In this holiday edition of the Council of Moms, Lisa sits down with Kacy Faulconer, Gina James, and Katie Craig about intentionally creating and maintaining holiday traditions. They discuss Christmas music, making memories, and family time.

Whether we hear about it or not, lots of parents are very judgmental of the way other people raise their kids. We're all trying our best, but that looks so different from family to family, and it can be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone else is doing it wrong. So what do we do when someone criticizes the way we're parenting? And how can we be better at not doing that ourselves? Lisa chats with Brooke Hoopes, Emilie Campbell, and Gina James about their experiences and advice.

In the last episode of The Lisa Show’s caregiving series, Lisa explores a topic inseparable from caregiving: spirituality. How does caregiving change relationships with God? How can we reconcile faith in a loving God with the suffering of our loved ones? Lisa talks with Sheila Welch, Kara Ryska, David Schenck, Aisha Adkins, and Jillian Benfield about how caregiving can reveal miracles and change our vision.

Lisa is joined by Jillian Benfield and Usha Tewari in a conversation about how to find community, how to build community, and how to leverage the strength of a community to make life better for all caregivers. Featuring Billie Short, Elizabeth Miller, and Shana Jones.

We’re putting the finishing touches on the last two episodes of our Caregiving series, and we want to make sure we’re telling those stories exactly the way they deserve to be told. So while we’re making our final edits, we wanted to share with you a special caregiving story from our sister podcast, Constant Wonder. Prem Jauhar was a world-class agricultural scientist—an inspiration to his son Sandeep, our guest, who became a cardiologist. When the elderly father Prem started behaving oddly,...

Every year it feels like there's a new kind of phone, a new social media app, or some new tech that our kids want to try. And as parents, it can feel impossible to keep up with. What is safe for them to use, and at what age? Is it even possible to protect them from the harmful influences on the internet? In this episode of The Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Gina James, Emilie Starr, and Julie Taylor about their experiences. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out...

Any caregiver will tell you that maybe one of the harshest realities of taking care of another person is just how much time you spend dealing with the "system"--meaning meeting with doctors, making calls to insurance providers, emailing pharmacies, working with government programs, and handling all of the logistical pieces necessary to support someone who needs it. It can become a full-time job in and of itself, and at times that "system" can feel cold and uncaring towards the people it's...

As parents, it seems like every year there's a new trend that becomes the absolute priority for parents. One year, it's cleanliness. The next, is early literacy. The next, it's formula, or not formula, or whatever the current conversations says? Who can keep up? In this episode of The Council of Moms, Jeanette Bennett, Brooke Hoopes, and Amy Hackworth join Lisa to discuss the things that they wish they'd prioritized with their kids--be it empathy, mental health, education, or what have you.

Many caregivers feel the approach of inevitable change to their role, and an "end" to the way life looks and feels right now. Lisa is joined by Emilie Campbell, Richard Lui, Barbara Karnes, Elizabeth Miller, and John Sovec to explore the nuances of transitioning to the "after" stage of caregiving, whether that looks like empty nesting, transitioning to residential care, or becoming a "Godspeed Caregiver" following the death of a loved one receiving hospice care.

A lot of parenting advice out in the world makes one key assumption: that you're an active and involved parent who has a drive to get better. But for many, if not all parents, there comes a time when burnout hits a climax and it can be easy to forget why you're trying so hard in the first place. So what do you do? Host Lisa Valentine Clark chats with fellow parents Suzanne Clark, Colleen Harker, and Carrie Ann Rhodes about their experiences and advice. If you want the Council of Moms to...

When you're spending all of your time taking care of another person, it feels like everything else in your life comes second to the needs of that person. Family, friends, jobs, everything can take a backseat when you're in the trenches of being a caregiver. But when caregiving stretches from weeks to months to years, life without those other relationships can become much more difficult and unfulfilling. So how can we, as committed and overwhelmed caregivers, maintain the other relationships...

The Lisa Show team is hard at work putting together the rest of our Caregiving series, and we’re excited for you to hear all of the touching and inspiring caregiving stories in the coming weeks. But today we want to share with you an episode of one of our favorite podcasts, Kaboom: An Audio Adventure Podcast. Kaboom is an anthology-style show, and each episode is a highly produced, fictional story that ranges from sci-fi, to westerns, and even a musical. They’re written specifically with...

When kids grow up and leave the house, it can be so hard to know just how involved we should be in their lives. We don't want to be "helicopter parents" to grown adults, but we also don't want to completely give up on trying to protect them from harm and help them make good choices. So how can we as parents support our kids' mental, emotional, and physical health, while also letting them spread their wings and leave the nest? Lisa chats with fellow moms, Carrie Ann Rhodes, Jeanette Bennett,...

You wake up at 4 a.m. freezing cold, trembling, and with a feeling of despair. What's happening here? Caregiver burnout can look different for everyone, ranging from quiet chronic fatigue, to drastic health declines, as the physical, mental and emotional toll of caregiving reaches critical mass. In this episode, three caregivers (Mishka Sibert, Susanne White, and Rach Wilson) share their unique experiences of burnout while caring for a sibling, parents, or children, as well as how they coped...

With a teenager at home, it can always feel like you're doing something wrong as a parent. You're asking too many questions, you're enforcing too many rules, you aren't involved enough or offering the support that they need. It can be a particularly complicated stage of parenting. So how can we know when we should "helicopter" parent our kids and establish more boundaries, and when should we back off and let them make their own choices, mistakes and all? Lisa talks with Jennifer Johnson,...

It's a phrase that is all too familiar to every caregiver. Some well-meaning person, in an attempt to show their support, will say, "Let me know what I can for you!" While on the surface it may seem like a helpful thing to say, for the caregiver, this phrase is often just a superficial act that only serves to increase the amount of stress on their already-full plate. So what SHOULD someone do when they want to support the overwhelmed caregiver in their life? In this episode of The Lisa Show's...

When you're taking care of kids, it can feel impossible to do everything that you want to do in a day. There's taking the kids to school, exercise, making meals, working, cleaning, shopping, picking up the kids, taking them to practice, helping them with homework, keeping up with friends, running a side-hustle, and THEN you're also supposed to somehow have your own hobbies and take time for self-care. There's just no way! In this episode of The Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Liz Palmer,...

Have you ever been surrounded by people, and still felt profoundly alone? Lisa talks with Dr. Julianne Jolt-Lunstad and Dr. Suzanne Degges-White about the impact of loneliness on caregivers with experts, and the root causes of this intense experience. Emilie Campbell shares her experience as a special mom to 16-year old Connor, and how she copes with the long-term emotional marathon of aloneness in caregiving.

It can be hard to tell the difference between just "having a hard time" and a diagnosable mental illness. Research shows that the mental health of kids and teenagers is at an all-time low, and the mental health of parents isn't faring much better. So how can we tell if it's time to take our kids, our ourselves, to see a mental health professional? Lisa talks with the Council, this week consisting of Kimberly Simmons, Emily Spencer, and Marilyn Valentine, about each of their experiences...

When it comes to caregiving, why do we think we have to do everything and do it all perfectly? How can we have more compassion for ourselves? Lisa talks to caregivers and caregiving experts about perfectionism, self-talk, and the importance of loving ourselves even--and especially--when we feel like our best isn’t good enough.

How do you know that you're doing a good enough job as a parent? And on the other hand, how do you avoid beating yourself up when it feels like you're not doing well enough? Host Lisa Valentine Clark talks with the Council of Moms--this week consisting of Marilyn Valentine, Elizabeth Palmer, and Kimberly Simmons--about mom guilt, comparison, self-love, finding a support system, and other listener-submitted topics.

Nearly all of us will eventually become a caregiver or a recipient of care—so how can we prepare now? Lisa Valentine Clark kicks off this season by exploring the need for more conversation about caregiving. Dr. Lance Erickson explains how social expectations, age, and gender influence who ends up in caregiving roles. Dr. Natali Edmonds of Dementia Careblazers shares how talking about caregiving beforehand helped her prepare for her own caregiving experience, and Jeremy Jorgason discusses...

The Lisa Show is hard at work creating our Caregiving season. In the meantime, while we put the last finishing touches on episode 1, if you're looking for something to listen to today, Lisa recommends an episode of our sister podcast, Constant Wonder. In season 4, episode 7 of Constant Wonder there's an episode called "Fear and Wonder in the Natural World", with a naturalist who seeks out experiences like sitting in the dark with a moose, walking barefoot in a prehistoric Celtic tomb, and...

In the last episode of the Creativity series, Lisa explores how creativity changes us from the inside out. With the help of researchers Joshua Katz, Jack Goncalo, and Lynne Vincent, Lisa looks at how creativity can change our perception of real life—and why that can be a good thing. She examines the relationship between selflessness and creativity, the way being creative can help us process and heal in profound ways, and the unparalleled power of creativity to restore human agency.

Lisa joins TV host, artist, and arts advocate Emilie Starr to explore how creativity has brought them closer to their communities, their families, and a higher power. They discuss how motherhood is a creative endeavor and how the arts have helped them make intergenerational connections. Featuring a very special guest, baby Evelyn!