Calibrating Your Parenting Worry (with Dr. Jessica Hochman)

Hello and welcome, Dr. Jessica Hockman.

I'm so excited to have you on the mic today.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you for having me.

Yes.

Well, as we were talking about just before we actually hit record, we are very aligned in philosophy.

I'm very into helping people freak out less and calm down a little bit.

So I'm really excited about this conversation.

I'm sure I have a lot to learn, even though my kids are getting big and older.

So let's dive right in, since I will have already intro'd you.

You talk a lot about helping parents distinguish between what's truly concerning and what's actually part of typical childhood.

And your philosophy is your child is normal.

Can you just give us a little bit of commentary about what that means? And then what are some of the parenting worries where you most often find yourself saying, mm-hmm, this is more normal than you think?

Yeah, so I think what I've noticed as a pediatrician, talking to parents, there's reoccurring themes.

A lot of parents worry about a lot of things about their kids naturally.

And what I find is that so many of these concerns improve over time.

And I think with some good guidance and some good information, by allaying their worries, parenting gets a whole lot better.

So what I notice a lot is if you worry too much, it can actually steal from the joy of parenting and enjoying the experience of raising kids.

So what I try to do with my podcast, with my patients, is really be the opposite of clickbait.

I wanna help parents worry less.

I wanna calm things down so that they can enjoy their kids and focus on building a strong relationship.

And you asked about common examples.

I think I find more and more that we are societally maybe over-pathologizing what's normal behavior with kids.

So for example, common examples that come to mind would be, there's a lot of toddlers that bite in preschool.