The LYLAS Podcast
If you know what LYLAS stands for, then this podcast is for you! Two besties since middle school turned moms and psychologists dish on "the good, the fun, and the yucks" of life! We're tackling all things mental health, "mom balance" (whatever the hell that is), transitions in life (divorce, career, aging parents, parent loss, loss of friendships), self-care, travel, healthy habits, raising kids, and allllllll the things us midlife mamas are experiencing. We hope each week listeners feel like they just left a good ol' therapy session with their bestie! We'll dish on all the tips and tricks to keep your mental health in check and enjoy this thing called life! Meet your life's newest cheerleaders-- Sarah & Jen! LYLAS!
The LYLAS Podcast
The LYLAS Podcast, Season 4, Episode 79, "Season 4 Closer"
We are closing out Season 4! And, much like the start of the year, it's been rough! Looking ahead to Season 5, we're excited to bring expert voices to the podcast, including specialists in education, behavior management, hormone therapy, relationships, and perimenopause. With a refreshed look (new LOGO and new website design) and enhanced production quality, we're committed to creating content that provides not just validation, but practical strategies for life's challenges. What topics would you like us to cover? Send us your suggestions as we prepare to launch our newly revamped podcast experience.
Please be sure to checkout our website for previous episodes, our psych-approved resource page, and connect with us on social media! All this and more at www.thelylaspodcast.com
I feel like we need to first just let everybody know that we're still kicking it, even though we've been a little inconsistent of late with our postings. The last few months have just been hectic. So we are very excited what's to come for season five, but just trying to wrap up season four, would you agree, sarah?
Speaker 2:100% and I think that we accidentally, like preluded to this, not knowing that this was going to happen.
Speaker 1:Whenever we talked about how difficult of a start 2025 was, like we just felt like it was hard to get in a rhythm and a routine because of weather, school sickness, whatever it happened to be. You know, maybe this cloud is going to start to raise here pretty soon, but it has definitely lingered for a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we were just like going over schedules and ours are pretty much opposite at the moment, like one week on one week off and it's just whole new appreciation for just anybody out there that's managing multiple schedules and whether that's, like you know, caregiving for other people, elderly or children. You know, if you're trying to manage all the things, it really is like quite the juggling act. And we, you know, as two not neurodivergent adults, you know we still struggle with this. I know I mean, maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, but it's definitely something that I am a work in progress and constantly feels like I'm dropping a ball and you know so, then I'm like all right.
Speaker 1:Well, now I got something to talk about, because I just drop balls left and right and I'm sure other people out there are doing the same thing. At least that's what I tell myself, not so rough on myself when it happens, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rough on myself when it happens. Yeah, I don't think humans were designed to actually carry balls. I don't like that's not. I don't think a thing our hands were meant to do, and definitely not our minds for sure.
Speaker 1:So I don't know why we keep trying. It's pretty silly, you know we love to talk life lessons here, because that's all we do is try again If at first you don't succeed, right.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to share a little recent life lesson and we're going to really dive into this next season, season five, six because one thing I've learned again is that a lot of experience. You know I still make mistakes and still need to reach out to other people, right, but I know who to reach out to and that's kind of a perk of being in this field. But wanted to sort of dive into a couple of things that I've come up with recently.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of parents can agree with is as tough as when kids are mean to your kids. You know, and so I experienced this recently. Did you ever experience this with Cam? Were kids where somebody was mean to him, picked on him at any point? Was that ever in his experience that you knew of I?
Speaker 2:think a little bit. I think what we may have saw a little bit more of is just adults not treating our kids with like dignity, kindness and respect, and that's a different dynamic than a young child and a an adult, you know and so. I. You have to ask Cameron where things 21, I don't remember. I don't remember a whole lot of like negative peer stuff. He always kind of self manages that pretty well, yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 1:It is interesting when it's like kid on kid, because as an adult you, and especially as a parent like you, can't march up there, right. Let me tell you something. I mean I guess you can, but that's probably not gonna work out so well. But it is like I said, I'm trained in behavior. I've worked with many kids in schools. But when somebody is mean to your child and it has and it affects them, right, it affects you because and it's like you you go blind and you can't think anymore about like even all the things you know you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:So I've had this with both of my kids. With you know, somebody being mean. I want to distinguish between like they weren't being bullied. Kids said mean things to my kids. Right, I'm sure my kids have said mean things to other kids. I'm not going to pretend that they are perfect by any stretch, but this isn't a bullying situation. That's habitual. That is something that happens repeatedly in someone that is, you're telling them to stop and they're not, and it continues on. This is like an incident where someone said something mean to my kid and so instantly I wanted to be like well, let me give you some comebacks.
Speaker 1:This is what you're going to say next time this kid says something you know which is so wrong, all that does is like exacerbate or just like breathes more life into the person that's name calling because they know they've got your goat Right. They know they've got you.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly what they're trying to do, because they know they've got your goat right, they know they've got you and that's exactly what they're trying to do. So, you know, I phoned a friend I have a great lifeline who has a lot of experience in behavior management and teaching expectations and behavior plans and interventions and she's like Jenny, you know better than to give them comebacks. I'm like I know, but like I was seeing red and I just wanted my kid to be armed with some like really good comebacks. So wrong, right. She's like well, you know, the research tells us like that's going to do the opposite. That's just going to like give that kid like more to go on.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, I know, but or it's going to, like you know, escalate to a fight no-transcript adult, because it's you know you've done those things right and it's actionable and it gives them power versus you, kind of like coming into the rescue. It really empowers your kids. So that's just one example of what you can expect to hear more about in the new season. We are going to have my colleague, dr Susan Thomas, come on and she's going to share not only some behavioral I don't want to say like tricks, techniques, some behavioral type management types of things but hopefully get to explain some more things around education and systems and give parents a little bit more insight into what all these things mean. If you have a child that is school-aged, so you can look for that to come in season five and I'm excited to have her on. I think she's going to be a great ad for or addition for our listeners to really get some insight into education.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that first I appreciate your differentiation between a kid saying something mean to your kid and then bullying, because those are two different things that we seem to kind of lump into one category, and you know that's not fair. I mean, bullying to me sounds even in the context that you're kind of putting it more as a legalized term, whereas you know people are just kind of mean to each other at different points, whereas you know people are just kind of mean to each other at different points. And so I think, even as parents, for us to understand and be able to differentiate those two things helps to improve the language that we use with our kids oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's all about the language that we, the common language that we use to teach them these things I could have easily said oh so so, and so is bullying you?
Speaker 1:and they would have said they are, even if they know that's not the definition of bullying. You know, if I use that term they're going to latch onto that, and we actually talked about that when it happened with my younger child. I said, you know, she might have even said something like bullying and I'm like, well, let's talk about what is that. You know, I could say something mean. I could say, well, your say something mean. I could say, well, your shirt's really ugly and I'm not bullying you. I said something that's not nice, right? But there's a difference.
Speaker 1:If I am coming in and constantly degrading you, or like saying things to you or making you feel uncomfortable, consistently and regularly, that's different right Versus me just like kind of saying something that's not nice, both not fun for the person on the receiving end, but just like giving that clear language of there's a difference between the two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could have done better at that. Rachel also had an incident here a few weeks ago where she felt like and the word I think that was used was bullying that she was being bullied by some older kids, but it wasn't habitual, it was one incident on a playground and it sounded like that. There was just I don't know kids spat and probably back and forth, but it's never happened again. But that word was used by me and probably by her, and so that's where, again, I really appreciate you making that kind of differentiation, because it just means it carries a heavier weight and it takes away a generalization of a common behavior Kids are going to be jerks, adults are going to be jerks. So we don't want to put it into kind of one big lump. Let's actually be specific about what's happening.
Speaker 1:Well, we don't want to. I mean, we don't want to label a kid a bully because they said something mean one time, or they might say a few mean things, but that I think again like there's power in words, right?
Speaker 2:And once we start to label kids.
Speaker 1:Whether we like it or not, it becomes part of their identity. They hear it at some point, other people hear it, and that's what they think of when they see that kid. And so we have to, I think, be especially careful when it's a child in question, you know, or even adults like you just don't.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you have to take a step back, but in the moment when it's your child and you're the parent, it is very hard and I want to acknowledge that because you can have all the training in the world. It all goes out the window when it's so personal to you. You can't. It's like you can't see the forest for the trees right and I feel that way about, even like one of my child.
Speaker 1:One of my kids has some difficulty learning to read and I feel like, like in the same tune, like this is what I do for a living. You talk about imposter syndrome. Like you know, I think I've talked about this before Like I've struggled with what to do with her and what I have learned through having my lifelines and lots of educator friends with way more experience than myself, is that it's really hard, no matter who you are, to teach your own kids and to not get frustrated with them when you're trying to work with them, and so one of the best things that I've done is hire someone else to work with my kid because it was not working, but that's really hard to do when, like this, is what you do for a living right.
Speaker 1:This is very specific to my training and so, even though I'm not a teacher, I obviously have worked in education for almost 20 years, and so it's yeah, lots of learning opportunities lately, but hopefully you know you can hear it. If you're a parent that's struggling with your kids in school, whether it's academically or socially, you know we're all in this together. We're all struggling with some aspect of that, whether you know we're trained professionals in this area or not, and so hopefully you will be able to get some tips and some things in our episodes next season that are specific to school-aged kids, because that's where most of us are middle-aged women.
Speaker 1:A lot of us have school-aged children right now. That's true.
Speaker 2:Gosh, maybe at the wrong time. I guess we can't undo it at this point, but we're going through all these changes and now we're raising kids at the same time. This whole biology thing probably didn't work out in all of our favors too well.
Speaker 1:I do wonder about that sometimes. I thought it was so great that I waited later in life to have kids. I, I thought it was so great that I waited later in life to have kids. You know, I was more established and like in my career and I felt like I was a calmer human being, but like I was so ill prepared for the tidal wave that is perimenopause, like, when I tell you, I had no idea what it was three years ago. Two years ago, I feel like, yeah, I might have planned my life choices a little differently, realizing I'll be going through menopause at the same time that my daughter hits. Puberty is going to be fun, it's going to be a fun time in our house.
Speaker 2:I know there's that huh.
Speaker 1:There's that right, yeah.
Speaker 2:No changing now? No, it's all been done, it's all said and done. Yeah, I wonder about that sometimes if I look back, like I have one that's 21 and 110. I can, I mean, and just things, things are easier. You know, maybe it was sexist, maybe it was different thing, there's many things that just seemed easier. But I also I don't think I'm being fair to myself if I don't take that other factor into consideration as to why it was easier. You know, because there are other things that were hard.
Speaker 2:It was hard going to grad school with a you know five-year-old toddler. Yeah right, yeah, I mean it's hard to you know yeah, those things were hard too, but I just feel like that they were more external and situational and by default they were easier to manage as opposed to a more internal biological kind of process. So I mean, that's what I'm using as my excuse at the moment.
Speaker 1:Anyways, I'm going to throw that on the table. It's a wild, wild ride. Speaking of which, I also have a guest coming on to talk about perimenopause, and not just any old guest, but a real expert in this area. So excited to have her on, and I want to firm up the details before I share her name, but that is definitely in the works. Yeah, so I'm excited to just keep talking about, I mean, a lot of the things that we already talk about, but sort of getting some experts to the podcast to answer some of our questions, because you know, you and I often have many questions.
Speaker 2:At the end we're like, yeah, it's fun to talk about it, but like, still a lot of questions Still learning a lot yeah, you're not kidding which is good, but I do think that having some other sources of grounding or, if nothing else, validation, you know, are always very welcomed.
Speaker 1:I think they're big goals. Big goals, yeah, the big buckets, and having somebody that can really weigh in from, like you know, an area of expertise, particularly when it comes to perimenopause. I feel like that's been a big topic for us recently.
Speaker 2:It has. It almost gets brought up in nearly a lot of our podcasts. But I think that that's just because of awareness, as we've kind of mentioned before, and then, I don't know, it's something that's not been talked about and now it's just kind of flooding in a little bit more. There are certification programs now for practitioners, which is important continuing ed, more research, all of this kind of stuff, and people are just talking about it. So it's a destigmatization that's also happening as part of that process, and so it does continue to get talked about. But I find that by it getting talked about, we're making what was once a big hush topic more comfortable to discuss, just like having heart disease.
Speaker 1:Right, or just like having a cycle in general, Like you know you think about all the women now experiencing the symptoms of perimenopause.
Speaker 1:You think about all the women and all the marriages, all the women that, like, potentially hurt themselves or you know, just really lived with these symptoms and didn't know what they were and probably thought they were going crazy because there are times you do but then also all the marriages that probably couldn't survive. You know because you do. You see how it impacts everything, every person you interact with. Sometimes you know if it's those closest to us, then they sometimes get the worst of it, and so I can easily see how it impacted you know a lot of women until we started talking about it and recognizing that these are all symptoms that a lot of people feel and a lot of women feel and that nobody just was talking about it before and hopefully there's more access to treatment. I think that's been just listening to my group of girlfriends and how many of us are going about it different ways.
Speaker 1:right, I have friends that are on hormone replacement therapy, I have some who are more into like cycle thinking. I have some that are doing nothing you know like, or just like working out and eating, right, you know. So it's interesting to see everybody taking a different approach, but at least we're all like aware, you know and can seek out like what's right for us.
Speaker 2:Well, and having those conversations about the wide array of options that are out there, I think, is again part of that whole first step in this. So, yeah, it's just something we got to do Some friends are on medications.
Speaker 1:You know I have a couple of friends that we talked about the what's it called, the GLP-1 medication when we had Lisa Klein, and you know I've got a couple of friends who have accessed that recently and had, you know, great results with that. And so just, you know, I think, just releasing that stigma around all the things, whatever it is like, if you're with your medical professional making these decisions about what's best for you and your body and your family, then no hate, no shade, right, you're going about it the right way. So you know, it's just it's nice to see people like getting what they need or what they feel like they need to live a healthier life.
Speaker 1:That's why we started all this. Come together, talk about this crap and put it on the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, even in just kind of coming back to what we originally started talking about, with people being mean to your kids or bullying, I think that that's an area where we need clarification as to what we can actually do as parents, to be empowered and not reactive, I think you know, to have an understanding of the whole social media context and how it plays into this, yeah, and what role like even schools have in it, because I have a good friend whose daughter was getting horrific and the actual term that would be right in this case, now that I know the definition is habitual, like bullying no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Actually, I can't, I'm, probably wouldn't be doing the podcast.
Speaker 2:Might be wearing some orange behind, I don't know, but it probably wouldn't went too well.
Speaker 2:But with that being said, it's like what do we do in those kind of contexts?
Speaker 2:And I think, again, having more expertise, having, if not a direct, like I don't know triptych, like back in the day as a roadmap, or using our Google Maps to know that there's at least a general pathway that we can go down to understanding whether that's perimenopause bullying with our kids, relationship issues, I don't know anything financials, just keeping our head above water, having information and validation seems to be the way to kind of go, and I think that's what our big focus is going to be in coming into season five. I think we've been pretty validating and, at times, pretty expert oriented, but to have a little bit more of that mixed in with this, I think is one of our big aspirations. Just to again kind of, if this information is out there. Let's actually talk to the people that have the information, so that way that we don't have to spend hours in our echo chamber on social media or you know looking up research articles, that again, those are fine and dandy, but I don't care about a bunch of studies done on college students.
Speaker 2:Sorry, not sorry, you know, I really actually want to know what's happening within real age people and so forth.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the thing, Sarah is people don't have time to come through research and to make informed decisions, and so we do.
Speaker 1:We tend to rely on social media or podcasts or, you know, those types of things to get our information, and so I think that's really just all we're trying to do is give resources, like talk about it and, like you said, bring that more expert aspect to a lot of these conversations, and then provide resources on our website. So that's, you know, not like totally revamping the podcast, but you will see a new look in season five. We are redoing the website. It'll have a different like branding and everything. We're very excited to switch it up.
Speaker 1:We love the 90s, you know, saved by the Bell sort of theme that we rolled out with for the first 80 episodes, but we are super excited to bring just like, I think, a little bit more sophisticated like style to it, and with that comes like a little bit more of an expert right and like just being able to not just talk about things but really give some like good advice as well. So, yeah, I'm excited to, to to start season five off, like I think, I always secretly had like a goal of doing a hundred episodes, and so it feels like it's like achievable at this point, and so you know I we're gonna go all in for season five.
Speaker 1:We hope you guys are gonna tune in and, yes, keep sending us your suggestions. We're always open to any topics. We definitely have our you know first few planned out. We know exactly some things we've wanted to talk about, so send us any ideas that you have and let us know. It can even be like something we've already talked about. If you just want to hear, like more of an expert opinion or something like that.
Speaker 2:Like, let us know yeah, we are totally into rolling all of this out and again whole new look, same great podcast. But we're amping it up and I would like to give a nice little shout out to Seth again because we were having a meeting as we were kind of closing down season four and you know so much of the suggestions that we're kind of doing actually came from Seth. So, seth, thank you so much for your input on a upgrading our sound and our look to a new platform. So you guys will see that hopefully we'll have more social media kind of postings that are updated and that are part of what's going on. But the whole new look, this us including other experts and as well at times like highlighting our own expertise, because we're not just, we're not schmoes every year. You know we put some work.
Speaker 2:We're not just pretty faces, people Pretty 40. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Faces.
Speaker 2:We did some work, we got some degrees.
Speaker 1:We got some degrees, but not in like we don't know, like perimenopause, right, it's that kind of stuff where we want to bring in some other people. But you're so right. Shout out to Seth because he did have some great ideas. And if you watch this on YouTube, you will notice that our videos were upgraded. So notice that our videos were upgraded. So, yeah, lighting, sound, the whole shebang. So stay tuned for season five. And is there anything else before we sign off for this week? I guess not, folks, just be sure to send us those suggestions.
Speaker 1:We need them, we want them. Yeah, you can check out. I was actually on a podcast last week. I had another medium reading for a research study here at the College of Charleston and so if you want to listen to that, you can check out. House Guests with.
Speaker 1:Haley Fennell and listen to my reading for that research study. It was very interesting. If you've listened to our previous episode where I talked about my reading with Tyler Henry, kind of like similar feelings, you know definitely if you've never had one. It's quite an experience. So check that out, houseguest with Haley Fennell wherever you get your podcasts. And until next time, y'all. That's all we got for this week.
Speaker 2:We'll see you soon with season five coming out Hot.
