Podcast Episodes

Just because your Thanksgiving table will have empty chairs this year, doesn't mean that your family's dynamics aren't with you.What did you learn about handling anger, sadness, and worry as a child from your family? How does that affect your parenting? We unpack our family baggage in this episode to see how we can stop dysfunctional generational patterns and give our kids the space for healthy feelings.This is an updated version of a previous episode (#10) about three of the most powerful patterns that shape not just our relationships with our families, partners, children, and friends but the world outside our homes.

Our kids turned to us for reassurance, and anxious kids ask for a lot of it. When we tell them everything will be fine, it feels like the right thing to do in the moment. But is it? How does our well-meaning reassurance interfere with our children developing critical psychological skills? And what should we do instead?

We'll hear a lot of hype about gratitude with the holidays coming. We'll go over how gratitude is proven to help you and how you may have been thinking about it all wrong. What are gratitude's powers? And what are its limits? And one listener asks what to do for her usually studious freshman, who's suddenly indifferent to high school and grades this year.

Anxiety shows up in the body—headaches, tummy troubles, and more. We talk about how understanding the mind body connection can help manage the physical symptoms of anxiety for you and your kids.

When your middle schooler is the opposite of a perfectionist— dirty hair, dirty room, indifference to academics, we discuss. And how do you parent your anxious kids in front of unsupportive in-laws? We’ll answer that question in this week’s episode of Flusterclux with Lynn Lyons, the show for real talk about worry and other big feelings in parenting.

Winter is coming; let's talk about how to prevent depression. While 2020 has put anxiety center stage, there are risk factors that can bring about depression, too. What are they? And if you have them, what can you do? Lynn answers a listener question about a 13 year old and if she is depressed or a normal teen. We'll answer these question in this week's episode of Flusterclux with Lynn Lyons, the show for real talk about worry and other big feelings in parenting.

Election Anxiety. You're hearing a lot about it. But our advice to parents is probably the most overlooked and important for your family. We're going to talk about ways to protect your children from the very big and scary things, namely your unchecked reactions and feelings. And we're going to outline a strategy and ways to get through November without scarring our kids.

We're a few weeks into the school year, and it's time to do a check in. We'll discuss the best ways parents can support their learners from kindergarten to college. And Lynn answers one of the most frequently asked questions wherever she speaks. How do you find a good child therapist? She'll break it down for you on what to look for and when to say no thanks.

Do you have picky eater kids? Or do you want to make sure you don't in the future? We talk about what causes a picky eating disorder and explain the picky eater definition. Also, Lynn answers a listener question about an eight year old girl who is having trouble remembering her life before the pandemic.

Perfectionism and anxiety create a torture chamber we don't want to model for kids. When we reward excellence, how do we know when it becomes toxic? We explain how a parents can check their own behaviors as well as what to look for and say to their kids. Lynn answers a listener question from a mom whose daughter has extreme anxiety about shots and vaccines.

In this episode we talk about how critical it is in a family to have levity for mental health. Silliness has never been a more a critical parenting tool than in 2020. Here's how to use it to make manage your anxiety and make your kids feel safe. And we answer a listener question about remote learning with high school students at home. How much do you hover? How do you get your own work done? Check out the answers!

How to help your child or teen who receives an anxiety or depression diagnosis and avoid the pitfalls that lessen the positive effects of their treatment. We answer a listener question about talking about handling frustration with a child who reacts intensely when things don't go her way.

How do you go about getting a mental health diagnosis for your child? And what is an ADHD or anxiety diagnosis good for? Lynn Lyons also answers a listener question about the dynamic when there's an anxious parent and a laid-back parent.

Parenting isn't easy in the best of circumstances, and 2020 will challenge every parent to support the emotional health of their kids and themselves. Lynn Lyons, therapist, author, and speaker is one of the world's experts on helping parents, kids, and teens manage anxiety. She talks with co-host and sister-in-law Robin Hutson in a weekly podcast free of psychobabble and full of concrete advice. Flusterclux represents that feeling of overwhelm and tells parents how to better manage their worry and big feelings like anger and sadness so that they are modeling healthy emotional awareness. In each episode, Lynn answers listener questions and gives parents concrete strategies for developing the traits that are their kids' best defenses against anxiety and depression later in life: flexibility, resilience, autonomy, and problem solving.

In our debut episode of Season 2, we discuss our name change from A Mom's Retreat to Flusterclux and what the name means to us and what the podcast is about for new listeners. We talk about the early signs of anxiety parents should be looking for in their kids right now. What is the healthy balance between routine and flexibility that doesn't promote rigidity. Lynn also answers a listener question about a child who gets anxious being on camera during remote learning. She gives the parents the language to support him in adapting.

When a family experiences a traumatic event together, how can they heal? What do you say when your child says "Nobody likes me." And how do you teach your child to be more flexible?

In this podcast episode on back to school anxiety, we focus on the social and emotional wellbeing for students and teachers and how parents can help. We take questions for guidance counselors and school administrators about helping everyone in the school building or remote learning.

There is a right way for parents to handle siblings fighting. Here are strategies from Lynn Lyons to promote empathy and avoid teaching victimization and when parents should intervene and when they should stay out of it. Another listener who's a working mom with kids under 5 feels completely tapped out. She asks Lynn ways to feel less emotionally reactive with her kids at home.

Listeners ask Lynn in this bonus summer episode about the stress of choosing the best school model for her tweens and teens: remote learning, the hybrid model, and returning to school. Another listener asks how to respond when her 16-year-old daughter thinks she has bipolar disorder.

When your teenagers start testing you with new language and behaviors, how do you help them strengthen the skills they need to be more immune to peer pressure and self destructive behavior like cutting? Lynn Lyons answers a listener's question about her 13 year old daughter.

Work. Parenting. Relationships. Remember how elusive the idea of balance used to feel way back in 2019? Now it seems like a downright fantasy. The research shows this pandemic has been disruptive to our families in significant ways. And it's disproportionately impacting women and mothers. It's putting our marriages and relationships to the test. So as we work to support our kids, there are traps we all fall into with our partners and spouses. We're going to talk about learning to ask for help in the right way, dropping defensiveness, reducing resentment, and I'm going to tell you why in how improving your co- parenting will help your kids more than you know.

Summer 2020 is unlike any other. In this podcast we help parents think through assessing reasonable risks, managing disappointment around missed summer rituals, and reexamining boredom with a positive lens. We also provide more than 40 ideas of summer activities— Inside, Outside, Virtual, and Local as well as ingenious listener hacks to Stay Connected With Friends

In this parenting podcast, Lynn Lyons answers listener questions about meltdowns and anxiety and depression kids facing the stresses of 2020.

As the world reacts to the Black Lives Matter movement. we discuss how emotional management can help white people handle white fragility and why families should stop the cycle of raising colorblind children.