WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for joining me on the piece of parenting podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you're here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The back-to-school season, everybody braces for it because it's hard, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard for everybody.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's stressful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've got new teachers and new routines.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've got earlier mornings.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have to get them ready and get out the door and people feel rushed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We talk them through it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We buy the backpack and the lunch box.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we say, you've got this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have any kids who are neurodivergent in any way, this can be very, very, very challenging because transitions can be hard for kids on the spectrum, or with ADHD, or with ODD, or with any diagnosis.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we spend a lot of time inside our programs, helping parents of those kids.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But nobody hands you the heads up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody says, hey, it's going to be hard on you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The earlier alarms are hard on you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The packed calendar is hard on you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What about the forms?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The emails, the picks up, the drop-offs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The 10 things you have to do before Friday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Get the school supplies and the new clothes and the uniforms.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is that you have to deal with, it's extra.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it is far from the days of summer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're making a hundred more decisions a day than you were making in July, right when your own tank is running low because you've had the kids all summer long and juggling a million different schedules as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the transition back to school is hard on the whole family, not just the kids.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're adjusting, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So today is not about fixing your child's behavior.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, none of my meetings are really about that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it is absolutely not about blaming you for being tired and stressed out because I don't want any of my meetings to be about that either.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's about what actually happens to a family in these first through three week, few weeks, I'd say six, why the evening's fall apart and how we take some of the weight off of us for our kids and for you as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about a moment that taught me this years ago when both the girls were in elementary school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Back when I still thought that the whole job of parenting was getting things done and that literally was my motto in life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to get things done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had to be productive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I picked the girls up after school as me was little.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was already running the list in my head of all the things that had to be done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They have to come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They have to wash their hands.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They have to take their shoes off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They have to take their lunch box out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They throw away the trust them to do their homework.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have to get dinner and my anxiety was running so high.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and I just kept thinking I don't have enough time to get it all done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to rush us through.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to push them to do this and push them to do that and threaten them to do this and bribe them to do that because I needed to get all the things done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I dragged us up the hill to the house like a freight train at full speed, a barking orders asking questions one after another in the Los Angeles.
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[SPEAKER_00]: September heat, we had to walk uphill with two little girls, and I was barking orders.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As far as I was concerned, we're on a schedule, and there was no time to waste, and as me started to come apart, as she should.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I stood there thinking, I don't understand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was final day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her teacher's loved her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She loved school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was final day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that was exactly the problem.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had spent all day holding it together, being nice to the librarian, trying to make new friends, trying to press her new teacher.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Here is what a school day actually asks of a child.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sit still, follow the rules.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Manage friendships, raise your hand, wait your turn, hold in the big feelings until it's an okay time, read the room all day long.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They are working the entire time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The most of that work is invisible, though.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A child who held it together all day hasn't run out of good behavior, they've run out of fuel that it takes to perform to mask, to behave.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So they walk through the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The one place on Earth, hopefully, they're sure they're loved no matter what and it all comes out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The tears, the meltdown over, not getting the red cup, the sudden they can't do anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a name for this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's called System Restrain Collapse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They restrain themselves all day long, and with you, they feel safe, and they collapse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The first 10 minutes after school aren't for questions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a tip, don't ask them questions the first 10 minutes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, how is your day?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, do you have homework just be a soft place to land, a snack, a hug, a couch, and quiet?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The download comes later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Once the tank has something in it, some connection, some food, some quiet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this isn't a lecture.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It costs them, yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it also cost you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You held it together, too, today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You had your own version of the following rules and reading the room and getting things done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You come home just as empty.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got a house full of depleted people all landing at the same place at 5 o'clock.
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[SPEAKER_00]: with dinner still to make and bedtime still to happen and homework still to get done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't a discipline problem.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a connection and a fuel problem.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I always said I lived three days.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One in the morning while I was getting the girls ready for school and I was getting myself ready.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a whole day, it felt like a whole day those two hours.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then another day while they left trying to get things done, working or taking care of the
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[SPEAKER_00]: taking care of myself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a whole day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I felt like I had my third day when they came home from school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: How many people feel like they have three days?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The morning day, the middle of the day, and the end of the day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, how can you be expected to take care of three days in one day?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's not fair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not fair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a reason it feels the hardest right now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it isn't your head.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A transition is its own kind of work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A new schedule, a new wake-up time, new everything, new teachers, new emails, new drop-off process, new pick-up process.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes these emails, honestly, I read these high school emails, and I'm like, it's my numbing first of all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They write so many words.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's complicated.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these emails are complicated and they ask you to do so much and there's 75 links.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I spent 45 minutes setting up my own account on PS school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There were three different things I had to do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I got in there and I spent another hour just looking at it all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know what I was looking at it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think the first six weeks of school is its own season.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the year, it feels like a whole year and just those first six weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's an adjustment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The stretch where everyone is a little more law, LeBra, a little quicker to tears, a little shorter with each other, where you're doing everything for the first time again and none of it is really automatic yet, and so everything is so arduous.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're not failing the season.
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[SPEAKER_00]: you are in the hardest part of it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference in it matters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And here's where I see good loving, capable, beautiful, lovely parents have a hard time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly the moment we pile more on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: New school year, fresh start, so we sign up for new activities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We say yes to extra commitments and play dates.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We decide this year, we want to run a tight ship with the color-coded card and the charts and the this and the extra.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We add right at the moment when our capacity is at the lowest and I did this for years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I believed that parenting was getting things done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did it for years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was the holy grail of parenting, was getting things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought that if I didn't complete these things, then I was doing nothing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't parenting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't, you know, running my ship.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So then I'd lose it and then I'd feel terrible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next day, I do it again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're depleted in the evening, after you've been getting a million things done, what's your first move?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you one, push through and get louder and stronger?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you be, go quiet and shut down?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you see add more, more tasks, more things?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you do, I don't know, you just, it all spills out and it's a mess, it's just a mess.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what I want to give you today per mission to do less on purpose, not because you don't care not because you've given up as a parent I think that's something I really struggled with if I did less than somehow I wasn't parenting right I wasn't doing enough I should doing it all best I can.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But doing less is an actual strategy during a hard adjustment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I call it under Parenting and it's one of my favorite things to teach, because it helped me as a perfectionist and overachiever and constant doer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It helped me give myself permission.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we can use it in many times in our life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have to be just during back to school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during grief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during separation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during divorce.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during a new work environment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during a family move.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we just need to embrace doing less as a strategy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So under parenting means you stop trying to optimize and you start trying to survive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: you lower the bar with intention, and you decide which things matter and which things don't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You say it out loud.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These six weeks are not the six weeks to do it all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the choice is not a failure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's being smart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What you don't do is you give up on connection and I think this is where people take the wrong turn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, oh, I'll do special time later because I can't do special time because it's back to school and I'm too busy and we have activities and I've got to do a play date and I'm exhausted and I can't do connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where we kind of run into a problem because when we drop connection, then everything seems to fall apart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the goal for the next six weeks is not a family that's thriving on paper.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a family that's connected and still standing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the win.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So let me tell you some specifics about what I want you to do last with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to have low prep meals.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Serial and fruit is a meal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frozen stuff you can eat it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Rotiseries are great.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Breakfast for dinner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Case a dia.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Super quick and easy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just feed the kid and have a calm table and feed them what they want.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just for a few weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: viewer activities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to do every activity the first month.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay to start something in October.
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[SPEAKER_00]: An empty afternoon is good.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It leaves time for connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Protect your calendar.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One week night commitment not for.
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[SPEAKER_00]: guard the blank spaces, like it's an appointment because it is.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I used to put special time in my calendar.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I used to put it in there so I would do it because then I felt productive like I was doing something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I got rid of a lot of other stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: lower the bar on your house.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This one is really hard for some people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some people say, I can't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have to have my environment be a certain way or I get anxious.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If that's true, you got to look deep.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that so important to you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because you're not able to rest because you're not able to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: really sink into being connected to your kids or being alone in the mess.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because your life is so chaotic that you need to control something?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because you have control issues and you have to control that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't control that, then you feel that control.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's something in there that you should take a look at.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll talk about how you can do that, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But nobody gets more connected in your family because the sink is cleaned out or the dishes are done or the laundry is folded.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody gets more connected.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's sometimes sacrifices connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Your kitchen does not have to be spotless.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let bedtime be simple.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On the hard nights, the routines can be three steps, not 10 connection over the checklist.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Make it easy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody gets in one bed and we all read one book and that's how it's gonna be for the first part of school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, none of this is giving up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All of it is you deciding where you're limited fuel goes because it can only, you only have so much.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to choose to spend it on connection, you have to choose to spend it on your kids, on your sanity, not on these standards of clean houses and beautiful meals and activities that don't really matter.
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[SPEAKER_00]: because the truth is underneath it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can't pour connection from an empty cup.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you do all these other things that you think you need to do, you're not going to be able to connect with your kid.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I see so many families saying that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm too exhausted to do special time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm too tired to connect with my kid because they put so many things on the important list above connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then the kids are acting out
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you run yourself into the ground, trying to do it all, the first thing that goes is the very thing your kids need most from you, your calm, your presence, and your patience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So when you prioritize all the other things that don't matter, those things are sacrificed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: under parenting on the small and important stuff is what protects connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is more important than anything else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's as important as food and water.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's talk about regulating yourself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, under parenting clears the space, but there's a second piece and it's the one that changes the evenings the most.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's us.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's our calm and that's a hard thing to gain in parenting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But we can help you do that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot calm a child from a place where you yourself are not calm.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The work starts in you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It always starts in you.
15:47.542 --> 15:48.883
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not being critical.
15:49.263 --> 15:50.144
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts in me.
15:50.264 --> 15:52.666
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the most uncombed parent there was.
15:52.806 --> 15:54.527
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a disaster.
15:54.667 --> 15:56.889
[SPEAKER_00]: I was uptight and annoying.
15:57.049 --> 15:59.350
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I can't imagine why my kids even wanted
16:01.473 --> 16:03.756
[SPEAKER_00]: but they catch it, right?
16:03.796 --> 16:06.098
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a cold, like you sneeze it onto them.
16:06.759 --> 16:08.962
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wondered why as me was so anxious.
16:10.003 --> 16:11.425
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she had an anxious mom.
16:12.806 --> 16:19.734
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you walk in the door, a wound tight, like I did, dragging those kids up that hill, it's still remember vividly.
16:19.794 --> 16:21.396
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember what we were wearing.
16:22.580 --> 16:23.980
[SPEAKER_00]: they wind tighter.
16:24.841 --> 16:34.503
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you are able to soften even a little, even a fake soften for 30 seconds, they've got something to settle against.
16:34.823 --> 16:44.826
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the thermostat for the room, not because it's fair, because it's not fair, but just because it's true, unfortunately.
16:45.626 --> 16:46.706
[SPEAKER_00]: They vibe off us.
16:46.926 --> 16:47.206
[SPEAKER_00]: That's,
16:51.635 --> 16:54.536
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question stops being, how do I get them to calm down?
16:54.556 --> 16:58.497
[SPEAKER_00]: And becomes, how do I find my own calm first?
16:59.577 --> 17:02.478
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, under parenting is one, and it will help you stay calm.
17:02.938 --> 17:14.062
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to give you some actual tools that can help you to learn to be a naturally calm person by forming new neural pathways in your body, and that's what I've done over the last.
17:14.863 --> 17:22.955
[SPEAKER_00]: 16 years tried really hard to be the compare and I've gotten there and it didn't take me too long just about a year.
17:22.975 --> 17:24.878
[SPEAKER_00]: So try this week these tools.
17:24.898 --> 17:24.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
17:29.525 --> 17:30.946
[SPEAKER_00]: Walk away to center yourself.
