Parent Driven Development

Episode 067: Goodbye, for now.

1:00 Parent Driven Development reflects on what it’s like being a panelist on the podcast

• Imposter syndrome
• Multiple purposes to be an effective parent
• Expanding perspectives, ideas, and parenting techniques
• Ability to relate with one another

8:40 What we hope to our listeners take away from the podcast

• There is no one way to parent
• You’ll continue to grow as a parent
• You are not alone - every parent, kid, family, circumstances are different

13:30 What would we have done differently?

• Earlier sponsorship
• Episode format

16:15 Parting words for listeners

• Thank you!!
• You’re doing a great job.

17:17 Final genius and fail moments

• Chris Sexton’s daughter uses the word arithmetic with her peers, but no one knows the word leading her to question whether her parents played a prank on her.
• Allison calms down her family with deep breathing after her daughter has a potty accident.
• KWu’s 3-year-old son feels super proud after helping shovel the snow, and he helped!
• Chris Arcand finds the perfect snow sled for his son to be towed around in the deep Minnesota snow.

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Chris Arcand
Chris Sexton
KWu
Allison

Parent Driven Development

66: Finding a new job during the pandemic.

Welcome, Jean Hsu!

Jean Hsu is a writer, coach, and software engineer turned leadership coach after working for a decade in Silicon Valley. She is the VP of engineering at Range Labs and Co-founder of Co Leadership, which focuses on filling the gaps in leadership development in the tech industry. Jean doesn’t miss writing code, but she does miss deleting it.

0:53 Finding a new job during the pandemic

• Desire strikes for leadership
• The hiring process

5:20 How did the pandemic change your thought process

• Intentionality of specific desires - management, leadership, flexibility
• Enjoying the journey rather than letting comparison or stress take over

7:30 What would Jean do differently now?

• Finding ways to lean into async communication with a remote team in different time zones, while keeping the team engaged and connected with each other
• Hybrid mix of in-person and remote is the future for companies

13:13 Pre-pandemic commute tales

• Feels like a different lifetime

15:40 New expectations for Range during the pandemic

• Getting rid of the 9-5; windowed work with colored labels
• Core hours for team meetings
• Setting boundaries

19:40 Genius and fail moments

• KWu closed her son’s fingers between a door hinge… #fail
• Allison’s daughter turns 3 and shines at her yearly doctor's appointment. #genius
• Jean downloaded TikTok and discovered the best parenting hack to tell your kids to do a task, rather than ask. #genius
• Chris brings back his daughter's love of Star Wars. #genius

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Allison
KWu
Chris Sexton

Special Guest: Jean Hsu.

Parent Driven Development

Episode 065: Teaching Programming to Kids with Felienne

Welcome, Felienne!

Felienne is the creator of the Hedy programming language, and was one of the founders of the Joy of Coding conference. Since 2016, she has been a host at SE radio, one of the most popular software engineering podcasts on the web. Felienne is the author of “The Programmer’s Brain” a book that helps programmers understand how their brains work and how to use it more effectively. In 2021, Felienne was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research.

0:50 How does Felienne become interested in programming education?

• Research field towards programming education
• Love of kids

3:33 Methods and strategies to help kids understand

• Relevant for professionals
• Full concentration disables full memory, so she lowers the cognitive load
• After time, memory starts to build and functioning increases

6:02 Maximizing different learning styles in kids

• Learn their preferences
• Challenges their default learning style

9:57 Felienne’s new book

• How people learn programming
• The more information you know about your brain can help you understand how you learn

11:40 Interesting findings

• Cognitive load

14:00 Top tips related to programming

• Refactoring for personal comprehension
• Let go of one golden standard that code is suppose to look like

17:29 Specific differences between professionals and kids

• Motivation
• Concrete vs open ended expression

20:50 - 1 take away

• Take the kids hands, and guide them

22:20

• Allison and her husband score a few days each solo as they transition back into their home #genius
• Felienne’s students fuss over the different symbols of division in coding #fail

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Allison

Special Guest: Felienne Hermans.

Parent Driven Development

Episode 064: Moving and Renovating

0:30 Moving and renting realities

• KWu moves
• Allison’s home renovations
• Preparation before the kids

4:30 Toys

• Ethical parenting of getting rid of toys
• Hiding and cleaning out old toys from the kids (out of sight out of mind)

10:05 Establishing new house rules

• Setting realistic expectations on new floors, new rooms, new finishes
• Furniture socks
• Furniture caster cups
• Respect and Take Care of Things
• Learning to get along book series

18:35 Caution police in new house

• Acceptance is key
• Roommates with no impulse control.. your kids. ;)

22:40 Genius and fail moments

• KWu’s kids got into some old and slimy carrots meant for the compost.. But at least they’re eating vegetables!
• Allison’s son gets shut down from her parenting synchronicity with her husband.

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

KWu
Allison

Parent Driven Development

Episode 063: Fear in Parenting

0:40 Fear and stress of parenting

• From independent… to having dependents
• Trends of becoming more conservative once a parent

2:50 Decision making process

• High alert, more burden than non-parents
• Different decisions and problems at different stages of the kids
• Background buzz of constant anxiety

6:40 Different stresses

• Physical dangers for smaller kids, choking hazards
• Trying to avoid helicopter parenting
• Screen interest, programming, and patience

10:55 Big anxieties

• Screen time !! Constant worry and stress for modern parents with kids
• Augmenting reality through screens - stress for middle school aged parents
• How to foster new sibling relationships

Siblings Without Rivalry - book

• How to avoid middle child syndrome with three kids, carve out alone time with each child
• Feeling guilty to tell kids to play by themselves.. But it’s also important to learn

21:35 Genius and fail moments from the last week

• KWu moves to a new house and her son is waking every night from terrors or feeling too cold as she’s been keeping the thermostat down real low. #fail
• Jess’s son is a pretty adventurous eater and recently discovered balsamic vinegar which is now a new favorite! #genius
• Chris makes biscuits and conjures a family night which turned into a great family time. #genius

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Jess
Chris S
KWu

Parent Driven Development

062: Celebrating Our Favorite Episodes from the past 3 Years!

Episode Highlights

KWu, Chris, Josh, and Allison reflect on the past 3-years of podcasting. They touch on their favorite episodes and guests over the years, as well as some favorite parenting genius and fail moments!

1:30 Episode 43 - Managing parents on your team with Nick Means

3:10 Episode 19 - Being Adults, Live from Ruby Conf with Jonan Scheffler

7:25 Episode 11 - Being a Trans-Parent with Jess Szmajda

10:35 Episode 26 - Breastfeeding with Allison, Mandy, and KWu

13:06 Episode 13 - Babies at Work Program with Leah Silber

14:38 Episode 39 - Parenting Roles and Gender Equity with Richard Schneeman

15:50 Episode 34 - Extracurricular Activities with Barrett Clark

18:18 Episode 20 - Fertility Struggles with Adam Cuppy

19:55 Josh's rememberable genuis and fail moments

22:40 Genius / fails

• Allison questions herself as a parent due to a Hanukkah gift gone wrong
• Josh bans Elf on Shelf and his daughter starts to question Santa Claus
• Chris nails the Christmas lights on his son’s bed.. But then begins to question everything when he begins to struggle getting his son out of the car to go to school.
• KWu and her son enjoy a fresh snowfall!

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

KWu
Josh
Allison
Chris S

Ep 61 : DHH on being Internet Famous with Kids

1:48 Welcome, DHH

David is the creator of Ruby on Rails, cofounder & CTO at Basecamp, best-selling author, Le Mans class-winning racing driver, frequent podcast guest, and family man.

