Power Your Parenting: Moms With Teens

How do we talk to our teens about friendships, dating, sex, and consent—without panicking, preaching, or pushing them away?

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Dr. Bronwen Carroll, pediatric emergency medicine physician, mom of four, and child protection advocate. With over 20 years of frontline experience, she shares what she’s seen, what works, and how parents can build “conversational scaffolding” early—so hard conversations feel natural later.

We talk about:


Why healthy romantic relationships are built on early childhood friendships


How to help teens recognize red flags in dating relationships


The emotional and physical risks of teen dating violence


Why welcoming your teen’s boyfriend or girlfriend may be smarter than banning them


How to talk about consent in clear, practical ways


Why honest conversations about sex don’t encourage early sexual activity (and what research from the Netherlands shows)


How alcohol, vulnerability, and online spaces increase risk


And most importantly—how to stay calm and connected when your teen is emotionally flooded

Dr. Carroll reminds us that no topic should be off-limits—and that starting the conversation today can make all the difference.

💡 Key Takeaways


Start Early with “Conversational Scaffolding.”
The more we normalize discussions about friendship, feelings, and safety when kids are young, the easier it is to talk about dating and sexuality later.


Focus on How Relationships Make Them Feel.
Teach teens to ask:


Do I feel supported?


Do I feel relaxed and accepted?


Or do I feel anxious, insecure, and like I’m walking on eggshells?


Stay Calm and Stay Curious.
Panic creates power struggles. Curiosity keeps communication open.

Learn more at: https://www.bronwencarrollmd.com/

Follow at: https://www.instagram.com/bronwencarrollmd/

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Midlife moms are carrying so much—parenting teens, managing work, holding families together, and often supporting aging parents at the same time. It’s no surprise so many moms feel emotionally depleted, overstretched, and quietly burned out.

In this episode, Colleen O’Grady sits down with Dr. Allison Alford, author of Good Daughtering: The Work You’ve Always Done, The Credit You’ve Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Like Enough, to name a role many women live out—but rarely talk about: daughtering.

Dr. Alford explains why adult daughters often don’t recognize (or receive credit for) the mental and emotional labor they carry, and how that invisibility can fuel guilt, resentment, and burnout. Together, they explore what it looks like to define “good enough,” set healthy boundaries, and create more balance—without losing love or connection.

✅ 3 Key Takeaways


Daughtering is more than what you “do.”
It includes emotional labor, mental load, planning, worrying, smoothing conflict, and carrying responsibility—often unseen and unmeasured.


Burnout grows when expectations stay unspoken.
Many women feel “never good enough” because they’re trying to meet a standard that hasn’t been clearly defined—by their parents, siblings, or even themselves.


You can define “good enough” and still be loving.
Healthy daughtering includes boundaries. You don’t have to overfunction to prove your worth—and you’re not responsible for managing everyone else’s feelings.

👤 About the Guest

Dr. Allison Alford holds a PhD in interpersonal communication from the University of Texas at Austin and is a leading scholar on daughter and family communication. Her work has been featured in outlets like The Atlantic and Oprah Daily, and she previously hosted the Hello Mother, Hello Daughter podcast.

Follow at: https://www.instagram.com/daughtering101/?hl=en

Learn More at: https://daughtering101.com/about/
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Is your teen’s behavior a sign that something is “wrong”… or could it be part of normal development in a high-pressure world?When should parents seek help—and when might labels actually do more harm than good?

In this powerful and thought-provoking episode, Colleen O’Grady sits down with child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Sami Timimi, author of Searching for Normal. With over 35 years in the UK’s National Health Service, Dr. Timimi challenges many of the assumptions parents have been taught about teen mental health. Together, they explore why diagnoses like ADHD, autism, anxiety, and depression have exploded—and why medicalizing distress can sometimes steal hope instead of restoring it. This conversation reframes teen behavior through the lens of context, development, relationships, and resilience, reminding parents that emotions are not emergencies and that most teens are not broken—they’re responding to a stressful world.

About Dr. Sami Timimi

Dr. Sami Timimi is a British child and adolescent psychiatrist with more than three decades of clinical experience in the UK’s National Health Service. He has authored numerous academic papers and books and is widely known for his critiques of the over-medicalization of mental health. In Searching for Normal, Dr. Timimi offers a deeply humane, evidence-based challenge to psychiatric labeling and invites families to reclaim a more hopeful, relational understanding of distress.

Three Takeaways for Parents


Distress is not the same as disorder. Many teen struggles are understandable responses to pressure, change, and context—not signs of lifelong pathology.


Labels shape identity—and not always in helpful ways. Diagnoses can unintentionally limit teens, increase fear, and turn temporary struggles into permanent stories.


Relationships matter more than control. Teens don’t need to be “fixed”—they need connection, patience, and adults who aren’t afraid of emotions.

Follow at: https://www.instagram.com/dr_samitimimi/?hl=en

Learn More at: https://www.samitimimi.co.uk/

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Do you have a teen whose emotions feel huge and explosive—and nothing you say seems to calm things down?Do you find yourself reacting out of fear, walking on eggshells, or second-guessing whether you’re doing any of this “right”?

In this episode, Colleen O’Grady talks with therapist and author Katie K. May about what’s really happening when teens have big, intense emotions—and why common parent responses (like “You’re fine” or “Relax”) often backfire. Katie introduces the concept of “fire feelers,” teens who experience emotions as all-consuming, and explains how self-destructive behaviors can become a desperate attempt to shut down emotional pain. You’ll learn why validation is the fastest way to lower emotional intensity, how “radical acceptance” helps parents stop fighting reality and start rebuilding connection, and why parents need a plan to regulate their own nervous system so they can respond instead of react—especially when safety is a concern.

Guest Bio: Katie K. May

Katie K. May is a licensed therapist, author, speaker, and group practice owner. She founded Creative Healing, a multi-location teen support center in the Philadelphia area, and is the author of You’re On Fire, It’s Fine: Effective Strategies for Parenting Teens with Self-Destructive Behaviors. With lived experience as a teen who turned to self-harm, Katie is one of a select few board-certified DBT clinicians in Pennsylvania. She equips parents and clinicians with practical, trauma-informed tools to decode behavior as survival and create lasting change.

Three Takeaways


Validation lowers the emotional “fire.” Before problem-solving, teens need to feel seen and understood—validation helps calm the nervous system and opens the door to change.


Radical acceptance reduces parental suffering. Accepting “this is where we are” doesn’t mean approving—it means stopping the fight with reality so you can respond more effectively.


Parents need their own regulation plan. A “stress meter” and a proactive calming strategy help moms manage fear, avoid catastrophic thinking, and stay steady when emotions run high.

Learn More at: https://katiekmay.com/

Follow at https://www.instagram.com/katiekmay/

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What are things you tolerated in 2025 that you don't want to tolerate in 2026?

Today we are going to explore tolerations, messes, and irritations. You know the things that annoy you on a daily basis and steal your I feel good energy.

If I ask you the question what are you tolerating? What’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Maybe the first thing that comes to your mind is something about your teen, your boss, or your partner. In other words you are tolerating your relationships.

Or, maybe the first thing that you thought of is the color of your kitchen wall, all those piles of papers on the table, or the kitchen disposal that hasn’t worked in a year. You are tolerating things in your physical space.

Heres the thing. All of us tolerate things we shouldn't, instead of handling them. Every time we tolerate things instead of managing them they drain our energy. It steals our attention away from what we really want to do and what we want to achieve. And if we don’t handle these little things in life we can go into resignation. Like if I can’t handle these little irritations then I can’t have what I want and we feel this at a deep unconscious level.

This episode helps you become aware of what you're tolerating and gives you a plan to clean up your irritations and messes in your physical space and your relationships.
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