Explore every episode of the podcast So Glad It's You

In 2023, a trend went around where moms taught their sons to cook so that some future wife would be impressed. Payal Desai flipped it: she taught her sons to clean up after themselves so that nobody spends a lifetime catering to them . . . and the flip went everywhere. The Tamron Hall Show, HuffPost, Business Insider, Parents. Close to half a million people follow her at @payalforstyle, where raising boys is a revolution. She taught middle school English in New Jersey for sixteen years, most of them eighth grade. She joins Bridget and Leah Anne for what's underneath the trend: what happens between sixth grade, when boys still cry at their desks and hug their friends, and ninth grade, when deep friendship has quietly stopped being cool.

Payal is honest about the whole arc. She tells the story of her own gender disappointment . . . how a teacher who already knew boys are bigger than the box we put them in still reverted to her own bias the day she learned she was having a son. She talks about her last classroom years, when the manosphere reached her students and she realized she couldn't compete with an algorithm. And she tells the nail polish story, with a ten-year-old's answer that shows what confidence built at home sounds like.

In this episode:

The Dusty Sons flip: the original trend, her sister's one-line rewrite, and why it went everywhere

Sixth grade boys cry and hug their friends. Eighth grade boys mostly don't. What happens in between

"I can't compete with your algorithm" . . . the manosphere reached her classroom before it reached the news

The nail polish, the friends who asked why, and his answer: "It's not an insult, so why would I be insulted?"

For the parent whose spouse says take it off: "Sit down and ask him about his boyhood"

Try this week:

• Catch one box: notice a moment where "boys don't" or "boys can't" sneaks into your house, and get curious before deciding it's true.
• Offer the full menu: one activity your son hasn't been offered because of the label on it. Art counts. Let him show you who he is.
• When a choice worries you, name the fear to yourself first . . . then ask whose boyhood it belongs to.

Quotes from Payal:

• "Boys are bigger than the box that we put them in."
• "They say raising boys is easier. It's only easier when you're not doing it."
• "Of course boys are relational."

Find Payal Desai:

• Instagram: @payalforstyle
• Her Raising Boys merch drop, orders close November 2, click here
• Mentioned in this episode, BoyMom by Ruth Whippman

About So Glad It's You

So Glad It's You is a show about the same kid in two rooms. Bridget KerMorris, a parent coach, takes the home side. Leah Anne Borrell, who spent 25 years in education, takes the classroom side. New episodes every Wednesday.

Want more help with the home side and the school side? Our membership for parents of middle schoolers has short videos, word-for-word scripts and email templates, live Q&As, and a place to ask about your own kid: https://sogladitsyou.com

Follow us on Instagram: @sogladitsyou · @bridget.sogladitsyou · @leahanne.sogladitsyou

This show is for education and encouragement. It is not a substitute for advice from your own doctor, therapist, or counselor.

You can declutter every drawer and still feel buried, because the mess isn't always made of stuff. Sometimes it's the schedule. Tyler Moore, the New York City public school teacher nearly 400,000 people follow as Tidy Dad makes the case that a cluttered home and a cluttered mind are the same problem . . . and an overscheduled family will out-mess any amount of square footage. He would know: his family of five shares a 750-square-foot apartment with one bathroom and a triple bunk, and the book he wrote from inside it, Tidy Up Your Life, became a USA Today bestseller.

He shares the story underneath all that order: his parents divorced when he was in eighth grade, and a kid moving between two homes learned to keep track of his own things so he wouldn't add to anyone's load.

In this episode:

• "It was clean two days ago" . . . why the culprit is often the calendar, not the kid
• The city bus, the dead watch battery, and the independence that surprised Tyler most
• The year NYC locked up the Chromebooks: puzzles, blocks, and kids who snap back fast
• "I'm lucky I have all daughters" . . . Tyler on boy tasks, girl tasks, and who cleans the toilet
• The decluttering calendar: why nobody wants your old toys in January

Try this week:

• Start where there's no negotiating: a ten-minute burst on a category only you use. Sock drawer, work bag.
• Set a baseline, not a blueprint: one clear bedroom expectation, then let your middle schooler run everything inside it.
• Before deciding your kid "just doesn't care," find the one category they do keep in order, and get curious.
• Light up on purpose: greet your middle schooler like you're glad to see them. Tyler does it every morning, even when he has to fake it.

Quotes from Tyler:

• "It's a hurdle if you make it a hurdle."
• "Kids are hardwired to want to play and want to talk."
• "Do we really want to forever have these archaic stereotypes, that women are the only ones that clean a toilet?"

Find Tyler Moore:

• Instagram, @tidydad
• His Substack, The Tidy Times
• His podcast, Tidy Tidbits
• His book, Tidy Up Your Life

About So Glad It's You

So Glad It's You is a show about the same kid in two rooms. Bridget KerMorris, a parent coach, takes the home side. Leah Anne Borrell, who spent 25 years in education, takes the classroom side. New episodes every Wednesday.

Want more help with the home side and the school side? Our membership for parents of middle schoolers has short videos, word-for-word scripts and email templates, live Q&As, and a place to ask about your own kid: https://sogladitsyou.com

Follow us on Instagram: @sogladitsyou · @bridget.sogladitsyou · @leahanne.sogladitsyou

This show is for education and encouragement. It is not a substitute for advice from your own doctor, therapist, or counselor.

Every parent has said "can you not see this?" to a twelve-year-old. Sam Kelly, a therapist turned coach for mothers and the author of Notice and Do, joins Bridget and Leah Anne to explain why kids don't see what needs doing, and how to teach them, because noticing is a skill, just like tying shoes. She shares the Friday night that started it all, the "big three" in her house, and what to do with the kid who has refused to clean up their whole life.

In this episode:

• What Notice and Do is, and what the first week looks like
• The two kinds of invisible work, and which one a kid can share
• Martyr energy versus mentor energy
• The big three, and "good, not great"
• What noticing looks like at school, and one move a teacher can borrow
• The resistant kid, and why it's never too late with a seventh grader

About Sam:

Sam Kelly is a therapist turned coach for mothers, with a master's in art therapy counseling and years of teaching at the university level. Notice and Do began on a Friday night when she was writing a chore list for her kids and realized she was teaching them that mom's brain does all the noticing. It has since reached thousands of families, and it is now a book: Notice and Do: Raise Capable Kids, End Motherhood Burnout, and Lighten Your Mental Load.

Find Sam:

• Instagram: @samkelly_world
• Website and free guide: https://hellosamkelly.com
• Her book, Notice and Do (HarperOne), out now: https://hellosamkelly.com/notice-and-do-book

About So Glad It's You:

So Glad It's You is a show about the same kid in two rooms. Bridget KerMorris, a parent coach, takes the home side. Leah Anne Borrell, who spent 25 years in education, takes the classroom side. New episodes every Wednesday.

Want more help with the home side and the school side? Our membership for parents of middle schoolers has short videos, word-for-word scripts and email templates, live Q&As, and a place to ask about your own kid: https://sogladitsyou.com

Follow us on Instagram: @sogladitsyou · @bridget.sogladitsyou · @leahanne.sogladitsyou

This show is for education and encouragement. It is not a substitute for advice from your own doctor, therapist, or counselor.

Every parent has been told to validate their kid’s feelings, and plenty of us are now living with a twelve-year-old who negotiates like a lawyer. Dr. Siggie Cohen, the child development specialist nearly two million parents follow and the author of the brand-new You Are the Parent, joins Bridget and Leah Anne to talk about where the line is. Kids get to feel everything. Parents still get to lead.

Siggie shares how more than 35 years with children, as a nanny, a preschool teacher, and a college professor, shaped her balanced parenting: firm without fear, warm without pleading. She explains why middle school is one of the hardest transitions a kid will ever make, why less is better when it comes to our words, and what changes when a parent moves from pleading to leading.

In this episode:

• Middle school is “two separate worlds” from elementary, landing right alongside puberty
• “Your kids may not want to talk to you about the things you want to talk about”
• The balance between the old “do as I say” and the new habit of pleading with our kids to let us parent
• Less is better: why kids can’t absorb our lectures, and the question habit that hands kids false power
• The target-child trap, and the kindergarten spill that got blamed on a boy who was absent that day
• Staying grounded with challenging kids, overlooked easy kids, and neurodivergent families
• “I like you,” said with specifics, so love never goes abstract
• It’s not a crisis, and the opposite of anxiety is not calm, it’s trust

Try this week:

• Only ask a question when it’s really a question: swap one “Should we get going?” for a kind, clear “It’s time to get going.”
• Catch one rhetorical question and simply give the instruction again, calmly.
• Tell your kid one specific thing you like about them, with the why. Like, not just love.
• Before any calming tools, try step one: “I can see this is hard. It makes sense. I trust you can get through it.”

Quotes from Dr. Siggie:

• “A parent is not a bad word.”
• “The opposite of anxiety is not calm. It’s trust.”
• “I trust children . . . not accommodating them, trusting them.”

Find Dr. Siggie:

• Instagram: @dr.siggie
• Website and courses: https://www.drsiggie.com
• You Are the Parent, out now: [BOOK LINK]

About So Glad It’s You
So Glad It’s You is a show about the same kid in two rooms. Bridget KerMorris, a parent coach, takes the home side. Leah Anne Borrell, who spent 25 years in education, takes the classroom side. New episodes every Wednesday.

Want more help with the home side and the school side? Our membership for parents of middle schoolers has short videos, word-for-word scripts and email templates, live Q&As, and a place to ask about your own kid: https://sogladitsyou.com

Follow us on Instagram: @sogladitsyou · @bridget.sogladitsyou · @leahanne.sogladitsyou

This show is for education and encouragement. It is not a substitute for advice from your own doctor, therapist, or counselor.

Your twelve-year-old slams a door, and the person shaking on the other side of it is somehow eight-year-old you. Dr. Galit Atlas, the psychoanalyst whose Emotional Inheritance became a bestseller in 29 languages, joins Bridget and Leah Anne to talk about her brand-new Come Closer, and why raising a middle schooler brings your own childhood back to life. The feelings are old. The kid in front of you is new.

Galit shares the story of her childhood diary, the faithful friend of an invisible child, and what her grown son taught her about how hidden a child’s inner world can be. She explains why good-enough parents are tuned in only about 30% of the time, why a quiet home is not the same as a connected one, and how repair, not peace, is what makes a family feel secure. If you are healing backward and parenting forward at the same time, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why raising kids brings your own childhood back to life
• The childhood wound Galit’s grown son recognized in himself when he read her book
• The myth of the peaceful home: quiet isn’t the same as connected
• Good-enough parents are tuned in about 30% of the time, and the other 70% is where repair lives
• Why middle schoolers hand us so much rejection, and the bravery of reaching out anyway
• Galit’s childhood diary, and Zoe’s story from the Frightened Child chapter
• What takes over when your kid slams the door: the frightened, ashamed, and guilty children inside the parent

Try this week:

• After a hard moment, try: “Did you feel that I was with you today?” Then let the answer be whatever it is.
• When the door slams, slow down and tell the kid inside you: it’s okay, you’re not in danger. You’re the parent now.
• Reopen one conversation: “I keep thinking about what you said yesterday.” A dialogue doesn’t have to end the same day.
• Gather information before taking it on: “You seemed upset when you got in the car. What’s going on?” It’s often not about you.

Quotes from Dr. Galit Atlas:

• “There is no relationship without rupture, not between parents and children, and not between lovers, and not between friends.”
• “It’s not about the noise . . . it is about the connection. And sometimes when it’s too quiet, it’s a little disconnected.”
• “I have it. It’s on me. I can handle it. You are safe.”

Find Dr. Galit Atlas:

• Instagram: @galit_atlas
• Her Substack, Wild Analysis
• Come Closer book
• Emotional Inheritance book

About So Glad It’s You
So Glad It’s You is a show about the same kid in two rooms. Bridget KerMorris, a parent coach, takes the home side. Leah Anne Borrell, who spent 25 years in education, takes the classroom side. New episodes every Wednesday.

Want more help with the home side and the school side? Our membership for parents of middle schoolers has short videos, word-for-word scripts and email templates, live Q&As, and a place to ask about your own kid: https://sogladitsyou.com

Follow us on Instagram: @sogladitsyou · @bridget.sogladitsyou · @leahanne.sogladitsyou

This show is for education and encouragement. It is not a substitute for advice from your own doctor, therapist, or counselor.

The tween and teen years hand your kid a whole new world . . . the group chats, the friendship flips, the shrug at pickup. So Glad It's You is the show for the parents living this season and it's hosted from both sides of the school door.

Bridget KerMorris is a former Stanford lawyer turned marriage and family therapist and a mom of seven raising her fourth middle schooler. Leah Anne Borrell is a teacher who taught in public school classrooms for ten years and then spent fifteen more training teachers.

We're best known for the middle school years . . . the stretch where every relationship in the house renegotiates at once . . . and every week we sit down with the authors, psychologists, and educators we'd want at our own kitchen tables, because these years aren't something to survive. They're a relationship to keep.

The show opens Wednesday, October 21 with three episodes: Dr. Siggie Cohen (author of the newly released You Are the Parent), Sam Kelly (author of the newly released Notice and Do), and Dr. Galit Atlas (author of the newly released Come Closer). New episodes drop every Wednesday after that. Follow now so they find you . . . we're so glad it's every guest and so glad it's you.

More from us on Instagram @sogladitsyou, @bridget.parentcoach, @leahanne.sogladitsyou.

And at sogladitsyou.com.