Useful Parenting Tips for Actual Life, Parenting in Real Life

In this episode I talk to Alan and Alexis about many aspects of their show including:

• Their show being a place for parents to find parenting tips as well as sympathy and commiseration in the hard parts of parenting.
• They conciously keep the podcast light, so you can do other things while listening and don’t have to feel the need to take a bunch of notes.
• The vibe of their show is conversational and relaxed.
• Their show has followed their family as it has grown and changed, so no matter what stage of parenting you are in they have parenting tips for you.
• And much more!

Links from the Episode:

• Grab my Kid Podcast Guide!
• Parenting in Real Life on Instagram
• Parenting in Real Life Website
• Enjoying Your Teens with Christi Davis
• Patient Parenting Episode

Description of Parenting in Real Life

Alan and Alexis describes their show like this: As the parents of five kids, we know what it’s like to be in survival mode, to feel like you’re just trying to get through the day. We have found that it’s the simple everyday joys that make parenting more fun. We help parents laugh a bit more and create fun in day-to-day parenting. The length of each episode is 15 to 30 minutes. The series is ongoing with new episodes available on Wednesdays.

Kid Podcast Guide

Before we learn more about the vibe of the show, we’re going to take a quick break to talk about my Guide to Kid podcasts, one of my favorite parenting tools is Kid podcasts I love to tell people about them when they ask for parenting tips. I use them when I’m running errands with the kiddos to keep them from complaining the whole time. Or when I need a mom break, I’ll just grab an easy activity like coloring pages or a sensory bin, turn on a kid podcast and the kids will be entertained for at least half an hour. I know that Kid Podcasts would help you in your life too, which is why I made a Guide to Kid Podcasts.

There are eight categories ranging from science to mindfulness to audio drama with at least three podcasts in each category. There are 27 podcasts in total on the guide. I’ve listened to each of the podcasts on this guide, so I can attest to them being kid friendly, and I put my email at the bottom of the guide so that if you try a couple with your kids and none of them are a good fit, you can email me and I will personally help you find a kid podcast that works for your littles and you.

Introduction to Alexis & Alan and Parenting in Real Life

We have five children ages 12 to five. And we live in Utah and we like to podcast. We started our podcast because we felt like we are not good at this parenting thing and we need to get better. And so maybe if we do a podcast about it, it will force us to learn something along the way. And so it made it really intentional to be like, our kids struggle at X, let’s write a podcast about how to fix X.

And so that’s how it started. And it was just us in a closet struggling and and, and we still struggle a lot, but I think what’s kept us going is it’s fun, right? We think it’s important to laugh about parenting because it’s so hard and sometimes it feels like you are the only one that’s bad at it.

And so we like to be a place where people can come and feel like it’s okay to stink at parenting and your kids are gonna be okay and you’re gonna be okay. So we talk about it, we laugh about it, and hopefully we learn a little bit too. And we’ve been podcasting for six and a half years now, so the podcast has kind of grown with our family, which has been really fun because six years ago our oldest was only six and we only had four kids instead of the five.

And so we’ve just kind of been going through those stages with our podcast listeners and which has been really fun.

The Authenticity of Parenting in Real Life

What people say they like about our podcast is that we’re real and that they feel comfortable and they don’t feel like they’re being judged at all because we’re just kinda all doing this together. So we come from that of like, “Hey, let’s parent together!” vibe rather than “I’m an expert teaching you” like, let’s figure out this parenting thing, however that looks like for you. We try to give examples of lots of different things that people could try because parenting styles are so different and all the kids are so different, and I find that sometimes I’ll listen to podcasts and I’m like, “that doesn’t work for me or my family”, just because of how our situation is. So we really try to be kind of broad and let people decide what they wanna take from our podcast and try.

I’m a person who’s inclined towards guilt, right? Like, I always feel like I’m not good enough and I should be better. And so a lot of times those experts, and we love those experts, right? And we have ’em on our podcast all the time. They’re great, but I, for me, it was important to have a place where it was okay to just like, kind of appreciate the mess, you know? And, and see both sides of it. Sometimes after we read a book and talk about it, we say, this doesn’t work for us, or this just doesn’t make sense, or, I don’t think I can do this, or This doesn’t feel reasonable for me where I’m at right now. And that doesn’t mean that they’re not right. It just means it’s not right for me. Or it’s too much for me or whatever. So finding that balance I think is important to us as parents, but also as podcasters.

The Vibe of Parenting in Real Life

We want people to feel a balance, cuz it kind of feels like there’s the two extremes. There’s the, I’m a perfect parent, just do it like this. And there’s the, I need wine by five because I can’t handle parenting and I just have to like suffer through it and then drink my wine and then I’m okay. We wanna like do both, right? Like, yes, it’s really hard, but it’s also really awesome and we don’t wanna just give up and be bad at it. We wanna get better. I think our podcast is kind of like that. We’re gonna have moments when we give parenting tips and we’ll have moments when we just like laugh and cry a little bit. Oh my gosh! I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a better description of parenting than laughing and crying.

We are kinda laid back and chill. We are not like high stress people. We’re not intense people. And so we hope that people come to our podcast that they can feel not stressed about their life, but can just appreciate the conversation, you know, and we try to make it a casual conversation as we’re talking to each other.

We usually start our podcast with like a parenting in real life moment. And we’ll just kinda share a story about something crazy that happened in our family so that people can just be like, I relate to that. No, we don’t have our stuff all together either. So that’s, that’s kind of the vibe we’re going for there.

We also recognize that our listeners are listening to our podcast. All over the place. They’re listening to podcasts as they clean, as they commute, as they parent. This isn’t like a take notes podcast, like we’re trying to be light and be digestible so that you can just come listen to it while you’re doing everything else you’re doing…Cuz we know you’re doing something else. Nobody’s sitting down and listening to this podcast. Because we’re just busy and so we try and catch you where you are and give you something to laugh about and do better at, and while you’re doing everything.

Where to Find Parenting in Real Life

So we’re mostly active on Instagram and that’s @parenting.il.podcast. I found when I didn’t have the dots people kept saying it looked like Parenting Girl, so I’m like, Nope, we have Boys and Girls. So Parenting.irl.podcast. And then our website is parentingirlpodcast.com.

Alexis’ Favorite Episode

My favorite episode probably, I was thinking about this of like one that probably made the biggest impression on me. One of our interviews was with a life coach named Christie and I can’t even remember what episode number that is, but it was so great because she just had some really great parenting tips that we actually still use and still talk about, and I feel like that was just such an aha moment to have her on our podcast. She just had so many great tips that were applicable that we can use in our family.

Alan’s Favorite Episode

My favorite is probably our episode on patient parenting. And we talked about the two sides of patient parenting. Obviously we need to be patient as parents, but we also talked about being patient with yourself as parents. And I think that was in our earlier days when I was like, you know, you’re just always a mess. And you feel it, and you know that you shouldn’t be or don’t want to be, but you are. And that’s just your reality. And so it was really liberating at that time in our parenting to be like, It’s okay. It’s actually good for my kids to see that I’m being patient with myself and I’m a better parent when I am. And so that’s another, that’s deep in the archives, but that’s a really good one.