17:30.986 --> 17:37.030
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the number one thing that I started doing early on when I feel it rising before you say anything you regret.
17:37.070 --> 17:42.094
[SPEAKER_00]: Walk away, step out of the room for 60 seconds, go to the bathroom, splash water on your face.
17:42.634 --> 17:47.678
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even need to excuse yourself, but you can't say, hey, I got to go pee and go to the bathroom.
17:48.498 --> 17:52.521
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaving is not losing and not everything needs a response.
17:52.561 --> 17:56.984
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to respond to your children for everything you can be quiet.
17:58.862 --> 18:01.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Find a mantra, one that you like to repeat.
18:01.850 --> 18:04.015
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not an emergency is a good one.
18:04.657 --> 18:06.642
[SPEAKER_00]: Not disrespectful, dysregulated.
18:07.668 --> 18:11.730
[SPEAKER_00]: say it about them, say it about yourself, find something that resonates.
18:12.510 --> 18:13.911
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be your meditation.
18:15.452 --> 18:17.973
[SPEAKER_00]: Slow the breath, slow the system.
18:18.053 --> 18:23.076
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to tell myself, especially during sibling fights, I used to say, I am slow.
18:23.336 --> 18:24.456
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm walking slow.
18:24.657 --> 18:33.441
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm breathing slow and I would slowly walk toward them while I was breathing slowly and it actually works to slow down your system.
18:33.461 --> 18:34.081
[SPEAKER_00]: Your central
18:37.583 --> 18:40.305
[SPEAKER_00]: The slower it is, the slower you are, the calmer you are.
18:41.626 --> 18:42.586
[SPEAKER_00]: These are small.
18:43.447 --> 18:50.291
[SPEAKER_00]: They look almost too small to matter, but I tell you what they work and I've used them every single day.
18:51.612 --> 18:58.136
[SPEAKER_00]: 90 seconds of finding your own floor changes what the next hour in your house feels like every single time.
18:59.528 --> 19:13.855
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you don't manage it because you're going to you're going to slip up, you're going to yell, you're going to say the wrong thing you're going to get mad because you are depleted that's not failure, that's just a opportunity to repair.
19:14.830 --> 19:16.311
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I was short.
19:16.411 --> 19:20.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I yelled, I'm working on it.
19:20.374 --> 19:21.655
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to do better.
19:23.116 --> 19:30.362
[SPEAKER_00]: That sentence teaches your kid more about being human than a perfectly calm evening ever could.
19:30.762 --> 19:34.405
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you mess up, you have an opportunity to have an incredible lesson.
19:35.486 --> 19:40.590
[SPEAKER_00]: Repairs the skill, Mount Perfection, especially him now, especially back to school.
19:41.878 --> 19:46.560
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get really practical because a lot of you have after me asked me some version of this.
19:46.800 --> 19:49.801
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do actually say when they walk in?
19:49.861 --> 19:52.722
[SPEAKER_00]: Because everyone wants to say, how is your day?
19:52.742 --> 19:54.402
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we want to know, they've been gone.
19:54.522 --> 19:55.843
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to know what's going on.
19:56.463 --> 19:57.603
[SPEAKER_00]: Where were you for seven hours?
19:57.643 --> 19:58.604
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell were you doing?
19:59.064 --> 20:02.145
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get a fine shrug every time.
20:03.065 --> 20:05.586
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's not that they don't want to talk to you.
20:05.627 --> 20:06.887
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that they're depleted.
20:06.907 --> 20:07.768
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't answer.
20:07.808 --> 20:09.008
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is too big.
20:09.028 --> 20:10.169
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been too many hours.
20:10.189 --> 20:13.531
[SPEAKER_00]: There's too many things to comment on or not comment on.
20:14.111 --> 20:16.213
[SPEAKER_00]: How is your day is an enormous question?
20:16.273 --> 20:16.853
[SPEAKER_00]: Just think about it.
20:16.873 --> 20:18.174
[SPEAKER_00]: If somebody asks you, how is your day?
