins us on the denmother podcast today to talk about what it means to not only be authentic in our own lives, but also how to model authenticity for our kids. 

*Note: we had some audio issues on this record, but the episode is so worth it, so please bear with us. :) 

Charlotte's Bio: 

Charlotte Hemmings is an actress with...

Have you ever considered entering a beauty pageant? Or, like me, is pageant life simply the furthest thing from your current experience?

Today's guest, Chelsi Rasmussen, knows exactly what it's like to feel like an outsider in the pageant space... until she won her first ever pageant and was crowned Mrs. Utah America 2024! Not only that, but Chelsi shares other surprising outcomes from her pageant experience including, but not limited to: a refresh for her marriage, new body confidence, a legacy for her children, inner healing and so much more. You won't want to miss her story!<...

The topics of consent and body safety can feel daunting... but not the way Rosalia Rivera teaches it! Rosalia teaches parents how to talk to their kids about body safety in a way that feels easy, conversational and accessible. She also shares tips on how to talk to other adults and caregivers about body safety in non-scary, non-confrontational ways. Best of all? Rosalia says up to 90% of child sexual abuse cases can be totally prevented through education, information and communication. This is an episode every parent needs to hear.

Rosalia Rivera is a consent educator, abuse prevention...

What does it take to run from the man you love in order to keep your kids safe from life in a cult? Or to show up as an NFL wife when you feel that you don't look the part or fit in? The answer is hope. 

Today's guest, Eileen Noyes, knows exactly the type of hope it takes to putt yourself out of a difficult situation. Eileen is an Ex-NFL wife who escaped with her children from life in a cult and then went from being a single mom to eight kids to getting remarried, finding h...

Thanks to the internet and smart devices, our kids have access to information like never before. At the same time, media has become more and more bias and divisive than ever before. 

On today's brand new episode of the denmother podcast, we are talking to an authority on media to learn more about how and why media is changing and how to talk to our kids about what they're seeing. 

Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning documentarian, journalist, speaker, author, philanthropist, and founder of Soledad O’Brien Productions, a multi-platform media production company dedicated to tellin...

What does abundance look like and how do you attract it into your life? According to today's guest, it's a lot easier - and funner - than you think. 

Cathy Heller is a renowned teacher, podcaster and author. She hosts one of the top spiritual podcasts, which has been downloaded more than 45-million times. She's a practitioner of the law of reception, and has a deep understanding of the universal principles of manifestation. Cathy guides individuals on a transformative journey toward unlocking their highest potential. 

You can find Cathy on Instagram.

And buy he...

Our kids are being inundated with "current events" of the worst kind - shootings, devisive politics, natural disasters and so much more on the news. Even if we try to shield them from a lot of it or create open dialogue around it, negativity still seeps in. 

But those things aren't the only things happening in the world. 

On today's brand new episode of the denmother podcast, Travel Expert, Author and Mom Salisha Shears talks about the importance of traveling with your kids, why being uncomfortable is a good thing and she even shares tips an...

According to the CDC, more than 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. have some sort of disability, but less than 1% of characters on TV have a disability. Today's guest, Shea Fontana, shares with us the intention, care and attention to detail that goes into some of our kids favorite shows, why representation matters and what we can expect for the future of animation. 

Shea Fontana is the award-winning writer behind some of your kids’ favorite cartoons including: Nickelodeon's Monster High, Netflix's Polly Pocket and Action Pack, the DC Super Hero Girls, Doc McStuffins and so many more. Her...

Like me, and many other moms, today's guest knows first hand the struggles that can come with trying to breastfeed your baby. 

Mia Funt is a mom of three. Her difficulty with breastfeeding led to the need for formula with her first baby, but her search was daunting, confusing and left her frustrated with the only options available and the lack of progress and innovation in the formula space. So, she and her brother, Ron, started a company called ByHeart and created their own formula, always asking “why?” and searching for a better way to feed our babie...

What is your plan for aging? Do you have one or (like most of us) are you just dreading/avoiding the topic altogether?

Today's has the unique experience of aging in front of the camera. After graduating from Brigham Young University, Nicea DeGering became a Crime Reporter at the age of 23. Over the next several years, she covered security at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Elizabeth Smart’s disappearance and produced several special reports, including taking viewers inside the FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. She later became one of the original hosts of the Emmy-Award winning Lifestyle Show, Good Th...

Did you have a traumatic birth? Or did you feel in control and empowered in your experience?

The way we experience birth affects so much from our relationship with our babies, to their early beginnings as well as our healing and so much more.

Luckily, a GROUNDBREAKING study finds that healing from birth trauma is possible through something called a "Redemptive Birth." The study authors, Gill Thomson and Soo Downe discuss the findings in today's brand new episode of the denmother podcast. 

Gill Thomson is a Professor in Perinatal Health with a psychology a...