It’s that time of year when all the people have all the feels all the time, isn’t it? You're extra-busy, it’s dark all the time, it’s cold, maybe your kids are starting to have academic and behavior problems at school. And so you visit your social-media channels for a little dose of good cheer, and instead you get socked all over again. We have a good gripe session about how our social-media interactions affect our moods, how seeing certain topics in our feeds make us sad or angry, how certain friends appear to not know us at all, and how we have to learn again and again to NOT READ THE COMMENTS. (By the way, to all our friends who listen to the podcast, we're not talking about you. No! Of course not! Someone else entirely. You know, that person. Please don't write nasty posts about us.)
Next, we stop grumbling for a minute and celebrate those things we've learned in the process of being parents. Like how to make a competition-approved bun for an ice-skating kid using only our own two hands and a ton of hair gel. Or all the words to every heavy-metal song there is. Or how to score $300 worth of uncut keys and uncoded transponders online. Or who was on which lifeboat of the Titanic. Just like we recently said "Thanks, Podcasting" for a libsyn promotion, we now say "Thanks, Parenting!"
Finally, we share our recommendations for the week. Catherine directs us to her list of active toys for kids and her Round 3 with more suggestions from pediatric OT Meghan Corridan; Amanda thinks we should all go read Pew Research's "Psychological Stress and Social Media Use"; Nicole has a way to prevent that by studying up on ways to hide annoying Facebook posts; and Terri follows up on an earlier podcast with a checklist on when it's time to fire your pediatrician.
Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episodes and Kristen Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.