Parent Driven Development

Parent Driven Development Episode 013: Babies at Work?! 00:15 Welcome, Leah Silber! Leah is the CEO of Tilde Inc. She is also an organizer of EmberConf, RustConf and RailsConf, and Ember.js Core Team Member, a jQuery Core Team alum, author of Event Driven: How to Run Memorable Tech Conferences, and all around technophile. 01:08 KWu is Planning Her Son's 1st Birthday Party! + How Old Are They? Don't let first birthday parties get out of hand. Not worth it. Get a cake. Let the kid smash. Also, please stop referring to your child's age in months when they turn 2. 04:05 Babies at Work: It’s Weird that it’s Weird In August 2017, Leah wrote this blog post and it was super well received. In the blog post, she talks about a lot of the objections and concern she had at first that turned out to be unfounded. It turns out, bringing her baby to work changed the mood and culture of Tilde in a positive way -- even among self-proclaimed "non-baby people". 09:26 What About The Fussy Days? Working from home can be an option especially on days like vaccination days. Having a quiet area like a conference room or an empty office gets people through short fussy spells. If that doesn't work, going home is encouraged. Leah says that having the babies at work made actually for a much happier baby! 17:56 Nursing Up to the mom! Breastfeeding in public is acceptable, and there are dedicated nursing rooms/spaces to keep it legal (and more private) It becomes normalized! People don't even notice Squatty Potty 23:53 Culture From The Core Stating expectations for parents/non-parents during the interview process Scaling as children age Bring the Nanny to work too! Older children must be up to date on vaccinations Becomes a routine 32:43 Does Company Size Matter? Just because there are 50 people in a company does not mean that the volume of babies is going to go up Setting a limit is an option: luck of the draw The bigger the company, the more space non-baby people have to stay away from the babies 35:02 Program Evolution Effects on Nannies Beneficial for dads too! 42:37 Avoiding Judgement Turns out, people (who aren't the child's parents) are more helpful than judgemental Pets are not babies...no, your dog can not come to work because my baby is here 48:31 Genius / Fail Moments KWu: Water coming out of the tub faucet is fascinating and acts as a baby magnet to draw them to the bathroom for a bath! (#Genius) Allison: Creating an insane schedule of hodgepodge childcare that involves massive amounts of logistics. (#Fail) Leah: Shoutout to the parents who think their kids will never walk. Her son started walking at 18 months! (#Genius) Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com. We are listener supported. Please consider Supporting us via Patreon and gaining access to our our kind Slack Community. Panel Allison McMillan Katherine WuSpecial Guest: Leah Silber.

Parent Driven Development Episode 012: Traveling with Kids 00:48 The Great Screen Debate Today's particular panelists are all about screens while traveling as long as it's not detracting from the travel experience. Everyone agrees that screens are a great way to keep kids occupied and quiet. 08:09 Transportation Challenges, Woes, and Genius Tips When your kid gets flagged on her first plane ride... TSA Pre√ (Worth its weight in gold!!) Download shows to devices in advance Have a variety of activities (besides screens) Hotel Paper & Pens Books Cheerios ... and a Walkman? Building Up Good Will with People Around You: Is it worth bribing others (with chocolate??) and socializing or should they just deal with you traveling with your kiddo(s)? Use Car Services like Lyft! 24:25 Transportation + Car Seats (Deserves its own conversation, obviously.) Amazon a cheap one + have delivered to your destination then donate when you go home (Pro tip: Do the same thing with diapers!) Uber and Lyft have car seat options in select cities Renting Car Seats: Yay or Nay? 32:58 On-The-Go Childcare Hotel Concierge - Check Yelp Reviews! Make sure you know where the closest hospital/urgent care center is 37:46 We're Here. Now What? Google "Top 10 things to do in X" Use an app like Winnie 39:48 A Round of Helpful Hints and Tricks Josh: If possible, get a hotel room with a separate bedroom. Mandy: Hotels with pools are delightful. (Especially if your kids can swim on their own.) Also use Uber Eats for food delivery to the hotel if going out is undesirable. Chris: Pizza chains will deliver to hotel pools for an easy pizza party. Great for traveling sports teams! Allison: Bring a roll of duct tape and use a taller chair on the side of the bed to act as a bedrail. Andy: Aluminum foil and a sponge! 43:42 Genius / Fail Moments Allison: MilkStork: A breast milk shipping company when you're away from your infant. Andy: Andy's son offered his teddy bear to a friend in need! Chris: Playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii as a family activity to teach good sportsmanship and kindness. Mandy: Staying on the boardwalk part of the beach on the ground level. Also, if you do a lot of traveling, save up points! Mandy uses Marriott Rewards to get free nights in select hotels for summer vacation fun! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel Andy Croll Chris Sexton Allison McMillan Mandy Moore Josh Puetz

