The Family Lab: Experiments in Parenting and Home Management

Latest Episodes:

Teaching Kids to "Notice and Do" with Sam Kelly Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

Sure, your kid is capable of picking up his socks. But does he notice those socks are on the floor in the first place? This aspect of carrying the mental load--noticing what needs to be done and then doing it--is the foundation of Sam Kelly's strategy for teaching kids to work in the home.

In this episode, Sam and Whitney investigate how to help kids develop this skill, talk about how they've experimented with this in their homes, and suggest experiments you can try in your own home.

For more resources from Sam Kelly, visit hellosamkelly.com

For more episodes about teaching kids to work, check out:

How Maria Kemp Teaches Her Kids to Work--On a Ranch

How Emily Teaches Kids to Work

How She Motivates Kids to Work

How To Teach Kids to Be Tidy

How To Teach Kids to Clean

Workshop: How She Shares Family Work: Part 1

Workshop: How She Shares Family Work: Part 2

Top 5 Kid Podcasts Jan 28, 2025

Show notes

Have you discovered the amazing and ever-expanding world of kid podcasts? In this episode Whitney gets recommendations from two kid podcast experts, Merideth Kelly (founder of Storitopia.com) and Andi Smiley (host of The Friendly Podcast Guide). All three of us share our top five (Ok, I shared eight) podcasts for kids, and we talk about how we use podcasts with our kids in our daily lives--including that elusive challenge of getting our kids to go to sleep!

Here are our lists, with links for where to find these fabulous podcasts, including recommendations for good episodes to start with.

Andi Smiley: Top 5 Sleep Podcasts

Snoriezzz (fav episode: The Selfish Giant)

Bedtime History (fav episode: Unsinkable Sam the Battleship Cat)

Sleep Tight Science (fav episode: Dolphins)

Story Train (fav episode: No Dancing at the Dinner Table)

Nothing Much Happens

Merideth Kelly: Underrepresented Favorites

Armchair Adventures (fav episode: The Shakespeare Adventure)

Reading Bug Adventures (fav episode: Inner Space)

Culture Kids

The Story Forest (fave series: Dash Away Detectives)

Solve It for Kids (fave episode: How Do You Study Manatees)

Whitney Archibald: Kid Podcasts that are also Fun for Adults

Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest

Adult Podcasts that are Fun for Kids

Radiolab (fave episode: colors)

Radiolab for kids/Terrestrials

Everything Is Alive (fave episodes: Maeve, lamppost; Vinny, Vending Machine; Alligator, Alligator)

Twenty Thousand Hertz (fave episodes: The Sound Design Behind Bluey, Soundalikes, The Dark History of Popular Nursery Rhymes)

Friendly Podcast Guide Episodes

Circle Round

Nothing Much Happens

Three Excellent Podcasts My Five-Year-Old Loves

My Son's Current Favorite Kid Podcasts: Something Scary, Fun, and Adventurous

How Whitney Experiments: Survival Mode (2023-2024) Jan 21, 2025

Show notes

It's been a wild year and a half in the Archibald home--deep in survival mode. Here's a peek into the experiments--intentional and unintentional--that we've tried in the wake of my rock-climbing accident. Including simplifying, kitchen cleaning experiments, new hobbies, and more.

Episodes mentioned:

How She Falls Off a Cliff

How Jessica Goes from Surviving to Thriving

Essentially and Simply with Greg McKeown

Book Club: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker (Part 1: Intro-Chapter 1) Jan 14, 2025

Show notes

How do you gather with your family? And how could you make gatherings like dinnertime, family scripture study, driving kids around, and family meetings more purposeful?

Join Whitney and her friend Angela Halliday as they discuss the intro and first chapter of The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. This episode will focus on gatherings of your nuclear family.

Here's the schedule for the rest of the book:

February 11: Art of Gathering Part 2--Chapters 2-3. We'll talk about hosting informal gatherings with friends and extended family

March 11: Art of Gathering Part 3--Chapters 4-8. We'll talk about hosting more formal gatherings like weddings, funerals, reunions, and parties.

Connecting with Kids Jan 07, 2025

Show notes

Connecting with your kids takes effort, creativity, patience--and a lot of experimentation! Whitney Archibald, Angelynn Singley, and Paola Jellings, who have (gasp) 18 children between them, talk about experiments they've tested to connect with their kids, and come up with a few for you to try. Then four contributors share their ideas as well.

Here are the books mentioned in this episode:

The Five Minute Time In by Brittney Smart

Atomic Habits by James Clear

To contribute to future episodes, email whitney@howshemoms.com

A few upcoming topics:

Dividing home management and caregiving responsibilities with your partner

Getting Kids to Pitch in Around the House

Teaching Kids Hygiene Habits

Building Family Culture

How Mary Wilde Helps Kids (and Parents) Manage Anxiety Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

If your child struggles with anxiety, you know the balancing act between helping them feel safe and helping them become more resilient. Dr. Mary Wilde is here to help. In this episode she explains what anxiety is and teaches us how to focus on building our kids' (and our own) resources rather than putting our energy into minimizing risk.

Dr. Mary Wilde is a licensced integrative pediatrician and the mother of 8 boys! You can find more of her resources at drmarywilde.com

Listen to her Ted Talk Here: Compassion Parenting:Transceding the Myth of Perfect Conditions

If you enjoyed this episode, check out:

How Chantel Allen Manages Anxiety

How She Takes Care of Herself Part 1

How She Takes Care of Herself Part 2

How Brooke Romney Teaches Manners Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

Do your kids have good manners? What does that even mean? Today we talk to Brooke Romney, author of 52 Modern Manners for Today's Teens, Volumes 1 and 2, and 52 Modern Manners for Kids. We discuss this idea of manners and how we can teach our kids social skills that will help them connect with other people and become more confident.

You can find more resources from Brooke Romney at brookeromney.com and follow her on Instagram @brookeromneywrites.

Brooke was also featured on another episode of the How She Moms podcast:

How Brooke Learns from Other Moms

And she contributed to several other episodes, including:

What She Calls Herself and How She Discovers Kids' Talents

Find all past episodes and other resources at Howshemoms.com

How She Builds a Village Nov 01, 2023

Show notes

Whitney interviews moms from the village that helped raise her. They talk about friendship, the work that goes into building it, and some of their kids' shenanigans.

How She Falls Off a Cliff Oct 03, 2023

Show notes

This summer I fell 30 feet in a rock climbing accident. Here's my story.

How Whitney Struggles with Screentime May 26, 2023

Show notes

Screentime is a struggle--setting boundaries, resetting those boundaries, keeping kids safe, teaching them how to be intentional about tech. In this episode Whitney shares some of the ups and downs of screentime experiments in her own family.

For more episodes about managing screentime, check out the rest of the series:

68: How Andrea Davis Manages Screentime

107: How Catherine Teaches Kids to Manage Technology

115: How She Creates a Heathly Tech Culture

116: How Hillary Creates Healthy Screen Habits