More Human More Kind: Guidance for Parents & Allies of LGBTQ Teens

Join me on Substack for more tools to stay human in a complicated world.
What does it actually look like to live with grief… without letting it take you down?
In this final episode of the grief series, Heather shares honest, grounded guidance for parents, LGBTQ families, and allies navigating loss, identity, and a complicated world. Drawing from her own experience grieving her sister Corinne and parenting through change, she introduces her Recognition, Realization, and Repair framework.
This episode explores what it means to hold grief and love at the same time, how to set boundaries without losing connection, and why kindness is not the same as compliance. You’ll also hear simple, real-life practices to help regulate your nervous system and stay present in the moments that matter most.
If you are a parent adjusting to a new reality, supporting an LGBTQ child, or an ally trying to stay human in a divided world, this conversation will meet you where you are. You’ll walk away feeling steadier, more connected, and better equipped to move through grief with compassion, courage, and clarity.
Press play to learn how to carry grief without being crushed by it and discover the small, powerful ways parents and allies can create healing, connection, and lasting impact in their everyday lives.
Hi, I’m Heather Hester, and I’m so glad you’re here!
Are you ready to take action? Let's connect and create a personalized plan!
Stay informed - receive my newsletter 2x/month
Invite me to speak at your workshop or event
Read my book, Parenting with Pride.
Share More Human. More Kind. Please subscribe, rate, and review!
Connect [email protected]
Buy Me A Coffee
Watch on YouTube
Listen to *NEW* episodes every Tuesday and Friday!
At the heart of my work is a deep commitment to compassion, authenticity, and transformative allyship, especially for those navigating the complexities of parenting LGBTQ kids. Through this podcast, speaking, my writing, and the spaces I create, I help people unlearn bias, embrace their full humanity, and grow their capacity for courageous, compassionate connection.
For parents, allies, and those pioneering a way to lead with love and kindness, I’m here with true, messy, and heart-warming stories, real tools, and grounding support to help you move from fear to fierce, informed action.
Whether you’re listening in, working with me directly, or quietly taking it all in, I see you. And I’m so glad you’re part of this journey.
More Human. More Kind. formerly Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen is a safe and supportive podcast in a heartfelt and empowering space where a mom and advocate offers practical guidance and education to parents and allies, fostering empathy, kindness, love, and strong boundaries while supporting LGBTQ teens and the diverse LGBTQ community—including gay, lesiban, bisexual, trans, transgender, and queer individuals—through conversations about mental health, grief, gender identity, sexual orientation, human rights, social justice, parenting, parent support, and meaningful LGBTQ allyship and allyship in action.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy

Are you an overwhelmed mom of a gay or lesbian teen who's feeling lost trying to navigate the coming out process, and wants to let go of shame and embarrassment, as well as build a deeper connection of trust within yourself and your teen? Click here to learn how to work with me 1-1.
You may have said, “Let’s not tell anyone yet,” believing you were protecting your child.
And maybe you were trying to.
But what if that silence communicated something deeper than you intended?
In this episode, Heather explores the emotional impact of secrecy after a child comes out. She names the fears many parents feel: fear of judgment, conflict, misunderstanding, or how others might react and gently challenges the hidden cost of making silence the family norm.
You’ll hear:
what secrecy can communicate to a child
how protection can unintentionally become shame
why hiding creates distance, even in loving families
the difference between privacy and secrecy
one powerful question every parent needs to ask

If you’ve ever felt torn between loving your child and fearing the world’s response, this conversation will help you move from fear toward understanding, and from silence toward connection.
Hi, I’m Heather Hester, and I’m so glad you’re here!
Are you ready to take action? Let's connect and create a personalized plan!
Stay informed - receive my newsletter 2x/month
Invite me to speak at your workshop or event
Read my book, Parenting with Pride.
Share More Human. More Kind. Please subscribe, rate, and review!
Connect [email protected]
Buy Me A Coffee
Watch on YouTube
Listen to *NEW* episodes every Tuesday and Friday!
At the heart of my work is a deep commitment to compassion, authenticity, and transformative allyship, especially for those navigating the complexities of parenting LGBTQ kids. Through this podcast, speaking, my writing, and the spaces I create, I help people unlearn bias, embrace their full humanity, and grow their capacity for courageous, compassionate connection.
For parents, allies, and those pioneering a way to lead with love and kindness, I’m here with true, messy, and heart-warming stories, real tools, and grounding support to help you move from fear to fierce, informed action.
Whether you’re listening in, working with me directly, or quietly taking it all in, I see you. And I’m so glad you’re part of this journey.
More Human. More Kind. formerly Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen is a safe and supportive podcast in a heartfelt and empowering space where a mom and advocate offers practical guidance and education to parents and allies, fostering empathy, kindness, love, and strong boundaries while supporting LGBTQ teens and the diverse LGBTQ community—including gay, lesiban, bisexual, trans, transgender, and queer individuals—through conversations about mental health, grief, gender identity, sexual orientation, human rights, social justice, parenting, parent support, and meaningful LGBTQ allyship and allyship in action.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy

Join me on Substack for more tools to stay human in a complicated world.
What happens when the grief you carry isn't about losing a person, but about losing the world you thought your child would grow up in?
In this second episode of the grief series, Heather goes where most parenting conversations won't: into the tender, often-shamed space of mourning expectations. She explores why parents of LGBTQ kids frequently carry a grief they feel they aren't allowed to name — the exploding movie reel of the life you imagined — and why acknowledging that grief is actually an act of deeper love, not a betrayal of it.
Then she widens the lens. The doom-scrolling at 2 AM. The bone-deep fatigue. The frantic bargaining of "if I just call one more representative." Heather names what so many of us are feeling but can't articulate: we are collectively grieving. And she connects it directly to the stages of grief explored in last week's episode about her sister Corinne.
But this episode doesn't leave you in the heaviness. Heather offers a profoundly practical antidote: curiosity. Through a real-time guided body check-in, she walks you through the physical difference between judgment and curiosity — and shows you how that single shift creates enough spaciousness to hold grief AND take action. To feel furious at injustice AND still lead with compassion. To sit in sadness AND show up at your kid's school board meeting.
This is where sustainable change lives. This is the sweet spot.
ACTION:
This week's Butterfly Effect micro-action: Put your hand on your heart for 10 seconds before you respond to anyone. Then answer from your actual self — not your panic.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy

Are you an overwhelmed mom of an LGBTQ+ teen who's feeling lost trying to navigate the coming out process, and wants to let go of shame and embarrassment, as well as build a deeper connection of trust within yourself and your teen? Click here to learn how to work with me 1-1.
Are you trying to do the right thing for your LGBTQ child by finding them a therapist, but quietly hoping that someone will help them realize this “isn’t who they really are?”
In this episode, I gently unpack the fix reflex, the well-intentioned but deeply damaging pattern of using therapy as a tool for correction instead of support. If you’ve been scheduling appointments, switching therapists, and asking careful questions while a quiet hope hums underneath it all, this episode will help you see what your child already feels as well as what it’s costing your relationship.
Learn why the instinct to "fix" your child's identity quietly erodes the trust you're trying so hard to protect
Discover what your child actually hears when help comes with a hidden agenda and why they stop letting you in
Get access to a free intro coaching call where we unpack the fear underneath the fix reflex and begin building real connection

