For our TWENTIETH episode we are excited to be bringing on our very first guest, Kaitlan Finn! Sadly poor Helen was absent for this one thanks to a bummer winter illness. Kaitlan is a former Speech-Language Pathologist who lives in Palatine, IL, and has taken on the role of Illinois team lead for the Distraction Free Schools Project. The Distraction Free Schools Project is an initiative jointly led by the Becca Schmill Foundation and Smartphone Free Childhood US. We talk about the 3 proposed bills about cell phones, social media, and education technology in schools. And we share how we are both learning about the legislative process along the way! Understandably so, safety is often brought up when cell phone bans are talked about, and we discuss how the National Association of School Resource Officers have come out in support of school cell phone bans. Kaitlan also talks about her family’s technology use at home and shares how her high schooler goes to school *gasp* without any phone all day long and still has a social life! It was so fun to add a new voice into our show and we look forward to more guests in 2026!

We’re kicking off the holiday season by sharing memories from our childhood travel experiences as well as sharing current travel strategies with our own kids. And thanks to our talented podcast music director (aka Brian Spicklemire) we have a new holiday twist to our theme song! Helen starts by sharing some updates and corrections from earlier episodes. Jordan introduces her new segment called: Social media is terrible and here is the evidence. The evidence this week is thanks to a Time.com article detailing how Meta has a “’17x’ strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the ‘trafficking of humans for sex.’” Helen & Jordan then reflect on some memorable (see also: harrowing) childhood travel experiences. We then talk road trip snacks, games to play in the car, dealing with boredom, some tips & tricks, and travel lessons we’ve learned along the way. We hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving! PS, don’t buy AI toys—they are telling children how to light matches, where to find knives and having sexually explicit conversations with them.

When you have your own podcast, you can make your own rules -- and Helen decided to make a rule that when it’s your birthday, you get to celebrate by being asked a bunch of questions. So that’s exactly what we’re doing for episode 18! We kick things off with Helen sharing about her latest running endeavors. Jordan (while filled with rage) then shares an update (or lack thereof) to the apparently never-ending deck project that has spanned longer than a marching band season. Jordan also shares the latest updates for the next Can’t Look Away film screening. Helen then gets asked an extremely random list of questions covering a wide range of topics: driving, music, food, education, marriage, reading, dodgeball, and more! It’s a silly, sometimes serious but an overall fun conversation. So enjoy getting to know Helen, the birthday girl, a little better for her birthday episode!