20:18.934 --> 20:20.395
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, uh, fine.
20:20.935 --> 20:21.255
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess.
20:21.595 --> 20:21.935
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
20:22.436 --> 20:22.836
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.
20:23.816 --> 20:27.858
[SPEAKER_00]: So first remember the 10 minutes don't lead with the question at all.
20:28.218 --> 20:29.179
[SPEAKER_00]: Lead with presence.
20:29.199 --> 20:30.480
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's snack on the counter.
20:30.500 --> 20:32.200
[SPEAKER_00]: A spot next you on the couch.
20:32.240 --> 20:33.421
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you're home.
20:33.841 --> 20:38.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the tank get a little fuel in it before you ask for anything because I'll tell you what.
20:39.244 --> 20:40.544
[SPEAKER_00]: Those kids don't eat at school.
20:40.924 --> 20:41.405
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them.
20:42.185 --> 20:43.005
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe some of them do.
20:43.545 --> 20:44.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And then how do they come home?
20:45.046 --> 20:46.826
[SPEAKER_00]: They're they're famished.
20:47.266 --> 20:48.686
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so hungry.
20:49.326 --> 20:51.207
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like empty empty empty empty.
20:51.247 --> 20:55.607
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you go from like 7 a.m. into 4 p.m. and no food?
20:56.828 --> 20:58.148
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you ask them questions.
20:58.228 --> 20:58.888
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have homework?
20:59.428 --> 21:00.088
[SPEAKER_00]: How's your day?
21:00.888 --> 21:02.569
[SPEAKER_00]: They're probably like, please stop.
21:02.689 --> 21:03.649
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, here's the questions.
21:04.009 --> 21:06.049
[SPEAKER_00]: I missed you so much or those statements.
21:06.549 --> 21:06.789
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been
21:10.812 --> 21:12.494
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the funniest thing that happened?
21:12.714 --> 21:15.096
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you and I'm so glad I got to pick you up.
21:15.696 --> 21:16.857
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me the best part of the day.
21:16.897 --> 21:17.918
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me your worst part of the day.
21:17.958 --> 21:20.460
[SPEAKER_00]: But you do it after you give them the apple, please.
21:21.376 --> 21:28.759
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you need to come to pick up with a snack and do it, if you have to fix the snack and have it waiting when they walk in, that's good too.
21:29.900 --> 21:45.507
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the most connecting thing you can do is just take the pressure off a kid who knows they don't have to perform a good report for you is a kid 10 minutes later who starts telling you everything on your own if you're quiet and you listen they'll tell you.
21:47.279 --> 21:48.901
[SPEAKER_00]: Connection isn't the download.
21:49.001 --> 21:52.805
[SPEAKER_00]: Connection is being safe enough that the download eventually comes.
21:52.885 --> 21:53.946
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually they'll tell you.
21:55.487 --> 21:56.128
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so.
21:57.620 --> 22:02.442
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we get back into schedule without stretching so thin that we lose it?
22:02.482 --> 22:03.902
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you do need some rhythm.
22:04.022 --> 22:05.383
[SPEAKER_00]: Kids settle into predictability.
22:05.423 --> 22:07.984
[SPEAKER_00]: We all know that kids like schedule, yeah, yeah.
22:08.024 --> 22:10.244
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a difference between rhythm and pressure.
22:10.424 --> 22:12.245
[SPEAKER_00]: And this month, we just want rhythm.
22:13.065 --> 22:17.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Your schedule doesn't have to be like this, like someone's saying, like, hour by hour thing.
22:18.403 --> 22:22.606
[SPEAKER_00]: Build a routine around just a few things, not a hundred things.
22:23.266 --> 22:31.471
[SPEAKER_00]: Wake up as a thing, landing after school as a thing, wind down before bed as a thing, dinner as a thing.
22:32.771 --> 22:37.754
[SPEAKER_00]: Just find three anchor points that you can stick to every day, not 17.
22:39.328 --> 22:41.810
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything in between is allowed to be loose.
22:42.070 --> 22:43.851
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not running a boarding school here.
22:43.912 --> 22:46.734
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just running a house with little kids or big kids.
22:47.594 --> 22:51.637
[SPEAKER_00]: You're building a few reliable moments of safety into the day.
22:52.498 --> 22:53.879
[SPEAKER_00]: And add slowly.
22:54.019 --> 22:57.221
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to have the whole system running by week one.
22:57.702 --> 23:00.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Just breathe into it, just relax.
23:00.944 --> 23:03.846
[SPEAKER_00]: Get one thing steady, then add the next.
23:04.467 --> 23:07.889
[SPEAKER_00]: A routine you build gently in the next two months.
23:08.770 --> 23:12.613
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it ramps up as the year goes on, unfortunately.
23:14.734 --> 23:16.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Pick one anchor this week, just one.
23:16.575 --> 23:18.897
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the 10-minute landing after school.
23:18.957 --> 23:20.658
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's a common bed time.
23:20.798 --> 23:24.440
[SPEAKER_00]: Get that one steady, reliable before you touch anything else.
23:24.840 --> 23:25.781
[SPEAKER_00]: One anchor.
23:26.361 --> 23:29.724
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the, what was your best and worst things today?
23:30.704 --> 23:31.205
[SPEAKER_00]: One anchor.
23:31.345 --> 23:32.285
[SPEAKER_00]: Done consistently.
23:32.365 --> 23:34.967
[SPEAKER_00]: Beats five done frantically.
23:35.836 --> 23:37.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep checking on your own tank as you go.
23:37.878 --> 23:42.201
[SPEAKER_00]: The measure of whether your routine isn't, is working, isn't whether it looks impressive.
23:42.341 --> 23:46.344
[SPEAKER_00]: It's whether you can actually maintain and sustain it, or is it too much?
23:46.984 --> 23:47.985
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you need a shrinkage?
23:48.145 --> 23:50.087
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you need more under parenting?
23:50.587 --> 23:51.648
[SPEAKER_00]: Good, do it.
23:53.489 --> 23:54.510
[SPEAKER_00]: That's you being smart.
23:55.310 --> 23:59.694
[SPEAKER_00]: That's you deciding that connection is the most important thing, not the all this other crap.
24:02.316 --> 24:05.078
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining me on the Peace and Parenting Podcast.
00:07.172 --> 00:09.773
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for joining me on the piece of parenting podcast.
00:10.054 --> 00:11.074
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you're here.
00:13.495 --> 00:18.158
[SPEAKER_00]: The back-to-school season, everybody braces for it because it's hard, right?
00:19.158 --> 00:20.839
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard for everybody.
00:20.939 --> 00:21.760
[SPEAKER_00]: It's stressful.
00:21.840 --> 00:24.081
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got new teachers and new routines.
00:24.121 --> 00:25.682
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got earlier mornings.
00:26.062 --> 00:29.344
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to get them ready and get out the door and people feel rushed.
00:30.463 --> 00:31.544
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk them through it.
00:31.564 --> 00:33.626
[SPEAKER_00]: We buy the backpack and the lunch box.
00:33.706 --> 00:35.108
[SPEAKER_00]: And we say, you've got this.
00:35.929 --> 00:48.562
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have any kids who are neurodivergent in any way, this can be very, very, very challenging because transitions can be hard for kids on the spectrum, or with ADHD, or with ODD, or with any diagnosis.
00:48.622 --> 00:53.727
[SPEAKER_00]: And we spend a lot of time inside our programs, helping parents of those kids.
00:55.637 --> 00:57.858
[SPEAKER_00]: But nobody hands you the heads up.
00:57.918 --> 01:00.359
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody says, hey, it's going to be hard on you.
01:01.300 --> 01:03.701
[SPEAKER_00]: The earlier alarms are hard on you.
01:04.121 --> 01:05.922
[SPEAKER_00]: The packed calendar is hard on you.
01:05.962 --> 01:06.983
[SPEAKER_00]: What about the forms?
01:07.103 --> 01:09.264
[SPEAKER_00]: The emails, the picks up, the drop-offs.
01:10.024 --> 01:12.185
[SPEAKER_00]: The 10 things you have to do before Friday.
01:12.205 --> 01:15.887
[SPEAKER_00]: Get the school supplies and the new clothes and the uniforms.
01:15.947 --> 01:19.188
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is that you have to deal with, it's extra.
01:19.589 --> 01:21.730
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is far from the days of summer.
01:22.390 --> 01:34.513
[SPEAKER_00]: You're making a hundred more decisions a day than you were making in July, right when your own tank is running low because you've had the kids all summer long and juggling a million different schedules as well.
01:34.873 --> 01:38.814
[SPEAKER_00]: So the transition back to school is hard on the whole family, not just the kids.
01:39.415 --> 01:40.535
[SPEAKER_00]: You're adjusting, too.
01:42.070 --> 01:45.713
[SPEAKER_00]: So today is not about fixing your child's behavior.
01:45.813 --> 01:48.255
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, none of my meetings are really about that.
01:49.195 --> 01:56.100
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is absolutely not about blaming you for being tired and stressed out because I don't want any of my meetings to be about that either.
01:56.861 --> 02:11.132
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about what actually happens to a family in these first through three week, few weeks, I'd say six, why the evening's fall apart and how we take some of the weight off of us for our kids and for you as well.
02:11.712 --> 02:11.972
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
02:12.232 --> 02:17.774
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about a moment that taught me this years ago when both the girls were in elementary school.
02:19.135 --> 02:25.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Back when I still thought that the whole job of parenting was getting things done and that literally was my motto in life.
02:25.897 --> 02:26.917
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to get things done.
02:27.017 --> 02:27.998
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to be productive.
02:28.718 --> 02:31.642
[SPEAKER_00]: So I picked the girls up after school as me was little.
02:31.843 --> 02:35.528
[SPEAKER_00]: I was already running the list in my head of all the things that had to be done.
02:35.868 --> 02:36.709
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to come home.
02:36.729 --> 02:38.312
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to wash their hands.
02:38.332 --> 02:39.333
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to take their shoes off.
02:39.353 --> 02:40.475
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to take their lunch box out.
02:40.495 --> 02:42.057
[SPEAKER_00]: They throw away the trust them to do their homework.
02:42.077 --> 02:45.401
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to get dinner and my anxiety was running so high.
02:46.002 --> 02:49.245
[SPEAKER_00]: and I just kept thinking I don't have enough time to get it all done.
02:49.826 --> 02:51.247
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to rush us through.
02:51.547 --> 02:58.494
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to push them to do this and push them to do that and threaten them to do this and bribe them to do that because I needed to get all the things done.
02:58.754 --> 03:09.804
[SPEAKER_00]: I dragged us up the hill to the house like a freight train at full speed, a barking orders asking questions one after another in the Los Angeles.
03:10.865 --> 03:17.170
[SPEAKER_00]: September heat, we had to walk uphill with two little girls, and I was barking orders.
03:17.730 --> 03:26.177
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as I was concerned, we're on a schedule, and there was no time to waste, and as me started to come apart, as she should.
03:27.009 --> 03:29.471
[SPEAKER_00]: And I stood there thinking, I don't understand.
03:29.511 --> 03:30.332
[SPEAKER_00]: She was final day.
03:30.392 --> 03:31.172
[SPEAKER_00]: Her teacher's loved her.
03:31.212 --> 03:31.893
[SPEAKER_00]: She loved school.
03:31.953 --> 03:32.453
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get it.
03:33.574 --> 03:34.775
[SPEAKER_00]: She was final day.
03:35.055 --> 03:37.137
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was exactly the problem.
03:37.537 --> 03:45.664
[SPEAKER_00]: She had spent all day holding it together, being nice to the librarian, trying to make new friends, trying to press her new teacher.
03:47.764 --> 03:51.306
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is what a school day actually asks of a child.
