The Holderness Family Podcast

It’s the start of summer, which means going to the pool, grilling out, and heading to the beach… all of which usually include an adult beverage. But lately, Penn and I have been drinking less. For me, too much drinking greatly impacts my sleep. For Penn, cutting back on drinking is about protecting his brain health and trying to prevent Alzheimer’s disease which runs in his family. We discuss our experience with being sober curious and social pressures around drinking. Are you in a similar boat?We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessfamily.com/book Join our Facebook family: www.facebook.com/theholdernessfamilyFollow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theholdernessfamily Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/theholdernessfamilyAbout the Holderness Family
: Penn, Kim, Lola, and Penn Charles Holderness create original music, parodies, and Vlogs for YouTube and Facebook to poke fun of themselves and celebrate the absurdity in circumstances most families face in their day to day

I want my kids to be happy. (I know, I know, I know. It’s an impossible and unrealistic goal.) I’ve been in enough therapy sessions to know that chasing “happiness” is a fool's errand. We should really be appreciating all the moments we have on this planet. Being “happy” is a fleeting emotion. So when you get to see your child experience joy, true unbridled joy, you want to bottle the feeling and carry it in your heart forever. Last week, we had the chance to see Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in New Jersey and I got to witness what every mother wants. I got to see my kid (and about 70,000 others) really, really happy. This week Lola and I had debrief the entire concert experience on this week’s podcast. She shared her favorite moments, the touching story behind my new favorite picture, and how Swifties came to our rescue after the concert. Lola also answers some of your most commonly asked questions. (And we give concert tips if you're going!)We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessf

My goal this year is to put myself in as many uncomfortable situations as possible. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. On The Amazing Race, we were put in MANY uncomfortable positions. I found that it was easier for me to tackle bigger-picture things (like bungee jumping) than the everyday things. Something as simple as making a take-out order makes my pits sweat (and in a recent social media post, we found out many of you feel the same about phone calls to strangers!)Penn and I wanted to know why phone calls are making people anxious, so we asked Dr. Selena Snow. She says humans tend to pay more attention to negative information because we are hard-wired to spot danger. However, avoiding things that make us uncomfortable can make things worse. So, let's get uncomfortable and learn more... Learn more about Dr. Selena Snow here: https://snowpsych.com/in-the-media/ Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please c

This week on the podcast, we wanted to laugh so we brought in "our Midwest neighbor" to help. Her name is Ann Marie Taepke, and she’s been playing our on-camera neighbor for over 2 years. (She isn’t our real neighbor, but she is really from the Midwest.) What you may not know, is that Ann Marie is a producer, writer, and manager of our weird family business. We talk about how we got connected, funny stories over the years, and we have a 20 minute Midwest good-bye that plays out in real time.We read your most heartfelt or funniest neighbor stories along with our conversation with Ann Marie... one tip: watch out for chipmunks. You can follow more of Ann Marie's Midwest antics here: https://www.instagram.com/annmarietapkey/ or on our channel. You can also check out our first video with her as well as our Next Door video below.My Midwest Neighbor In The South: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc-7Se9XlEUMichael McDonald Sings Next Door: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSg0j88ORATell us what you like, ask a questi

Every time I learn about another mass shooting in this country, I lose at least a day. Though a school shooting in my community is my worst fear—it is happening at outlet malls like in Allen, Texas and at banks like in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s happening at grocery stores, music festivals, movie theaters, and birthday parties. Mass shootings have changed the way we live our lives. So, we wanted to ask the question: How did we get here and what will stop gun violence in our country? This week we spoke with Ryan Busse, former top-performing firearms executive and author of the book, Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America. Ryan talks with us about why he left the gun industry after 25 years and the reality of what it will take to change the culture around guns. Whether you agree or disagree with our concern around gun violence, I hope you will listen and approach this podcast with an open mind. You can learn more about Ryan here: https://ryanbusseauthor.com/Tell us what you like, ask

Imagine you are headed into your first day at a new job. You walk in the door and suddenly your mind is overwhelmed with thoughts: Nobody likes me. I’m a fraud. I’m dumb. I don’t belong here. Suddenly, you are catastrophizing. Congratulations, you are in a thought trap. Thoughts traps happen to all of us, but anxious people the most. I knew immediately I needed to know more about what was happening to me, so we got in touch with author Morra Aarons-Mele. Morra recently wrote in the Harvard Business Review about thoughts traps…and how to make anxiety your superpower. She hosts the award-winning podcast The Anxious Achiever, and has written two books: Hiding in the Bathroom: How To Get Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home) and The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower. Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us

