Growing up Together: A PEPS Story From Newborns to Teens 

By Sarah Bahn, PEPS Communications & Marketing Manager (Estimated reading time: 7 minutes)

What’s it like to journey through parenting with the same group of families for more than a decade? For one PEPS Group, it’s meant having a consistent community of support to navigate everything from newborn sleep cycles to teenage mood swings. 

This group of eight families met in 2012 through a PEPS Newborn Group and never stopped showing up for each other. After years of making new memories and supporting each other through out-of-state moves, divorces, and parenting challenges, they recently reconvened for a PEPS Parents of Adolescents and Teens (PAT) Group as their “PEPS babies” became teenagers.  

Then: Finding Solidarity in the Newborn Phase 

When this group first met in 2012, their PEPS Newborn Group helped normalize the rollercoaster of early parenthood. “Oh man, we didn’t know anything back then,” said Erika, one of the moms in the group.  

At a time when daily worries revolved around sleep, spit-up, and poop, the relief of hearing “me too” and getting reassurance from others in the same stage was invaluable. Melissa, a mom in the group, joked, “I think this group probably saved all of us about 20 trips to the ER.” 

Their Newborn Group provided informational support, connection, and an excuse to get out of the house. Even for parents in the group who had friends with toddlers or older kids, the value of connecting with parents going through the exact same phase, and experiencing the same worries and sleep deprivation, created a powerful bond.  

Growing Up Together 

After their official PEPS sessions ended, the group stuck with their Monday evening schedule, meeting biweekly for years. That consistency helped them prioritize connection, even as life got busy. The group’s advice for staying in touch? Keep it on the calendar. One of the group members, Jane, noted that while many friend groups can take weeks or even months to find a date that works for everyone to get together, having a standing PEPS meetup date on the calendar made staying close feel easy.  

When the pandemic paused in-person gatherings, their group chat picked up the slack — buzzing with parenting wins and worries, camping plans, and life updates.  

They also built lasting traditions: camping trips, vacations to national parks, and an annual gathering at a family-friendly music festival — an event that both the parents and kids look forward to every summer. The parents have enjoyed watching the dynamic shift over time, from wrangling toddlers to now relaxing as their kids roam the festival in a pack, checking in only when they need cash for food (which they’ll request from whichever parent they find first).  

Both the moms and dads have found meaningful connection through the group. Aaron shared how important his friendships with some of the other dads have been to him: “We all came from very different walks of life… I think that I might never know Mark or Jay if it hadn’t been for this group, and what a huge hole that would be in my life.”  

Melissa shared how restorative their moms’ weekends away are, saying, “There are some weekends where we cry the whole time, there are some weekends we laugh until we cry the whole time, some weekends we’re healthy and we go on hikes and walks, and some weekends we just drink wine. But it’s just so nice to have a group of women that I feel like know me so well… we can all be very honest with each other about where we’re at right then and there.” 

That connection has extended to their kids, too. Jane shared memories from hiking and camping trips over the years, saying, “Our kids will complain on a flat 1-mile loop, but if they are with their PEPS friends, they will hike 7 miles round trip and back… I think of so many days where we’ve had these unbelievable adventures that our kids would never happily do alone, with all of our friends from PEPS.” From hikes to epic Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, the younger generation has built a community of their own.  

Now: Tackling the Teen Years 

Despite sharing countless parenting conversations over the years, the parents thought they might benefit from a more structured space to tackle new challenges as their kids entered their teenage years. They formed a customized Parents of Adolescents and Teens (PAT) Group through PEPS.  

At least one parent from all eight families reconvened for the PAT Group. Some were skeptical – giving up two hours every Sunday? Aaron wasn’t sure about the time commitment initially, but found he was looking forward to the PAT meeting by the second week.  

Since they were already good friends, gathering in this environment felt easy and natural. Melissa said, “We’re talking about challenging topics and we’re talking about things that can be scary or stressful, but I’m doing it with people I love talking to and love hanging out with, so it made it feel more fun and social and not necessarily like work or learning.”  

Even after years of friendship, the PAT Program’s research-backed curriculum and facilitation added depth to the group’s conversations. Erika shared, “Teenage years are harder than newborn years… to be able to talk about the teenage things again in the same supportive, open environment… it’s like the same warm feeling that you had when they were babies of having this whole support group.”  

The research-backed curriculum encouraged more intentional conversations, both in the group and with their kids. Parents appreciated strategies like how to approach tough topics — sex, substances, screen time — in ways that make teens more likely to open up. “Part of the value is just the push to even talk about something that you kind of know you should, but you’re not thinking about it and it’s not on your front burner,” Jane reflected. After the sessions, she and her partner often used the discussion as a springboard for conversations with their teen.  

For Aaron, learning about adolescent brain development through PAT shifted his perspective on his relationship with his child. During times when he was frustrated with their behavior, his learnings from PAT helped him celebrate his child’s evolution and the ways their brain was changing and developing through this phase.  

The families appreciated the framework PAT provided. “It was incredibly valuable to have structured information and intentional conversations around such important subjects,” shared Eebie, a mom in the group. “We were having some of these conversations informally around the campfire, but it was really nice to have both the information and the intention.” Because the group already shared trust and history, they were able to skip the small talk and dive right into real conversations. “It feels like we started at a college-level course versus elementary school,” Melissa said.  

Making Time – And Why It’s Worth It 

Finding time in a busy schedule is one of the biggest barriers to parents joining a PAT Group, and this group was no different. But in the end, they all agreed it was time well spent. Erika shared that the knowledge they got from the PAT Group will probably save them some hard conversations later, and the connection was meaningful, too: “The information that you get is really worth it and valuable, and if you’re able to connect with a bunch of people that are going through the same things, it’s worth your two hours a week.”  

What’s Next?  

This group is already thinking about their next steps — from planning future camping trips to dreaming up ideas for an empty nesters PEPS Group, they’ll continue supporting each other in the years to come. “I do love how PEPS has kind of grown with us… we get this opportunity again,” Eebie shared.  

Find Support Through a PAT Group 

Parenting an adolescent isn’t easy – but you don’t have to do it alone. PAT Groups offer research-based tools, experienced facilitators, and meaningful community. Parents with children ages 10-19 can join an existing 4-week or 9-week PAT Group or form a customized PAT Group with parents they already know – whether that’s reconvening a Newborn PEPS Group, a school or faith community, or a neighborhood crew.  

As this group has shown, it takes consistent work to build your community of support — and it’s worth making time for.  

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