Cara Natterson, M.D.
Pediatrician, consultant, and leading expert on puberty and adolescent health
Vanessa Kroll Bennett
Puberty educator and expert, writer, and podcaster
Vanessa Kroll Bennett is a USA Today bestselling author and podcaster who helps adults navigate uncertainty while supporting the kids they love. She is co-author of the bestselling book This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained, co-host of the This Is So Awkward podcast, and President of Content at Less Awkward. Vanessa was founder of Dynamo Girl, a company focused on building kids’ self-esteem through sports and puberty education. Vanessa has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, The Drew Barrymore Show, The Tamron Hall Show, and Morning Joe, and in The New York Times, Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Katie Couric Media, Oprah Daily, and PEOPLE magazine, among many others. Vanessa speaks to audiences across the country, using science and humor to encourage open (albeit awkward) conversations – a relatable, reliable approach to help keep kids safe and healthy.
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About Vanessa Kroll Bennett
Weaving together scientific research, parenting strategies, and hilarious personal stories, Vanessa Kroll Bennett helps guide adults and caregivers raising kids through the tween and teen years. She offers relatable, reliable advice on how to communicate with kids and research-based, relatable strategies to support them. Seeing the lack of opportunities for her daughter in sports programs, Kroll Bennett started Dynamo Girl. She is now the President of Content at Less Awkward, a company dedicated to flipping puberty positive with content and products.
Along with Cara Natterson, M.D., Vanessa Kroll Bennett is the co-author of This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained. This Is So Awkward is the ultimate roadmap for adults helping tweens and teens navigate the rollercoaster of puberty. From offering pointed advice for communicating with kids to science-based explanations for all of puberty’s physical, emotional, and social changes, this handbook provides the answers for parenting Gens Z and Alpha.
Bennett co-hosts the This Is So Awkward podcast with Cara Natterson, M.D., which offers practical and actionable advice on supporting kids through adolescence. She is a regular contributor to Scary Mommy, where she candidly shares her experience raising tweens and teens. A graduate of Wellesley College, Vanessa holds a Masters in Jewish History, but perhaps her most important schooling comes from raising her own four children, ages 14 to 22. She currently lives in New York with her husband and children.
Contact us for more information about booking Vanessa Kroll Bennett for your next event.
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Speaking Topics
This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained
Drawing from her well extensive research for her book, This Is So Awkward, Vanessa Kroll Bennett educates parents and caregivers on how puberty – a stage of life experienced by all humans – has changed across the generations and offers help for the bewildered adults charged with supporting kids through it. She provides relatable, reliable advice about how to talk about all of it with the kids in their lives.
Communicating with Tweens and Teens
One hallmark of puberty is its roller coaster of hormone-driven emotions. In this talk, Vanessa Kroll Bennett focuses on how teaching adults on how communicate with adolescents, diving into the gamut of relationships – including family, friends, and romantic interests – and laying out research-based, relatable strategies to support tweens and teens.
Categories: Parenting Speakers, Wellness Speakers -
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Praise for Vanessa Kroll Bennett
Praise for This Is So Awkward
How are loving adults supposed to guide tweens and teens when everything—even puberty—has changed so much since their own adolescence? Cara Natterson and Vanessa Bennett have the answer! This Is So Awkward is an accessible, enjoyable, and detailed road map for addressing even the most delicate topics with confidence and compassion.
— Lisa Damour, PhD, author of Untangled, Under Pressure, and The Emotional Lives of TeenagersPuberty is inevitable, but Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett can help spare you and your child the confusion and embarrassment that stops so many of us in our tracks. Indeed, This is So Awkward is the book every household needs if there is someone aged 8-18 living in it. No more winging it, this guide has you covered!
— Aliza Pressman, host of the Raising Good Humans podcastParenting through puberty can be a minefield. We all want to say the right thing, but it’s easy to be paralyzed by discomfort, lack of knowledge, and the fact that things may have changed a lot since we were kids. This book is nothing less than a path through that minefield. It is a must read.
— Emily Oster, New York Times bestselling author of Cribsheet and The Family FirmWhat’s more awkward than kids going through puberty? Parents trying to navigate it all! Fortunately, Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett have written This is So Awkward. Always authentic, informative, and practical, they use science and humor to walk us through which conversations to have and how and when to have them. This is the must-read guide you’ve been waiting for.
— Tina Payne Bryson, LCSW, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling co-author of The Whole-Brain Child and No Drama Discipline -
Books by Vanessa Kroll Bennett
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Media About Vanessa Kroll Bennett
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- Vanessa Kroll Bennett travels from New York, New York
Featured Title
This Is So Awkward
“Think back to your own experience of puberty, and then multiply the confusion and awkwardness by ten—being an emerging adult today is hard! And yet this is also true: these tumultuous years offer so much opportunity for connection, empowerment, and knowledge-building. This is So Awkward will equip you with expert wisdom, deep compassion, and lots of laughs, and will enable you to show up as that parent—the one kids can turn to.”—Dr. Becky Kennedy, New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside
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