TPP 083: A Conversation with Melissa Wardy About Raising Anxious Kids
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
52 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 13 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What sparked Melissa Wardy's decision to leave her career and focus on parenting?
I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden something in her just switched and turned off. And it was like this bright glimmer that had been in her eyes was gone. And her eyes took this flat, dead look to them. And that sounds like so melodramatic, but it's really true. Even when I look back through pictures, the shape of her eyes are different. It was just so much stress in this tiny body. You know, looking back, I just sometimes I just want to cry. I just think about what she had to be going through and pushing through each day to try to make some benchmark of normalcy while she was in school.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Rieber, and today I'm sitting down with Fellow Parent in the Trenches and the author of the book Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood from Birth to Tween, Melissa Warty. In this conversation today, we're going to be talking about how Melissa has navigated the journey of learning how to support her own full of awesome kids, both of whom have anxiety disorders. This is an honest dialogue about the challenges kids with anxiety face, the stigma surrounding it, and lack of understanding in schools and in society, and much more.
And I wanted to share that Melissa has just published a powerful article about her journey on the website. Grok Nation. So definitely check that out too. I will leave a link for that in the show notes page. So here's my conversation about raising anxious kids with Melissa Worty. Hello Melissa and welcome to the podcast. Hello, thank you for having me. Yes, this has been a long time coming and I've known you for many years and and I'm just really excited to bring your voice and experience onto the show today. And just as a way to introduce you to our listeners, could you tell us a little bit about who you are? I'm always curious to know people's, you know, their family makeup, who your kids are, how old they are, and what's going on with them.
Sure.
Sure. So I uh am am married to my husband Jason and we live in El Paso, Texas, following a ten year stint in Wisconsin. Um and we have two children, Amelia who is eleven, and Benjamin who is nine. Um we home school down here, which is an interesting experience being a uh liberal secular family l homeschooling in Texas. Um, but we uh we're loving it and uh so uh when I'm not busy doing the mom thing, I work as an author and speaker in the girl empowerment and confidence community.
Yes, and you you have a book that came out a couple um when did your book Redefining Girlie come out? Yeah, I think it was two thousand fourteen. Wow. Yeah. Yes. I mean, just watching you, you know, we've been Facebook friends. We met in person probably ten years ago. Yeah. And we've been more kind of online friends since that time. And you your world has seemed like a bit of a whirlwind since your book came out. Do you want to tell us about your transition? Because I know you weren't always homeschooling and you also had a very Busy business and full time gig going on.
Yeah, so in two thousand nine, um, when my kids were three and one, I started um a t shirt company uh that was originally just for girls and then we branched out to include boys. Um but it was called Pigtail Pals and Bulk Cat Buddies. Uh and it's been on hold since the move to Texas, but on my to do list of projects to start up again. Um and that led to a blog and that led to my book Redefining Girly, How Parents Can Fight the Sexualizing and Stereotyping of Girls from Birth to Tween. Um so that all happened from two thousand nine to twenty fourteen and in that span of five years while also trying to parent two children, um, and all of this kind of coming in and uh being very public and doing a lot of media it was just sort of um a whirl run.
So when we moved to Texas I really pulled back from all of that 'cause this was when we started home schooling, um, due to my kids having a really hard time in school with anxiety and uh
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What sparked Melissa Wardy's decision to leave her career and focus on parenting?
0:00–4:12
2
How did Melissa first recognize that her daughter was struggling with anxiety?
4:12–11:43
3
What were the biggest challenges Amelia faced in school during first grade?
11:43–19:17
4
Why did Melissa choose homeschooling as a solution for her anxious children?
19:17–26:47
5
How did the family navigate therapy, medication, and professional support for Amelia?
26:47–35:16
6
What tools and strategies does Melissa use now to help Amelia manage anxiety daily?
35:16–44:23
7
How has Amelia’s confidence and social life evolved through Girl Scouts and other activities?
44:23–50:50
8
What advice does Melissa give parents of differently‑wired kids about advocacy and community support?
50:50–52:51
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids