Be Their Safe Place: Raising Boys in Middle School | Kelly Wiethuchter - The ManFlu | Exploring Gender Dynamics, Partnerships & Raising Boys Who Care | Lyssna här

It’s 7:43 AM, her boys still aren’t out the door, and our guest is sipping her coffee and saying nothing. Middle school parenting asks you to step back right when every instinct tells you to step in.

On this episode, host Lucy McAfee talks with her friend Kelly Wiethuchter, an ad tech sales leader and mom to fraternal twins, about raising boys through the transition to sixth grade. Kelly’s sons share a birthday, but not the same personality. One is an extrovert who wakes up asking who can hang out, and the other is more introverted and saves his energy for a few close friends. One sits down and knocks out his homework right away, while the other works better with a deadline. Raising twins showed Kelly early that two kids under one roof need to be parented differently.

This year Kelly stopped packing their backpacks so the boys could build their own executive functioning skills, and she explains why she is willing to let them be late. She also shares what happened last year when another boy at the playground pulled up something on his phone that no child should see. What her sons did next is a lesson in online safety for kids, and it proved to Kelly that she had become their safe place.

Her one small shift: start with one. Kelly borrows “10 Before 10” from Chris McKenna of Protect Young Eyes, the idea of having ten short conversations with your child about what they might see online before age 10. She keeps each talk short and side by side, in the car or on a walk, and uses a lesson from her media career, reach and frequency, to space them out so no one dreads a trip to the grocery store with mom. Press play for a middle school parenting approach that helps your sons learn to figure things out while they still live at home.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Welcome And Meeting Kelly Wiethuchter

02:03 Infertility, Loss, And Two Rainbow Babies

06:27 Twins With Two Very Different Personalities

14:48 Why She Stopped Packing Their Backpacks

19:15 Only Six Years Left To Shape Them

21:53 The Phone Moment That Proved She's Safe

29:28 10 Before 10 And Reach And Frequency

35:24 Yardsticks, A Parenting Book She Actually Finished

40:52 Raising Empathetic Boys Who Talk About Feelings

45:33 The One Small Shift: Start With One

Resources mentioned in this episode: