Five with Fry

Five with Fry is your go-to podcast for understanding conflict—where it comes from, why it shows up, and how to handle it with clarity and intention. On each episode, Dr. Jen Fry breaks down the moments we avoid, the reactions we default to, and the skills it takes to move through conflict without blowing things up or shutting down.

Five with Fry is a society podcast hosted by Dr. Jen Fry, with 84 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Dr. Jen Fry hosts Five with Fry, a society show with 84 episodes published.

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  Episode #3

  S5 Ep3: Stop Replaying the Meeting in the Shower

  Sep 29, 20267 minS5

  You can say “thank you for the feedback,” leave the meeting, and still have no idea what your boss actually meant. Was that a small thing they want you to work on? A bigger performance concern? Something that could affect the promotion you’ve been talking about? This week, we’re looking at feedback from the employee side of the conversation and what happens when you don’t have enough information to know what to do with what you just heard. Asking for clarity doesn’t make you defensive. Sometimes you need the example. You need to know how serious it is. You need to know what your manager expects to see change. And before you leave the room, make sure you and your manager actually heard the same conversation. Because “thank you for the feedback” might end the meeting, but it doesn’t mean you understood it.

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  Five with Fry

  S4 Ep10: The Thing Your Kid Does That You Won't

  Sep 1, 20267 min

  Most of us organize our adult lives around never being bad at something in public. Our kids do it every week. They miss the serve with the gym watching. They get subbed out in front of their friends. They get corrected out loud and have to walk back on and try the thing they just failed at. That's not the downside of youth sports. It's the lesson, and it's teaching itself at an age when most adults would rather do anything else. I close the season by naming what's underneath all of it: working with a teammate you can't stand, taking feedback without falling apart, working hard and not getting what you wanted. And I'm honest about what the adults do to that, how easily the money we put in turns into a return we start watching for, and a return we're watching for turns into blame our kids learn to copy. If you've felt that pull, this one's for you. My book Before You Blame the Coach is available now.

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  Episode #9

  S4 Ep9: Your Coach Isn't A Vending Machine

  Aug 25, 20268 minS4

  There's a version of the young coach in your kid's gym that you've already written off. You clocked the age, the thin résumé, the decision you'd never have made, and you decided. Before a single practice, sometimes. I coached club at 21. I got handed a team I was never supposed to run, didn't know brackets, missed things a seasoned coach never would. The only reason I lasted long enough to coach a Division I national championship is that the parents on that first team gave me room to be bad before I got good. So this episode is about the double standard nobody says out loud: we hand our own kids grace for every misread and missed rep, and we hand the young coach a verdict. One bad call becomes a group-chat pile-on. And it works. Good coaches leave, because DoorDash pays the same with none of the weekends and none of the personal attacks. I'm not telling you to ignore harm. I'm telling you there's a line between a coach who's learning and a coach who's hurting your kid, and most of what sets us off lives nowhere near it.

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  Episode #8

  S4 Ep8: Congratulations, Your Kid Just Fired The Sport

  Aug 18, 20267 minS4

  Your kid says they're done, and they say it without drama. No meltdown, no blowup, just a decision. They walk away lighter. And you're the one left standing there running the numbers on everything you put in. I've watched this from the coach side for years, and the part that surprises parents most isn't losing the games. It's losing the people. Somewhere in there, your kid's team became your team. Those parents on the sideline became the friends who carried you through the hard stuff. When your kid walks away, you lose that too, and nobody tells you to expect the grief that comes with it. So this episode is about what's actually happening in you in that moment, and why the grief is real but it's yours to hold, not your child's to manage. I get into the first thing to say when they tell you (it's shorter than you'd guess), and why it matters so much that they were honest with you instead of just quietly checking out. If your athlete has said it, or you can feel it coming, this one's for you. https://jenfrytalksyouthsports.com/book

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  Episode #7

  S4 Ep7: Your kid isn't being picked on. They are being coached.

  Aug 11, 20266 minS4

  Your kid comes off the court and says the coach is picking on them again. Always calling them out, never the other kids. And before they've finished the sentence, you're already halfway to a decision about what you're going to do about it. I get why. You hear the hurt in their voice, and you want to protect them. But most of the time, that thing your kid is calling out isn't being singled out. It's being coached. And the two feel identical from the passenger seat if nobody's ever taught your kid the difference. In this episode, I talk about what actually happens when a coach keeps correcting your athlete, why the kid getting less feedback usually isn't the one doing better, and the reflex I watched parents fall into for fifteen years on the bench side — treating a correction like something's gone wrong instead of something's being built. I also get into the harder line: when tough feedback gets called abuse, and why blurring that costs your kid something later. Before You Blame the Coach is out now. If this one lands, share it with a sport parent who needs it. https://jenfrytalksyouthsports.com/book

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