2:50 Security concerns

• Social Media
• COVID times
• Parenting boundaries

13:45 Privacy

• Picture surplus
• Authenticity

16:45 Engagement with parenting on the web

• The highlight parenting reel
• Avoid the humble brag as a parent
• Internet jousts

DHH recommended books:

• The Myth of the Spoiled Child - Alfie Kohn
• Punished by Rewards - Alfie Kohn * The Self-Driven Child - Ned Johnson

26:30 Introducing privileges to his kids

• Capitalism
• Against artificial constraints placed on by parents
• A life not centered around materialism

The Road To Wigan Pier - George Orwell

38:38 Genius / Fails

• Arit makes a crib boundary with a creative new upcycle
• KWu wrestles with a photo book for her kids
• Chris fails on fail this week
• DHH is off by an hour as his kids come home right as this podcast starts
• Allison’s daughter challenges her patience during bed time

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Allison
Chris S
Arit
KWu

Special Guest: David Heinemeier Hansson .

Sponsored By:

• Honeybadger: So Let’s face it, your code is going to have errors, even code written by an amazing developer such as yourself. When errors happen, it's nice to know that Honeybadger has your back. Honeybadger makes you a DevOps hero by combining error monitoring, uptime monitoring and check-in monitoring into a single, easy to use platform. Honeybadger sends you alerts real time with all the context needed to see what's causing the error and where it's hiding so you can quickly fix it and get on with your day. The included uptime and cron monitoring also lets you know when your external services are having issues or your background jobs go missing or silently fail. Go to Honeybadger.io and discover how Starr, Josh, and Ben created a 100% bootstrapped monitoring solution. Why is this important? Self funding means they only answer to you, the developer, rather than a venture capital overlord. Visit Honeybadger.io today and mention this podcast to get started for 30% off

Ep 60 : Must Haves for Parents

Facebook Rabbit Holes for Parents + Kid Toys

• Subculture for wooden toys
• The Nugget couch
• Parents become hyper focused on specific products
• Careful what your Google
• How to choose your Facebook groups
• The Social Dilemma
• Social media groups are "bad"/addicting, but also useful..
• Geo-fencing - creating fairer ways for international purchases
• The lottery
• Lucie's List
• Pandemic toys for the New Year
• More pressure for parents
• Moms targeted mostly in the Facebook Groups
• Marketing kids toys with trigger language: “Investment piece”

Parents: You are doing a GREAT job.

Genius / Fails

KWu tries to rotate out toys and clothes for her son, but things aren’t going well.
Allison smoothly close out virtual Ruby conf while managing multiple interruptions from her kids

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

KWu
Allison

Parent Driven Development

059: Hiring and Interviewing

Jess, Chris S, and Allison discuss the hiring and interviewing process in tech. They share their experience as the interviewee, as well as the interviewer. The team identifies the underlying bias in the process, good signs and bad signs, and why it's important to set up a potential interviewee in the best environment possible.

01:45 Hiring and Interviewing in tech

• Jess writes a book and gets a new job
• How to reduce bias in interviewing process

03:33 Tech interviews hinder parents and caregivers

• Take-home vs pairing session
• Hiring managers should set up the interviewee in the best possible scenario
• 6-8 hours for a take-home test, unrealistic for caregivings

09:50 How to access talent

• Everyway is flawed
• Take-home - kids constantly interrupting
• Paired - many engineers are introverted
• Solutions: Short at-home mixed with pairing, or problem prompt

13:30 Bias

• How to reduce: rubric for every round, being aware of the bias
• Allison asks about parental leave, and feels the tone shift drastically
  
• Legal protection, but a lot of fuzzy areas
  

16:45 Good signs for parents interviewing

• Its a non-event when a child pops into the room while on a call
• Companies reward evenly
• Talk with team members outside the interviewing committee
• Talk with someone you relate to on the team, mom, trans, BIPOC, etc

20:30 Bad signs for parents interviewing

• The entire tone changes after asking about parental leave..
• Judgmental, leadership team of non-parents

22:00 Handing flexibility

• Ask about parental leave, primary and secondary leave
• Be honest with needs
• Workplace flexibility

28:37 Genius / fail

• Jess deals with her son having accidents constantly
• Chris and his kids play board games and jam out to all songs names satellite
• Allison’s daughter sparks chaos when she leaves her room after bedtime… but soon learns to stay in her room to tire herself out.

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Jess
Allison
Chris S

Sponsored By:

• The Preschool Box: Hey parents, whether you are going back to school or learning from home, the Preschool Box is here to help! The Preschool Box is all about helping children unlock their potential by making learning FUN! Each month, The Preschool Box will send you a box packed full of engaging and educational activities with a focus on reading and math skills that will prepare your little one for success in school. It’s AMAZING! These monthly “work at your own pace” activities encourage learning, reading, and creativity in kiddos ages 3-6 and each box has an array of hands on activities, crafts, and worksheets -- which you can structure to match your child’s pace and level of development! And the best part is that every box has a set of focus skills so each month you get new and exciting material to work on! The work you do at home NOW with your kids is SO important for their future! Let The Preschool Box help you and your child have fun learning together! Head over right now to: thepreschoolbox.com and use code "PARENTDRIVEN" to get $5 off your first preschool box! Promo Code: PARENTDRIVEN

Parent Driven Development

Episode 058: Co-parenting with Brandon Hays

Welcome Brandon!

Brandon Hays is a dad and engineering leader based in Austin, TX. His professional mission is to help the tech industry improve by organizing people to accomplish things together in environments that recognize and support their "human-ness". His personal mission is to survive parenthood until the kids are in college.

02:40 Brandon's co-parenting

• Starting with traditional gender roles
• Co-parenting was a foriegn concept until remote work..
• The invisible work becomes more visible
• Covid has forced parents to confront the amount of work it takes to raise kids

06:30 Co-parenting during the pandemic

• Awareness that things changed… kids cannot return to school
• Brandon becomes the educator during the pandemic
• The amount of work to parent became too high when everything shut down
• Reworking the home dynamic when one partner needs help
• Asking for flexibility in places where he had previous thought was not available before

10:53 Working out responsibility between partners

• Clear contracts
• Splitting up tasks and making them known to each partner
• Alternating cooking dinner and clean up
• Family clean day
• Creating activities for kids, even after a long day
• Check in with your partner, how are you feeling burden?

14:05 Recognize your partner's strengths

• Being comfortable with how each partner co-parents
  
• Recognition of each partner
• Optimize each parenting style and continue to check in
• Asking and taking the self-care when it is needed

17:30 Working together

19:10 How has Covid refocused things?!

• Strengthened the team mentality
• Hard to sustain the intensity of the pandemic
• Constant change, the on-call parent

24:40 Prioritization - Do our actions line up with our values?

27:00 Take away: preserve time for planning and reflection

28:35 Genius / fail moments

• Allison checks in while her son is in virtual school and feels major mom guilt…
• Chris’s family visits and brings his camper for a huge win!
• Arit slyly phases out her daughters stuffed animal #genius
• Jess’s son goes full into minecraft, but it may be too much.. #possiblegenius
• KWu repurposed geotags for wooden toys for her kids #genius
• Brandon get creative taking pictures of his kids in their natural habitat

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Chris Arcand
Jess
Arit
Allison
KWu

Special Guest: Brandon Hays.

Sponsored By:

• The Preschool Box: Hey parents, whether you are going back to school or learning from home, the Preschool Box is here to help! The Preschool Box is all about helping children unlock their potential by making learning FUN! Each month, The Preschool Box will send you a box packed full of engaging and educational activities with a focus on reading and math skills that will prepare your little one for success in school. It’s AMAZING! These monthly “work at your own pace” activities encourage learning, reading, and creativity in kiddos ages 3-6 and each box has an array of hands on activities, crafts, and worksheets -- which you can structure to match your child’s pace and level of development! And the best part is that every box has a set of focus skills so each month you get new and exciting material to work on! The work you do at home NOW with your kids is SO important for their future! Let The Preschool Box help you and your child have fun learning together! Head over right now to: thepreschoolbox.com and use code "PARENTDRIVEN" to get $5 off your first preschool box! Promo Code: PARENTDRIVEN

Parent Driven Development

Episode 057: Virtual School

03:04 Welcome to Parent Driven Development

03:30 Virtual school with school age children

• Kindergarten, middle school, high school
• Missing out on the life experiences
• Pros and cons

05:25 Exposure to other students

• Not enough time to build up relationships within the zoom chats
• Teachers stepping up to engage the kids with each other and in class
• Tough in kindergarten because the kids can’t break off without a teacher

11:29 Less the supervising time on virtual school

• First week, very hands on, but less and less over time
• Kids have learned to adapt quite quickly

14:00 Extra hands to help

• Parents can do work, but not focused work while supervising zoom school
• Extra help definitely makes a difference

15:45 Homework

• Losing track of how to turn in assignments for middle/highschoolers
• No take home HW for kindergarten
• State assessments
• Perk - you can rewatch the class video if you have questions

21:45 Teacher Props!

• Powerpoints
• Yoga and stretch breaks
• Partner reads
• Side chats
• Parent updates

25:00 Is life better with zoom school?

• Allison is satisfied with the cards dealt, but mourns the first day of school memories
• Chris thinks in some ways, it’s better

30:15 Genius / fail moments

• Chris figures out how to turn facetime back on his son’s devices, but has to keep track of his use.. #genius/fail
• Allison plans her move around the time of year her kids would need to change seasonal clothes. Less work, more organized #genius

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected].

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Chris S
Allison

Sponsored By:

• The Preschool Box: Hey parents, whether you are going back to school or learning from home, the Preschool Box is here to help! The Preschool Box is all about helping children unlock their potential by making learning FUN! Each month, The Preschool Box will send you a box packed full of engaging and educational activities with a focus on reading and math skills that will prepare your little one for success in school. It’s AMAZING! These monthly “work at your own pace” activities encourage learning, reading, and creativity in kiddos ages 3-6 and each box has an array of hands on activities, crafts, and worksheets -- which you can structure to match your child’s pace and level of development! And the best part is that every box has a set of focus skills so each month you get new and exciting material to work on! The work you do at home NOW with your kids is SO important for their future! Let The Preschool Box help you and your child have fun learning together! Head over right now to: thepreschoolbox.com and use code "PARENTDRIVEN" to get $5 off your first preschool box! Promo Code: PARENTDRIVEN
• Nurture Life: Parents everywhere are going through so much stress and uncertainty right now. It’s hard to find sources of relief nowadays. This is why we are Parent Driven Development love Nurture Life. Nurture Life provides nutritious, ready-to-eat meals for babies starting at 10 months old, toddlers, kids, and teens, delivered fresh right to your door. Meals are designed to meet the nutrient and portion needs for each age group, and are developed by Nurture Life’s registered dietitians and chefs. Meals are focused on organic produce, antibiotic- and hormone-free proteins and whole grains, and offer a FULL serving of veggies in every meal. Nurture Life has recently launched new and exciting meals, such as the Chicken, sweet potato, & waffle finger food for babies and the Butter Chicken with Peas, Rice, & Mini Naan for toddlers, kids, & Teens. In addition to these new offerings, there will also be additional meals that will be available on the menu for a limited time period to continue to provide innovative, flavorful and unique meals options for families. Nurture Life easy subscription model allows you to sign up for weekly deliveries, skip weeks, or pause your subscription whenever you want. You can build your own box to select the right mix of meals for your family by age group, dietary restrictions, and allergies. Get the best meals for your kids and family delivered right to your door—available for every zip code across the contiguous United States. Get 30% off your first TWO Nurture Life orders with code PARENTDRIVEN30. Visit nurturelife.com to redeem and find a moment of relief when it comes to meal time. Promo Code: PARENTDRIVEN30