DAD LIFE
Steve Silvestro, MD
BY PJ FEINSTEIN
What do you love about the
work you do?
Pediatrician, bone marrow harvesting
physician and
host of “The Child Repair
Guide Podcast”
OCCUPATION: LIVES:
Rockville, MD
North Bethesda,
MD and Washington, DC
WORKS: Adeline, 12,
and Cole, 10
CHILDREN: SPOUSE:
Monica Silvestro
40 Washington FAMILY JUNE 2020
So in 2016, I launched “The Child Repair
Guide Podcast.” Over 100 episodes later,
and having covered everything from basic
medical questions to talking to kids about
race and puberty to growth mindset and
more, it’s blossomed into a thriving podcast,
YouTube channel and social media presence.

It’s been a pretty amazing journey!
I get to help kids and parents feel less
anxiety and more confidence through all
the ups and downs of growing up, which is a
pretty special role. What I love about the
podcast and all of the associated projects
with social media and YouTube is the
incredible opportunity to do this in a unique,
creative way—to feed the imaginative part How has the coronavirus
of my soul and bring helpful, enjoyable pandemic affected your work
content to people in the process.

and your home life?
This is a healthcare crisis, and there has
been a lot of wonderful praise for healthcare
What do you love about
workers, but the experience has been odd
being a dad?
Before you have kids, you might worry that for primary care docs. If the ER or ICU is
being a parent means losing a part of who you the front line, we’re kind of in Iceland. In
are—that it’ll hold you back from becoming our practice, we’re each only going into the
who you’re supposed to be. I find it’s actu- office one day a week to see a small hand-
ally the opposite that’s true—that being a ful of baby or toddler checkups, then doing
parent forces you to grow and develop parts telemedicine from home the rest of the
of yourself you never knew needed work, or week.

The biggest challenge has been trying to
maybe never even knew were there at all.

I’m trying to get more in tune with who I educate families about the pandemic in a
am every day, in part to become the parent way that walks the line of being both imper-
I want to be for my kids, but also because of ative enough that people take this seriously
what I learn about myself as my wife and I and reassuring enough that we don’t cause
overwhelming anxiety. Early on, I wrote an
raise them.

article that went mega-viral with more than
2.5 million views. It discussed why playdates
Tell us about “The Child
were not a good idea, and the way it reso-
Repair Guide Podcast.”
Several years ago, I received a phone call nated with so many people reinforced to me
from a mom who was sobbing because her the role that good, clear messaging can play
18-month-old daughter had a fever of 100.8. in helping people respond to challenges.

As for my family, we’re facing many of the
Keep in mind that the medical definition of
fever starts at 100.4, so this was just barely same challenges that other families face—
a fever. But it was her daughter’s first fever, how to deal with online learning, working
from home and being confined to a space
and the mom was petrified.

At first, I was taken aback by how worried with the same people day in and day out.

this mom was over such a common childhood But we’ve also used this as an opportunity
occurrence, but then it struck me that I for creativity. My kids were making a video
wasn’t terribly different when I first became a news show for a while. My wife and I have
parent. I probably diagnosed my poor teamed up to make “10-Minute Preschool,”
daughter with half a dozen bizarre things when a YouTube series for preschoolers stuck
she was a baby—none of which she actually home during the pandemic. And we’ve all
had—all because my new-parent eyes were taken to learning or practicing instruments.

We’ve been busy!
catastrophizing every possible problem.