Any parent with school-aged children can tell you how crazy the month of May is. Just like the month of December, the calendar is packed with activities, gatherings, and ceremonies. Except no presents, cookies, or twinkling lights. So we call it: Maycember. This week, I needed to a pick-me-up knowing we were headed into a crazy month. I figured if I was feeling like I needed a pick-me-up, maybe you did too. So I asked all of you on Instagram: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And let me tell you, we got some good ones. Enjoy some of our favorites and tell us what we missed! Thanks for being here. Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessfamily.com/book Join our Facebook family: www.facebook.com/theholdernessfamilyFollow us on Instagra

You guys. It happened. I blinked and my tiny colicky-baby got her license. I keep repeating to myself, “She’s a good driver. She’s ready for this. She’s a good driver.” But still, I think one of the hardest parts of parenting is celebrating the well-earned independence of our growing children, while trying not to openly grieve the stage we’re leaving. I needed to call a friend to help with this transition. And it just so happens that I have a friend who is a parenting coach who always knows the right thing to say. Dr. Hope Seidel has been a pediatrician for more than 20 years. About ten years into her career, she began to notice she was healing parents more than children. She is now a parenting coach offering regular parenting classes and 1:1 parent coaching in her practice, Parent with Hope. Her words were so helpful. We invited her on this week’s podcast to help us all deal with these big transitions in parenting. Also if you listen to the pod and want to vote for our show in win an

Recently, Kim said something to me that sort of hit me like a ton of bricks… “I can’t always tell when you’re listening to me.” We wrote a whole book on marriage communication called Everybody Fights with a section on active communication and magic words you can say for conversations that require extra care and attention. But the problem is that I learned how to cheat them. So I am working on new strategies for my ADHD brain not to space out - and I've got some tips. For whatever reason, truly listening takes a lot of effort for someone like me with ADHD. But I am trying to get better. Also if you listen to the pod and want to vote for our show in win an award in the OTHER category, click here. (Thank you in advance!) Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www

Our kids, Lola and Penn Charles, are getting older, and I have never felt more on the record. Whether it’s driving lessons with Lola or helping PC practice the cooking basics, I find myself teaching them life skills at every turn. Some of the biggest skills are not things they can pull out their phone and look up. So with your help, we created a checklist of 39 essential life skills every teen should know: https://theholdernessfamily.com/39-life-skills-your-teen-needs-to-know/ On this week’s podcast, we spoke to Lisa Endlich Heffernan, who co-founded the popular parenting website Grown and Flown, about the most important life skills parents should be teaching their kids, from younger kids to early adulthood. More importantly, Lisa talks about how to teach them those skills. We hope you enjoy it! Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedbac

We received a question last week about how to deal with some of the behaviors of ADHD when you are a person who experiences anxiety. It’s something we have talked about plenty of times. The short answer is that it is a challenge for Kim. A few weeks ago, we had a particularly hard morning. Everything was fine, but that does not mean everything was fine. We talk about this and answer your questions this week - let us know what we missed! Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessfamily.com/book Join our Facebook family: www.facebook.com/theholdernessfamilyFollow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theholdernessfamily Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/theholdernessfamilyAbout the Holderness Family
: Penn, Kim, Lola, and Penn Charles Hold

Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessfamily.com/book Join our Facebook family: www.facebook.com/theholdernessfamilyFollow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theholdernessfamily Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/theholdernessfamilyAbout the Holderness Family
: Penn, Kim, Lola, and Penn Charles Holderness create original music, parodies, and Vlogs for YouTube and Facebook to poke fun of themselves and celebrate the absurdity in circumstances most families face in their day to day life. They published "Christmas Jammies" in December 2013 and life hasn't been the same. Since then, their popular parodies, "All About That Baste", "Baby Got Class," and original music "Snow Day" have received national news coverage. Penn, the Dad, took a chan

Apparently more people in their 40s get pregnant than I thought... This week, Penn and I talk about having to recently buy a pregnancy test and how that made us reflect on our parenting. We also hear from many of you what you would do differently with a second chance at parenting, and talk to our friends Taylor and Heidi Calmus. The Calmus Family is expecting baby #4 and we hear about their new children's book. Learn more here: https://amzn.to/3LHhNKP. Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessfamily.com/book Join our Facebook family: www.facebook.com/theholdernessfamilyFollow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theholdernessfamily Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/theholdernessfamilyAbout the Holderness Family
: Penn, Kim, Lola, and Penn C

There’s a lot of reasons we hold onto things, but one profound thing about that is: Everything that you own, owns a part of you. This week we talk with Kathryn Snearly, of the viral YouTube channel Do It On A Dime. Kathryn introduced me years ago to the idea of Swedish Death Cleaning. (And no, it’s not where you listen to death metal music while you organize.) If you’re in the stage of life where you are cleaning out items from a loved one who has passed and you feel overwhelmed, I hope you find comfort in this podcast. Kathryn discusses some of her own struggles with letting go of possessions from her loved ones and tips to help. We also talk about the two very different outlooks on clutter, writing your own "death wishes" document, and Midwest dialects. Take a listen to our discussion, and tell us if you feel inspired. We hope you do. Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a r