Parent Driven Development Episode 011: Being a Trans Parent 00:30 We're joined by our friend Jess today We've been soliciting questions from our audience which will help guide our conversation today 02:00 How do you help young children who want to categorize everything in to boys and girls? How do we talk about boy parts and girl parts and gender identity especially with young children? It's a complex topic. Different children classify in different ways. Does it talk to how we socialize children? It changes when your children interact with other children in school. Science has proven that gender identity is mostly internal and it is in flux until children are around 3 and then they demonstrate more behaviors that can be associated with a specific gender. 07:50 How much do body parts relate to gender identity? Talking about body parts and explaining that you can't tell what a person is by looking at them. You need to ask, 9:00 Children see the world in different ways There's a need to talk to children in different ways because the way children classify and categorize are different. It's important to reach a child in a way that makes sense for them. You can still categorize and have these boundaries but talking about what defining characteristics and boundaries are is important. We're seeing more categories now that are gender non-binary or gender fluid and that's another set of categories to introduce and look for in books. When other people define those categories, it's also very difficult and overwriting peer pressure and social norms is tough. We have to understand details and nuance. Needing to overwrite social norms and outside influence is so much of parenting. It's a beautiful thing when parents can help their children learn compassion and talk through these questions. 14:14 If a child sees someone and wants to know what gender that person is, what is a good way to make sure we're guiding them correctly and having them ask in a way that is not offense and hurtful to the individual? Parents react in a variety of ways when children ask. Jess talks about some of the reactions she's gotten and what is helpful in the moment. The polite way to ask as an adult is "hi, my pronouns are Sarah talks about a camp that does this and the children have picked up on it super quickly. Kids are much more open to these discussions now than we are at our age and they might be more open to these discussions because they are being raised in a different time. 19:50 Listener comment Conversations about a trans girl in elementary school led to a lot of parental learning. 20:20 Are younger kids talking about this more and recognizing this earlier? Definitely. Talking about media representations and cultural expectations of trans people in the past and present. Late transitioners are going to become less and less common. 22:00 What's helpful as parents to make sure our children feel comfortable having these conversations with us? Podcast: How to be a girl about a parent raising a trans girl Book: Transgender 101 helps address these issues As well as some helpful questions and approaches for parents with children talking about gender identification. 25:00 - 28:30 How do you deal with people who can't understand? trigger warning Gender dysphoria and depression dysphoria and euphoria. Talking about calling in a support system and recognizing how to be honest with ourselves and our families. 29:00 As parents, how to support trans families? Best allies are simple things like using the correct pronouns because it's more about being a person and not about being trans. Jess shares a Mother's Day story which shows fellow parent support and an example of allyship. 32:00 How to help young children develop identity in a world of gender policing? Graciously accept gifts and then lose them. Trying to phrase things as play or as talking about play as what the child is doing. Giving children options is good as well. 36:00 What are good resources? Red: A Crayon's Story I am Jazz Kids books are few and far between. For adults, pflag chapters are also good. Jenny Boylan as an author is great. Jess is also happy to chat on twitter! 39:00 Genius / Fail moments Allison - I took my son to see the fireworks and he was excited but also terrified and asked to leave. I thought it was ok but then once we got home we needed to have a long discussion about how he's safe in the house from fireworks. I may have scarred him for life. #Fail Chris - My kids wanted to wash the truck which was great but then they got bored of washing and took the hose to the side yard and now it's a muddy mess. #Genius Jess - My son's daycare has been growing cucumbers and he brought home cucumbers to make pickles! #Genius Josh - The food wars continue. My daughter helps me pick out the meals that get sent every week so she recognizes that she's agreed to what gets sent. #Genius Sarah - My daughter drew a picture of being a spider vet when she grows up, but actually it was a spider pirate. She's got a great imagination. #Genius Also, future genius? Family vacations are hard so instead of a family trip. We're doing 1-on-1 trips depending on where each child wants to go. 53:40 Contact Us! Tell us if you have a question you want us to discuss on air! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Josh Puetz Sarah Olson Allison McMillan Chris SextonSpecial Guest: Jess Szmajda.

Parent Driven Development Episode 010: Doing Good with Kids, Live Episode 00:50 We're LIVE from Ruby For Good 02:30 How do we make our kids do good? School is a good place to start. There are lots of options for kids and parents to start out. We talk about different activities at different ages, preschool to high school 03:37 Where to start when you want to have childcare at your conference Treat it as any other vendor Go to the conference venue and ask for recommendations Ask for recommendations from the hotel, local user groups, etc. 5:30 Various programs are mentioned For Girl Scout cookies you can purchase a cookie to have sent to troops overseas Girls on the Run each session has a theme related to "good" things 6:40 For young children, focus on having the conversation What does it mean to do good things? We talk about PJ Library and Tikkun Olam Simple things are good like the Dawn soap that you can use to tell a story Box Tops can be taken to school The more exposure, the better 9:50 Bring the kids along At this conference, bringing kids can help them see that we're doing good things. It also happens when kids see you packing up food for shelters. The more exposure you have, the better JC talks about how they help people move a lot. Religious institutions are also a good way to find opportunities. Mandy talks about doing something nice for a homeless person and the conversation that resulted from that action 13:30 Helping family is also a good option Helping family members and grandparents can be very important. Finding places with family and extended family or neighbors to do good things for is really great. Helping our kids be aware of opportunities to help others is key 17:00 The News We talk about what's going on in the world and how we help our kids understand them. Do we bring our children to rallies? or marches? What is the importance of talking about what is going on in the news and being aware of how it affects our children, the world, and others. How do we support our children if they want to participate in walk-outs or some of the activism happening with our kids these days? 21:20 - 22:53 Trigger Warning: We talk a bit about the Parkland Shooting and gun violence related to our children 23:00 What do we do for the world for our kids? Beyond involving our kids, we get involved in issues that affect the world our children are growing up in Like elections, environment, infrastructure, etc. Writing letters to the Senate can be incredibly important so that funding continues for life changing programs. 26:30 Showing kids that doing good is also bi-directional. You give and you get. Local tech stuff, mentoring, starting a Women Who Code chapter and more 29:00 Monetary donations are also great Sometimes you're not going to be able to do things hands-on, giving money is also important Involve kids in where to donate Allow children to allocate money to a charity or charity type Birthdays are a great opportunity as well, money to charity instead of gifts 34:00 Genius / Fail moments Allison - We sleep trained our daughter! We were going to wait but we didn't and it's worked out really well. #Genius JC - Teenager was being a teenager and we took him off the Spotify premium family plan. #Genius Chris - My son doesn't enunciate always and we had a Trader Joe's chicken in the freezer and we called it Emergency Chicken. One day Lars was in class and said Emergency Chicken is his favorite food. #Fail Mandy - I've been super busy this conference season and end of the school year and I missed an email from a teacher which apparently said there were portfolio reading. My daughter was super sad and I just missed it. But I'm making up for it! #Fail 44:40 Contact Us! Tell us if you have a question you want us to discuss on air! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Mandy Moore Allison McMillan JC Avena Chris Sexton

Parent Driven Development Episode 009: Planning Childcare at Conferences 00:25 We're joined by Abby Phoenix today 01:00 When did childcare at Ruby Central events start? started in 2015 and have now been at 6 conferences The intention is to always have childcare at RailsConf and RubyConf 03:37 Where to start when you want to have childcare at your conference Treat it as any other vendor Go to the conference venue and ask for recommendations Ask for recommendations from the hotel, local user groups, etc. 6:10 Smaller conferences Smaller conferences are a little more difficult but also easier because if it's in the same location every year you can use the same provider year after year 7:30 Very important that childcare is based in the city of the conference They know how to get around They have alternative options They are on time They have the equipment they need 9:10 How many people use childcare at conferences? Typically 5-7 kids Usually younger children especially since RubyConf and RailsConf are during the school year so most older children are in school Always a question of whether or not a parent can make it work because bringing a child to a conference can be challenging 13:45 Lactation room is also offered Visibility is very important It is important that it is known in the community that childcare and lactation rooms are available at these conferences What to call the lactation room? How it works at a conference to make sure you don't get walking in on and to make sure it is easy The lactation room has outlets and a fridge. 