If you're ready to stop letting fear drive your decisions and start showing up as the safe place your child needs you to be, press play now and let the shift begin.
Hi, I’m Heather Hester, and I’m so glad you’re here!
Are you ready to take action? Let's connect and create a personalized plan!
Stay informed - receive my newsletter 2x/month
Invite me to speak at your workshop or event
Read my book, Parenting with Pride.
Share More Human. More Kind. Please subscribe, rate, and review!
Connect [email protected]
Buy Me A Coffee
Watch on YouTube
Listen to *NEW* episodes every Tuesday and Friday!
At the heart of my work is a deep commitment to compassion, authenticity, and transformative allyship, especially for those navigating the complexities of parenting LGBTQ kids. Through this podcast, speaking, my writing, and the spaces I create, I help people unlearn bias, embrace their full humanity, and grow their capacity for courageous, compassionate connection.
For parents, allies, and those pioneering a way to lead with love and kindness, I’m here with true, messy, and heart-warming stories, real tools, and grounding support to help you move from fear to fierce, informed action.
Whether you’re listening in, working with me directly, or quietly taking it all in, I see you. And I’m so glad you’re part of this journey.
More Human. More Kind. formerly Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen is a safe and supportive podcast in a heartfelt and empowering space where a mom and advocate offers practical guidance and education to parents and allies, fostering empathy, kindness, love, and strong boundaries while supporting LGBTQ teens and the diverse LGBTQ community—including gay, lesiban, bisexual, trans, transgender, and queer individuals—through conversations about mental health, grief, gender identity, sexual orientation, human rights, social justice, parenting, parent support, and meaningful LGBTQ allyship and allyship in action.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy

Join me on Substack for more tools to stay human in a complicated world.
Do you ever feel like you should be "past" your grief by now? Like there's some invisible finish line you haven't reached?
On what would have been her sister Corinne's 49th birthday, Heather opens up about the moment that cracked her wide open and why grief doesn't expire, it shape-shifts. In this deeply personal episode, she walks through the five stages of grief not as a checklist, but as a living landscape and draws a powerful through-line between personal loss, the hidden grief parents of LGBTQ+ youth carry, and the collective heartbreak so many of us are feeling right now.
Whether you're an ally looking for guidance, a parent navigating your child's identity, or simply a human carrying something heavy you haven't been able to name, this episode is for you.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why the five stages of grief aren't linear and why that's actually good news
How denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance show up for parents of LGBTQ+ kids and for allies navigating a world in crisis
A powerful reframe: acceptance isn't complacency, it's the birthplace of sustainable action

This is the first episode in a three-part grief series. Next week, we'll explore how personal grief maps onto the collective, and what it looks like to hold space for LGBTQ+ families while also holding space for yourself.
If you're ready to stop judging your grief and start getting curious about what it's teaching you, press play now.
Hi, I’m Heather Hester, and I’m so glad you’re here!
Are you ready to take action? Let's connect and create a personalized plan!
Stay informed - receive my newsletter 2x/month
Invite me to speak at your workshop or event
Read my book, Parenting with Pride.
Share More Human. More Kind. Please subscribe, rate, and review!
Connect [email protected]
Buy Me A Coffee
Watch on YouTube
Listen to *NEW* episodes every Tuesday and Friday!
At the heart of my work is a deep commitment to compassion, authenticity, and transformative allyship, especially for those navigating the complexities of parenting LGBTQ kids. Through this podcast, speaking, my writing, and the spaces I create, I help people unlearn bias, embrace their full humanity, and grow their capacity for courageous, compassionate connection.
For parents, allies, and those pioneering a way to lead with love and kindness, I’m here with true, messy, and heart-warming stories, real tools, and grounding support to help you move from fear to fierce, informed action.
Whether you’re listening in, working with me directly, or quietly taking it all in, I see you. And I’m so glad you’re part of this journey.
More Human. More Kind. formerly Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen is a safe and supportive podcast in a heartfelt and empowering space where a mom and advocate offers practical guidance and education to parents and allies, fostering empathy, kindness, love, and strong boundaries while supporting LGBTQ teens and the diverse LGBTQ community—including gay, lesiban, bisexual, trans, transgender, and queer individuals—through conversations about mental health, grief, gender identity, sexual orientation, human rights, social justice, parenting, parent support, and meaningful LGBTQ allyship and allyship in action.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy