I Hate You. What's For Dinner?

Gillian Boudreau & Rob Galligan
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On I Hate You. What's For Dinner? we explore whether childhood explains everything. We'll ask our biggest questions about love and hate, rage and fear, and the awesome and mundane that all get smushed together when we're growing up. Tune in to make better sense of childhood, parenthood, and life in general.

Episodes

  1. 12 FEB

    Ep 04 - There's a Place for Everyone: Lauren Hough Williams on Inclusion for all Neurotypes, Family, and Dignified Risk

    How do you raise kids who approach the world with curiosity, compassion, and the drive to make their communities more supportive and inclusive? Today, we’re talking to Gillian’s dear friend Lauren Hough Williams about how her childhood shaped her into an expert in building systems where everyone has a place.  In this episode, we dig into how Lauren’s position as the eldest of five siblings helped to create her community mindset. We discuss the role of privilege and its attendant sense of safety in facilitating risk-taking. And, we learn how Lauren’s mom crafted a happy, chaotic home, all the while imparting wisdom and sly humor in equal measures. We also learn how professional experts in childhood become “experts” in their own home, winning some and losing some as we try to parent well and bring our professional knowledge into our parenting our own kids. Listen to the full episode to hear: How volunteer basketball games helped teenage Lauren recognize that inclusive environments benefit everyoneHow Lauren’s family and early education modeled community orientation and compassion as core valuesHow Lauren’s parents created a supportive, safe environment inside the inherent chaos of a large familyWhat Lauren learned from her mom about letting go of perfectionism and urgency, and maintaining a sense of humor as a parentWhy Lauren’s professional life as an educator and coach doesn’t seamlessly integrate into her parenting Learn more about Lauren Hough Williams: Program for Inclusion and Neurodiversity EducationConnect on LinkedIn Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner? Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.: WebsiteInstagram @clearconnectionpsychology Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.: Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

    51 min

  2. 22 JAN

    Ep 03 - “I’m Doing the Song!” Ash Diggs on Cat’s in the Cradle, Comedy, and Family

    Most parents set out with the best of intentions to prepare their children for the world. Of course, our actions and behaviors don’t always have the intended effect. Parenting is hard, and sometimes we screw up in ways that damage our kids and our relationships with them. So what do we do with our parenting regrets? Today, comedian Ash Diggs joins us to talk about the regret and repair in parent-child relationships, using the classic Harry Chapin tear-jerker “Cat’s in the Cradle” as our jumping-off point. We dig into why that song hits some of us so hard, how class and race impact parental survival brain, and the evolution of parent-child relationships when everyone is willing to look at themselves and try something new. Listen to the full episode to hear: How parents’ focus on achievement and stability can affect mental health and relationshipsWhy turning real-life pain into comedy can be a double-edged swordHow his parents’ willingness to engage in hard conversations has allowed their relationship to positively evolveThe not-so-simple relationship between material safety and psychological safety Learn more about Ash Diggs: Instagram: @ashdiggs_ Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner? Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.: WebsiteInstagram @clearconnectionpsychology Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.: Instagram @dr.robert.galligan Resources: Harry Chapin - Cat's In The CradleThe Autobiography of Malcolm X

    58 min

  3. 8 JAN

    Ep 02 - Help! My Survival Brain is Parenting My Kid

    Survival brain is a universal feature of parenting. When our inner cave person is activated, fear dominates, as we worry about our kid’s ability to survive a dangerous world. When survival brain comes online, everything is an emergency, our ability to think rationally is short-circuited, and molehills become mountains. As our brains quickly spiral, we imagine that the kid who isn’t doing his homework tonight will be doomed to a lifetime of failure and destitution.  While the threat-mitigation behavior coded in our DNA helps us protect our offspring from the most dire threats, it prevents us from accessing the patience and perspective we need for everyday kid problems. Survival brain eats up our mental resources when activated, and once it’s firing we can’t get to our wiser mind no matter how hard we try.        So what is a modern parent with a cave person brain supposed to do? How do we quiet the huge reactions we have to family problems that are big, but not dire? How do we know when a threat actually is dangerous enough to warrant an emergency response? How do we tame the survival brain so it will leave enough juice  to run our wisdom-centers?  Today we’ll talk about how primal survival instincts operate for parents. We’ll talk about how survival brain drives parents’ actions and how kids’ mental health struggles are rooted in their need to feel safe. We will also discuss how therapy helps parents navigate through even the most difficult moments with their kids, including school refusal, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Listen to the full episode to hear: The way survival instincts block our ability to access higher-level thinkingHow survival brain distorts reality, causes disproportionate reactions, and spreads to othersA reframe for shifting perspective and limiting scope to right here, right nowHow therapy gives parents a space to speak the unspeakable, and how that disrupts unhealthy family dynamics The role of making sense of seemingly impossible situations, which enables new perspectives and opens up solutions to even the stickiest problems How talk therapy creates a foundation of safety and understanding that other modalities (like CBT and DBT) build on for comprehensive treatment plansWhat parents can do when things are stable to support family regulation and wellbeing Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner? Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.: WebsiteInstagram @clearconnectionpsychology Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.: Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

    52 min

  4. 8 JAN

    Ep 01 - Evolving Every Day: How Parenting Transforms Us

    If you came into our therapy rooms, we definitely would be asking you about your family of origin. It’s where it all starts. As psychologists who work with families and who are currently raising kids, we’re obsessed with how childhood experiences impact caregiving, and how parenting transforms us. Where did our parents come from? How were they raised? How did they bring us up? And how do we parent our kids as a consequence of our family history? These are the questions that hold the key to what we do well and where we trip up as humans and as parents. In today’s episode, we’re talking about our experiences of being kids, how forces like career and financial stability impact raising kids, what our kids have taught us “on the job,” and the role of grandparent energy in parenting. Listen to the full episode to hear: How social and cultural environments influence parenting norms, implicitly and explicitlyOur very different takes on being only children, and a commonality that bonded usHow experiencing survival mode as adults brought new context to our relationships with our parentsWhy addressing the fears that activate survival brain is essential for being the kind of parents we want to beOur biggest unlocks as parents, and where we still struggle with the pressure to be perfect Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner? Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.: WebsiteInstagram @clearconnectionpsychology Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.: Instagram @dr.robert.galligan Resources: The Parent Whisperer https://theparentwhispererny.com/about-susan/How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish

    58 min

  5. 24/10/2025

    Introducing I Hate You. What's For Dinner?

    Your kid slams his bedroom door in your face, and five minutes later, he's giving you puppy eyes asking for a snack. Why is he like that? On I Hate You. What's For Dinner?, we explore whether childhood explains everything. We're Gillian Boudreau and Rob Galligan—two clinical psychologists in private practice who met in our psych PhD program a couple decades ago. Since then, we've been mulling over what hurts and what heals in people. As psychologists who work with kids and families, we're constantly mining childhoods past for memories and clues. We'll be featuring guests who are musicians, comedians, entrepreneurs, therapists, and writers. Each episode asks: Who were you when you were little, and how has that made you who you are now? The psychoanalytic theory, neuroscience, and developmental psychology we studied in grad school often feel like the secret decoder ring to people's toughest problems. These everyday struggles often come down to what we want the most and what we're most afraid of. We'll ask our biggest questions about the love and hate, the rage and fear, and the awesome and mundane that all get smushed together when we're growing up. Tune in to make better sense of childhood, parenthood, and life in general. *** Follow or subscribe to I Hate You. What's For Dinner? wherever you get podcasts.

    2 min

Trailer

About

On I Hate You. What's For Dinner? we explore whether childhood explains everything. We'll ask our biggest questions about love and hate, rage and fear, and the awesome and mundane that all get smushed together when we're growing up. Tune in to make better sense of childhood, parenthood, and life in general.

Information

  • Creator
    Gillian Boudreau & Rob Galligan
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Gillian Boudreau & Rob Galligan
  • Provider