Hi, I'm Monica Packer, and this is about progress, where we are about progress made practical.

So glad you're here.

Whenever I tell someone that I used to be a middle school teacher, I usually get a response

somewhere along the line of, bless you, like all drawn out like that.

The thing is, I loved those kids. I could discipline them like children,

but talked to them like adults, meaning they loved stickers, prize charts, and praise like

little kids, but they also loved having grown-up conversations while they were learning critical thinking.

I found it both natural and so rewarding to really connect with my teen students.

Why could I do that really? Well, because they were not my teens.

I am under no illusion that just because I was a good middle school teacher, I'll make a good

parent to teens in middle school. In fact, honestly, I feel a little, okay, a lot unprepared

for what is about to come around the Packer family corner with my oldest being 12.

That's why I am so happy and personally and selfishly excited to be sharing a unique conversation

with you today all about perfectionism and parenting, especially teens. What you'll hear is a

co-interview situation that I've never done before with Heather Frazier from the podcast Pivot

Parenting. She will first interview me about perfectionism and how it shows up with our kids

and in our parenting and what we can do as parents to better help our kids navigate those tendencies

while modeling progress over perfection ourselves. Then in the second half, I get to interview Heather

about how to handle when our teens start to differentiate themselves from us. In other words,

they don't seem like they love us so much anymore and how this translates to our children

pointing out our lack of perfection. In other words, them noticing and criticizing us for all

of our flaws and our failures. The good news is however non-fun all that is, it's actually

...