20:20 We tangent about all the things we can't wait to forget as parents Diapers Wiping bums and more 21:30 Lactation rooms are really easy to put in place as a conference organizer 22:20 What have been the biggest challenges of providing childcare at a conference? There were things we did not know to ask when we started and so now we have a list which is helpful Abby goes in to which questions they have started to ask 26:00 What do you wish you could provide? Evening childcare so parents can do things. They will try to work with childcare providers to offer after-hours care but can't provide it themselves 31:00 Childcare is often tailored to 1-5 year olds Most of the participants are younger 32:00 Mandy talks about what you can do with an older child at a conference Is it worth it to bring an older child to a conference? What conferences have a "kids track"? How to engage older kids at conferences? The childcare provider will often tailor childcare towards the age range of the children there 39:30 What are the costs involved for organizers and participants Participants are not charged for using childcare Discussion about costs in different cities 44:00 Genius / Fail moments Allison - My daughter has had a rough few weeks and loves being bounced on a ball but it's tiring for me and hurts my back, so I put her on the ball, tummy down, bounced her, and it calmed her down and she got gas out #Genius Andy - After a difficult day, my daughter wrote "I love you daddy, even when you're grumpy" #Genius? or #Fail? Mandy - My daughter got the principals award for having a positive attitude, was responsible, did homework, and more. I was very proud! #Genius KWu - I'm on call for the week and so I set up a daybed in the office and negotiated with my husband that after the wake-ups, I would go to the office and turn off the monitor and be off duty for a few hours #Genius Abby - My daughters are very picky eaters. My youngest will eat waffles that she'll eat for breakfast. Recently she brought one over to me and said, "mommy I really like these. I like that there is candy inside" #Fail With my oldest, I asked her to describe her perfect meal and I thought she'd talk about candy or ice cream but she said "My perfect meal is a cheese plate" and so from then on every night has been a cheese plate for dinner, which to her means little bits of a variety of food #Genius 54:00 RubyConf is coming! Find more information at @rubyconf and rubyconf.org has some information right now. Registration will open in August or September 54:40 Contact Us! Email us to ask questions. Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Mandy Moore Allison McMillan KWu Andy CrollSpecial Guest: Abby Phoenix.

Parent Driven Development Episode 008: Remote working with kids 00:37 Who all works remotely? 02:30 Working remotely with kids at home Lifestyle choice Nursing and alternate schedules Spouses working from home as well 06:00 Working remotely before and after having a child The difference between working from home with a spouse also working from home vs. not Hard starts and stops to your day 10:00 JC forgets pickup 11:00 Dealing with interruptions This classic example Interruptions from your spouse vs. the kid(s) 15:00 Allison joins 15:45 Do companies who accept remote work also do better at understanding flexible schedules and work/life balance? Tyranny of the green dot on Slack What are the expectations of being remote? Do we feel guilty about doing "life" or kid stuff during the work day? 19:53 Being a remote worker vs. being on a distributed team Understanding working hours Helping colleagues be more purposeful about working hours and communication 23:00 Shared calendars and communicating hours to your team slack notifications and snoozing google calendar work hours basecamp Tools 24:00 Based on Cate's blog post Going in to an office established a lot of defaults for a team and working remotely it helps to be more explicit 25:30 Being in the office is nice because you get to talk to other adults. How do you deal with isolation? Going to stores Being in the coffee shop Parenting groups and daycares Playdates with other kids The difficulty of coworking and coffee shop working while pumping Leads to great isolation which is pretty difficult Rant about when people tell you to be social while pumping (spoiler: it's not that easy!!) 31:00 Being home instead of going out as a matter of priorities What do you want to have time for? 33:00 Listener Question!! Our first!! It is so exciting!!! When is the right time to introduce screens to your child and how did you do it? Allison introduced games first, mostly on flights. When Allison introduced tv shows, she tried to make it educational like Daniel Tiger, PBS shows, etc. Talking to your child about what they watched and what they learned KWu thinks what screen time and for what purpose. And introduce something, see the effect and make changes from there. JC said as you have more kids, it's harder to control media and screen time. Having structure around things is very important. Josh remembers lots of research but can't remember when they introduced screens Andy says do it collectively and sparingly KWu says that technology and watching things can be used as bonding time and can focus on artistic or creative endeavors as opposed to isolating JC talks about use of imagination using programs like minecraft. 45:00 Genius / Fail moments JC - my daughter has been playing softball and she looked at pictures of herself batting and fixed an issue! She was resilient and didn't get discouraged. #Genius Allison - Everything is a genius and fail right now. My son's preschool teacher told me that he's doing fantastic #Genius Josh - my daughter has guinea pigs named Ana and Elsa and one of them fell which led to a visit to the vet. There they found out Ana and Elsa are male which led to a great discussion about gender and what gender means. #Genius KWu - Marriage win! We started watching the Americans together and it is so nice to be doing something together and have something not household related to talk about. #Genius Andy - After a difficult day, my daughter wrote "I love you daddy, even when you're grumpy" #Genius? or #Fail? 53:00 Contact Us! Tell us what you're learning! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Josh Puetz Allison McMillan JC Avena KWu Andy Croll Additional links: https://medium.com/@benthompson/breaking-down-the-father-on-bbc-being-interrupted-by-his-children-9840cdc8857b https://youtu.be/-Ojvk-4IcOE

Parent Driven Development Episode 007: Keeping up to date with tech 00:27 Welcome back Allison 01:00 Today topic: Learning during the work day 02:47 It's ok if learning doesn't happen when your kids are little 04:14 Learning if you're a single parent is more difficult It's more difficult if you don't have a partner to hand things off to Real talk: you will always just have less time 7:15 Choices and Bringing your laptop along Being efficient and aware of the time you have But don't burn out 12:36 The pressure to always be learning Pros and cons to these feelings How it relates to burn out How it related to work/life balance 15:35 Staying competitive in the industry Tools, tips, and tricks 18:36 Learning staycations 22:33 Know how you learn and setting goals Knowing how you learn is really important How much do you want to learn? To what extent? etc. 23:34 Learning while you're on the clock Convincing your employer to give you time to learn Selling learning time to your boss 34:36 External groups like meetups, slack, etc. are extremely important for having a peer group to learn from Support groups are super important Coworking locally is even helpful if you can't make it to meetups, etc. 37:10 Genius / Fail moments Chris - Conference swag as gifts for kids when you get home #Genius Allison - I get to do 3 because it's been a while. I started a subscription to Le Tote so I can get new clothes that are nursing and postpartum body friendly #Genius Baby has been sleeping for the entire podcast #Genius My son didn't realize he could get out of his room on his own in the morning and he thought he had been left home alone #Fail Josh - Labo is a set of projects made out of cardboard and it's integrated into a Nintendo Switch. It's awesome, but we haven't had a chance to do it yet. #Genius JC -We're participating in the mulch fundraiser. My kids had to go out and hustle and sell mulch, cover fees, etc. But the fail was that my 15 year old had a snarky answering machine message on his phone and he lost a sale as a result. #Genius turned #Fail 53:00 Contact Us! Tell us what you're learning! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Josh Puetz Allison McMillan Chris Sexton JC Avena

Parent Driven Development Episode 006: Screen Time 00:17 Today topic: Screen Time 03:10 Screen time limits How do we set limits for our children and their devices 06:59 Other people's screen time policies Negotiating our screen time policies versus other parents opinions 09:16 Is all screen time the same? Does it matter what types of activities our children are engaging in on their screens? How do we teach our children the different between good content and bad content? 21:00 Explaining our own relationships to devices We carry digital devices around all the time: how do we explain that to our children? How can we model good behavior? 26:23 Screen time limits per activities The discussion turns to setting screen time limits per activity, and helping kids budget their time Circle by Disney 30:57 What each of us do for screen time in our households Each of the hosts states for the record what our current screen time policies are 38:47 Genius / Fail moments Josh - Preordering gifts from business trips from Amazon. #Genius KWu - Introducing new foods early with Spoonful One (link), scientific experiments to introduce new solids #Genius Sarah - "Helpful coupons" artwork #Fail 47:00 Contact Us! Use your screen time to contact us! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Josh Puetz Sarah Olson Katherine Wu

00:32 Meet our guest Jonathan Wallace He is a mentor, speaker, organizer, developer and open source contributor. Married with three kids and a dog. He's also been a Georgia state legislator since January. 01:07 Net neutrality We start off talking about net neutrality and how it affects our children. How the repeal affects who regulates the infrastructure companies. How does it affect the internet content builders, how might it affect free speech, and how the internet is becoming the civic square. Are rules being put in place ahead of time or coming up and cleaning up after? 6:04 States are stepping in What effect does having states stepping up to manage net neutrality have on the internet? Is zero rating an unfair practice? How about throttling? QoS is also a useful tool but at what level is it fair? Playing favorites can benefit consumers in some instances, but it could be detrimental to competition and innovation. Monopolistic practices can come into consideration. We don't see the choice of ISPs we would like to see throughout the country. Rural areas in particular are underserved. We've had instances where zero rating has come into play. Everything is online. Government services are online and people need to have adequate access to the internet to function in society. 13:36 Nuances in the discussion over net neutrality What are some of the nuances we miss regarding the net neutrality discussion when we view it from a distance? Jonathan talks about some of the insights he has about this. Telecom providers were required to lease space to other providers. Multiple ISPs provided DSL but used the same telecom in the background. New technologies can leapfrog existing technologies that have regulatory constraints. Providers may not be able to prioritize service in areas where it is not profitable due to too much regulation. 