In our family, Kim does most of the planning… groceries, kid schedules, house maintenance... so when it comes to family vacations, Kim deserves a break. So I planned our recent family vacation to Chamonix, France. We have talked about how we really loved our time on The Amazing Race, because it got us out of our comfort zone and took away all our distractions. So in that same vein, I wanted to plan an experience for my kids that was out of our comfort zone, free of distractions, and most importantly, that we would do together. We talk all about our vacation of forced family fun and how some of the tips we have are backed by actual science. (Plot twist!) Be part of the next chapter of our game, Family Faceoff! You can suggest clue cards for the next evolution of our game and if we pick yours, we will even include your name. You can fill out as many suggestions as you like: https://forms.gle/zXyRZ5fCkzajgYyJ6. Thank you again for all your support it means the world to us.Tell us what you like, ask a question, o

If you want a master class in forgiveness, marry someone with ADHD. While I am the queen of holding a grudge, Penn couldn’t be more opposite. On this podcast, we discuss the connection between ADHD and forgiveness with Dr. Marcy Caldwell. Her gift for metaphor is something that resonates with Penn understanding his own brain. My favorite is her explanation around the ADHD brain being like a fishbowl, as well as some of the not so great things about ADHD and toxic relationships. In the end, it's probably good that Penn and I are yings to each other's yangs. Be part of the next chapter of our game, Family Faceoff! You can suggest clue cards for the next evolution of our game and if we pick yours, we will even include your name. You can fill out as many suggestions as you like: https://forms.gle/zXyRZ5fCkzajgYyJ6. Thank you again for all your support it means the world to us.Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast plea

There is an adolescent mental health crisis going on in America right now. It’s so severe, in fact, the US Surgeon General issued a rare advisory on protecting youth mental health. Take an already emotional developmental time and couple it with a global pandemic… that’s a lot on teenagers. Dr. Lisa Damour explained that distress should not be your main worry as a parent of a teen. Distress is going to happen. Be part of the next chapter of our game, Family Faceoff! You can suggest clue cards for the next evolution of our game and if we pick yours, we will even include your name. You can fill out as many suggestions as you like: https://forms.gle/zXyRZ5fCkzajgYyJ6. Thank you again for all your support it means the world to us.Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernes

This week we did a whole episode about relatshes (our funny way of abbreviating relationships) in honor of Valentine's Day! We talk about how we met each other, we hear how some of you met each other, and for any of you single folk out there, we talk about where to find love. Oh, and we discuss how every love story in a rom-com movie is built on a lie. Happy Valentine's Day (or whenever you're listening to this!) Be part of the next chapter of our game, Family Faceoff! You can suggest clue cards for the next evolution of our game and if we pick yours, we will even include your name. You can fill out as many suggestions as you like: https://forms.gle/zXyRZ5fCkzajgYyJ6. Thank you again for all your support it means the world to us. Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.thehold

I’ve always said after I had kids that items may have “shifted in flight.” As I’ve gotten older, I’m not doing many things different in terms of my diet or exercise, but I’ve noticed the scale wants to creep up. It made me say (for lack of a better phrase) WTF is up with that? We decided to chat with Dr. Mary Claire Haver on our podcast, and ask her that very scientific question… WTF. Dr. Haver has over 2 million followers on TikTok, where she talks about the struggle women have with their health during perimenopause and menopause. Dr. Haver explained all the things that help support us to feel good as we age. For both men and women, tracking nutrition is so much more powerful than tracking calories. For example, having enough fiber in our diet can decrease blood glucose and keep your gut biome happy. If we aren’t eating the right things, our body becomes inflamed and it increases weight gain. Learn more about Dr. Haver and The Galveston Diet here: https://galvestondiet.com/ Tell us what you like, ask a

I have a really hard time ever calling something a failure. For me, even if something doesn’t go as well as I had hoped, I always learn and grow from the situation, which, I think, is a good thing! If you are making a choice about something, it is totally okay to not know exactly what you are doing or how to do it because then you can learn and grow. Even if you feel like you aren’t succeeding in the way you thought, life has a way of teaching you things you can use later. Or maybe you will succeed more than you ever thought. Nobody knows, but getting started is the first step. You can learn more about our game here or pick up your own copy: https://amzn.to/3JpkCz6 Tell us what you like, ask a question, or just say hi. Call 323-364-3929. Your support means the world to us. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review. We also love feedback. Email us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com.We wrote a book! Learn more here: www.theholdernessfamily.com/book Join our Facebook family: www.face