17:37 Bringing technological expertise to the legislature Jonathan speaks about how his experience in technology has helped his approach as a legislator. There are so many aspects of law to cover that he points out how he brings his expertise in tech but also ignorance in other areas. Legislators are either rich, retired or broke. There are a lot of retired people in legislation, but there are few that have a tech background. He's been learning what the process and tradition are as a legislator. There are many layers of abstraction and nuance in the legislative process. 20:16 Net Neutrality and basic human rights The discussion shifts to speaking about net neutrality and how it relates to basic human rights. Free speech is important to be preserved in this new public square. The concentration of power can be abused by the few. It's important to have rules in place to ensure freedom of communication in these private networks. We can't control the passage of time, but we can control where we are paying attention. 25:16 Managing it all Jonathan is involved in technology and now in the public sphere, so how is he managing all this along with his family? There is a zero sum game when it comes to time available. His son was ready to start advocating for his opponents so he might be home more. With the blessing and support of his family, Jonathan's been able to make significant changes and sacrifices to be able to serve. It's a part-time job wth full-time obligations. 29:48 Jonathan's approach to children and technology How has Jonathan introduced technology into his children's lives? Jonathan considers it his moment of shame. He's been able to introduce some education games and shown them some programming with Scratch. He sees himself more of a facilitator and a support for his children. 32:55 Genius / Fail moments Johnny Rae - Still no cable. Their streaming device crashed and it did not get replaced and the kids were fine. #Genius Josh - Nightly family routine watching a "Just add magic" episode and discussing it with their daughter. #Genius KWu - Has been introducing solids to her 6.5 month baby, specifically avocados. Since baby will only eat a bit and not wanting the avocado to go bad, KWu has been eating the rest of it. #Genius JC - Won the tie tying competition at the daddy/daughter dance with his 3rd grader. Took home a giant heart-shaped mylar balloon. #Genius Jonathan - Both a Fail and a Genius moment. Did not manage his child's anxiety properly knowing he'd be gone during the week and got impatient. #Fail Uses Dragonbox to teach the concepts of algebra to his kids in a sneaky way. #Genius 40:12 Where's Jonathan? You can find Jonathan on Twitter at @jonathanwallace for personal and @wallacefor119 for his political work. 49:40 Contact us! We're here ready to answer all your questions with terrible advice! Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Josh Puetz JC Avena Johnny Rae Austin Katherine Wu Chris SextonSpecial Guest: Jonathan Wallace.

00:19 - Dave Bock - Multiples! Dave has been a software engineer since 1991, with several forays into management, and even ran a small consulting firm with a couple of friends for 8 years. He’s currently the DevOps Service Area Lead at Excella Consulting, a father of 10 year old triplet boys, is the director of the nonprofit LoudounCodes, helps organize the RubyNation and DevOps DC Days conferences, and co-organizes a handful of meet ups in the Northern Virginia area. 00:55 10 Year old triplet boys! Dave and his wife did IVF. They were hoping for one child and were delighted/shocked to have three! The odds for three embryos implanting was 2%. They always wanted three, just didn't expect them all at once. 3x of everything! It was 3x the work with only two of them. Now that they are older, they do help each other a lot. 3:50 Going back to work Leveling up the difficulty by quitting his job and starting a consultancy 3 months into the pregnancy. Dave talks about the tension with billing hourly and feeling like you're losing money if you're not working while trying to manage three newborns. They realized with triplets all milestones (walking, talking) happened within days of each other too, so you need to be paying attention. It took a while to get the consultancy to the point where there was a good work/life balance. 8:52 Triplets vs One at a time The stages are spread out across longer years vs doing all the work for each stage at once. Some people with three kids do diapers for 10 years. For them, when they were done with diapers, they were done. They had to use assembly line processes to get the kids fed. They couldn't keep up and started buying pre-mixed formula. The delivery person thought she was delivering food for a pony and asked to see it. No hand-me-downs. Have to have at least 4 choices when getting something so each kid can have a choice even if picking last. 13:23 Andy joins the call! We continue talking about how the triplets have their individual personalities and how they've nurtured that individuality. They've kept the kids in separate classrooms with their own friends and such. They go on one-on-one outings with each kid. Invidual personalities come out when they are on their own but blend when the kids are together. 17:15 Multiples learn to share early on The kids develop a sense of fairness early on. Older kids seem to get stricter parents, but it's probably just a matter of being able to control their environment. Kids are growing up with a lot of screen time. 20:35 Technology at different ages Spread out kids have different technology available when they get to a certain age. Triplets hit the same tech at the same time. 21:54 How do you find events to take kids to? Dave talks about how he's volunteered for years in different capacities and at different places. That's allowed him to influence the curriculum the kids are exposed to regarding technology. He suggested Hour of Code and they've been using it since his kids were in first grade. He also teaches highschool kids and runs the LoudounCodes program. He buys started kits that teach his kids how to solder and build electronics. Also local events in the community, playgrounds, museums, etc. Programming with Scratch. Letting the kids find something they like to do and giving them free time to do it. 27:44 An endlessly adapting river of water of parenting After a long and varied career, Dave's wife decided to stay home and work at home with the children. She's the one that keeps everything running. Dave also credits his mom with helping keep things going. She has an in-law suite at their home and helps with the children and dinner. Andy talks about how he and his wife have been able to work from home while having their children. JC talks about being able to work from home for a large part of his children's early years and how that helped the balancing act with his wife who eventually went back into the workforce. Allison talks about mental load and how difficult it can be to mentally unload the home management part of life while working full time. Dave talksa about being equal partners and sharing the load. It's called parenting, not babysitting your kids 36:44 Teasing your children Dave talks about a few ways they've pranked the children. Zombies, the Walking Dead and RubyDCamp. Gummy bear addiction. 40:42 Genius/Fail moments JC - Decided to take his kids to see Black Panther as a surprise and forgot about his daughter's end of season pizza party which she missed. #FAIL Andy - Managed to survive their childrens' "half-term" days off when all their plans fell apart. #GENIUS Allison - Ran out of patience and yelled. The rest of us feel like it's called "morning". - #FAIL Dave - After one of his kid had his apendix removed, a second started having similar symptoms. The third child started worrying that it may be contagious. Dave tried to tease him about it and the kid turned it around on him. - #FAIL 48:44 Where's Dave? You can usually find dave under bokman on various sites. He's bokmann on Twitter, Github, Skype, and just about anywhere. His non-profit can be reached at Loudouncode.org with a mission to support computer science education for Loudoun County's K-12 students. 49:40 Contact us! We'd love to hear from our listeners. Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Allison McMillan Andy Croll Chris Sexton JC AvenaSpecial Guest: Dave Bock.

0:31 First Guest! Heidi Waterhouse - Parent of two. Developer evangelist for LaunchDarkly. Volunteers teaching sex ed to teenagers. She likes to sew her own conference dresses and ride her bike. 1:00 Internet privacy and safety and how it is adaptable to kids of all ages. How should kids protect themselves online, have manners, and use their time wisely. Online behavior is permanent these days, so kids should also consider using obfuscated names online. Pseudonyms are personas you can discard if necessary while keeping you safe. Online predation is possible, but you are more likely to be get gendered grief online. 8:00 Problematic relationships with Facebook You can have a real name account, but you have to behave as if in an office all day. Kids have a harder time controlling impulses. Due to COPPA regulation, parents wanting their non teenage children to have an online account have to lie about the child’s age when signing them up. COPPA, well intentioned, but disenfranchises kids under 13 and forces parents to jump through hoops when getting their children online. 10:57 Wallet identity Sometimes you want accolades and other positive achievements tied to your persona. Each kid is different and some will want the attention while others won’t. Some things you do in public and online forums will be public, regardless of your preference. As parents, we make decisions for our children. Everything decision we make for our children will be things they’ll have to live with. Some parents choose to not make choices for their children regarding online personas. 14:45 Less physical spaces A book from Danah Boyd discusses how we’ve deprived teenagers from any space they can meet and hang out so the only space they have left is cyber space. Overscheduling, curfews, no hanging out at malls. Technology is making physical gatherings less common. 16:29 Cyber safety is the new Sex Ed Schools have Google accounts for kids to use the Google suite for education. Cyber security education is the equivalent of abstinence only sex ed. 70% of parents have a password to their kids’ phones and monitor their devices. 20:35 Safe places for kids to explore online communication and not raising trolls. Online platforms where kids can interact safely. Discord. Teach children what is appropriate, and give them the ability to identify what is right and wrong. “It’s only online, it doesn’t matter” is how you build an online troll. Everyone is a human on the other side of the screen. 24:51 Determining when your children should level up Each kid is different and timing depends on each kid. Learnign what should be downloadable to your computer so it doesn’t break. What about your kid wanting a YouTube career? (Yes YouTube, no comments) Keeping their online circles to friend they know in person helps, while having open discussion about their online lives. Let them know they can be monitored, and privileges can be narrowed. 35:13 Genius/Fail moments Andy - Picked up his kids from school but left his dog there. #FAIL Allison - Continuation of last episode’s fail. Still reading fire safety book at bedtime. #FAIL Heidi - 15YO assembled IKEA storage system by himself. #GENIUS Chris - Kids decided to spend time roughhousing instead of online. Though he overheard from downstairs: SON: Stop! You’re going to break my arm! DAUGHTER: I don’t want to break your arm, I want to break your spirit! #GENIUS Mandy - Going to Disney World! After a long long time of saving, it’s happening. #GENIUS Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Allison McMillan Chris Sexton Andy Croll Josh Puetz Mandy MooreSpecial Guest: Heidi Waterhouse.

00:34 - Combating Burnout Mandy was on “vacation” and has to make an appearance at another conference. Her daughter doesn’t want her to go and Mandy feels really bad about it. She’s been on the road a lot the past six months and is feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. JC says it’s important to learn to say no and recharge by doing hobbies. Chris says it comes down to priorities. 06:12 - Playing Activity Hooky: AS A PARENT! Mandy also feels bad because she knowingly skipped her daughter’s gymnastics practice because after returning from her trip, she didn’t feel like going, her daughter didn’t bring it up, so they didn’t go! Revelation: Other people have been known to do it too! The panelists talk about how most of them grew up with their parent’s beliefs being drilled into them that if you sign up for a commitment, you do the commitment. Allison had the opposite upbringing when it came to that though. 16:45 - Feeling Judgement As well as feeling bad about all of the above, Mandy has people in her life that judge her parenting style -- namely nosy neighbors. The panel talks about the differences between mothers and fathers getting judged and possibly having different licenses in the gender department when it comes to being parents. They also discuss kids playing outside these days and that it is scary to let your child run free sometimes but come to the consensus that it’s generally necessary and healthy. 27:07 - Letting Kids Figure it Out by Themselves The panelists talk about how it’s important for kids to learn conflict resolution instead of solving all of their problems for them. Eventually, they WILL work it out! They also agree they like to let their kids be themselves and have some independence when it comes to dressing themselves. Genius/Fail Moments of the Week: Allison: Her son is afraid of smoke detectors! #FAIL Josh: Unknowingly let his daughter stay home from school for a snow day -- from the wrong school! #FAIL Chris: Played Survive: Escape From Atlantis all day to keep his kids busy during a snow day! #GENIUS Mandy: Signed up for the food delivery service, Plated. #GENIUS Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel: Allison McMillan Chris Sexton JC Avena Josh Puetz Mandy Moore

01:40 - Allison Intro Allison talks a bit about kids being curious, asking questions, and how they somehow sneakily get past some safety measures we try to put in place. The older ones blatantly just write us notes and leave the house. 04:53 - Andy Intro Andy introduces us to parenting multiples and how he’s been “leading a small team!” We also comment on how our children always seem to plot against us. 08:17 - Sarah Intro Sarah goes into how she’s navigating being the parent of a gymnast and how kids activities easily can consume your life. She also talks about how her little one is an empath and the panelists talk about how sad movies (i.e. Bambi) have ruined everyone forever as parents. 12:55 - Josh Intro Josh says that his family has moved around a lot and that it can be hard on kids. He talks about his daughter’s hobbies which include cosplay and that they are entering the adolescent years terrified as two dads facing the puberty of their little girl. We are all confused as to why wearing bras is now the cool thing to do. (Before it’s necessary!) We also briefly touch on the difference between having boys and girls and gender neutrality. 22:02 - Mandy Intro Mandy tells the story of how her daughter got the nickname “Chicken” and being a single mom. We then talk a little bit about a topic that we are going to delve into more in two weeks with our guest, Heidi Waterhouse: Internet Safety & Privacy. 26:25 - Johnny Intro Johnny talks about some solutions he’s found to combat the Internet monitoring conundrum such as the Nvidia Shield and Mobicip. We also talk about kids do have a conscience and are capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. Andy mentions he is reading the book, The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. We also weigh the pros and cons of “making” our kids watch educational content. 38:55 - KWu Intro KWu says she is nervous about going back to work after having a baby. Allison suggests learning to enjoy little moments like finishing a cup of coffee when it was still hot. And then there’s the topic of pumping and how your brain chemistry changes after having children. The panel also touches on how having a partner can make parenting easier and Mandy talks briefly about being a single mom and using the Spoon Theory to get through the days. Except she calls them her “Fs to Give”. 49:32 - JC Intro JC has kids of all ages (between 8 and 17) and talks about how it goes so fast. He also has a pet name for his daughter: “Monkey”. His family also loves their lives since having cut the cable cord. 56:48 - Chris Intro Chris’ son wants to be a developer so he encourages him to play Minecraft. Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community.   Panel: Allison McMillan Andy Croll Sarah Olson Josh Puetz Mandy Moore Johnny Ray Austin Katherine Wu JC Avena Chris Sexton