03:51.626 --> 03:53.687
[SPEAKER_00]: Sit still, follow the rules.
03:54.208 --> 04:05.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Manage friendships, raise your hand, wait your turn, hold in the big feelings until it's an okay time, read the room all day long.
04:05.794 --> 04:08.076
[SPEAKER_00]: They are working the entire time.
04:09.576 --> 04:12.258
[SPEAKER_00]: The most of that work is invisible, though.
04:13.928 --> 04:23.634
[SPEAKER_00]: A child who held it together all day hasn't run out of good behavior, they've run out of fuel that it takes to perform to mask, to behave.
04:24.660 --> 04:26.081
[SPEAKER_00]: So they walk through the door.
04:26.101 --> 04:32.183
[SPEAKER_00]: The one place on Earth, hopefully, they're sure they're loved no matter what and it all comes out.
04:32.223 --> 04:39.405
[SPEAKER_00]: The tears, the meltdown over, not getting the red cup, the sudden they can't do anything.
04:40.406 --> 04:41.326
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a name for this.
04:41.386 --> 04:43.427
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called System Restrain Collapse.
04:44.857 --> 04:51.181
[SPEAKER_00]: They restrain themselves all day long, and with you, they feel safe, and they collapse.
04:52.042 --> 04:55.564
[SPEAKER_00]: The first 10 minutes after school aren't for questions.
04:56.064 --> 04:59.667
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a tip, don't ask them questions the first 10 minutes.
05:00.447 --> 05:01.927
[SPEAKER_00]: No, how is your day?
05:02.508 --> 05:13.150
[SPEAKER_00]: No, do you have homework just be a soft place to land, a snack, a hug, a couch, and quiet?
05:14.230 --> 05:16.010
[SPEAKER_00]: The download comes later.
05:16.471 --> 05:22.512
[SPEAKER_00]: Once the tank has something in it, some connection, some food, some quiet.
05:23.592 --> 05:24.733
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this isn't a lecture.
05:25.294 --> 05:26.274
[SPEAKER_00]: It costs them, yes.
05:26.915 --> 05:28.696
[SPEAKER_00]: But it also cost you.
05:29.517 --> 05:31.899
[SPEAKER_00]: You held it together, too, today.
05:32.119 --> 05:36.522
[SPEAKER_00]: You had your own version of the following rules and reading the room and getting things done.
05:37.103 --> 05:38.904
[SPEAKER_00]: You come home just as empty.
05:39.985 --> 05:46.229
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got a house full of depleted people all landing at the same place at 5 o'clock.
05:47.110 --> 05:53.235
[SPEAKER_00]: with dinner still to make and bedtime still to happen and homework still to get done.
05:53.755 --> 05:55.457
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't a discipline problem.
05:55.557 --> 05:57.959
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a connection and a fuel problem.
05:59.320 --> 06:00.901
[SPEAKER_00]: I always said I lived three days.
06:01.601 --> 06:06.125
[SPEAKER_00]: One in the morning while I was getting the girls ready for school and I was getting myself ready.
06:06.165 --> 06:08.747
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a whole day, it felt like a whole day those two hours.
06:08.927 --> 06:14.071
[SPEAKER_00]: And then another day while they left trying to get things done, working or taking care of the
06:16.713 --> 06:17.814
[SPEAKER_00]: taking care of myself.
06:17.974 --> 06:19.055
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a whole day.
06:19.336 --> 06:23.619
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I felt like I had my third day when they came home from school.
06:24.020 --> 06:25.962
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people feel like they have three days?
06:26.342 --> 06:29.185
[SPEAKER_00]: The morning day, the middle of the day, and the end of the day.
06:29.285 --> 06:34.289
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, how can you be expected to take care of three days in one day?
06:34.470 --> 06:35.691
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not fair.
06:35.951 --> 06:36.571
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying.
06:36.872 --> 06:37.332
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not fair.
06:38.874 --> 06:42.217
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a reason it feels the hardest right now.
06:43.370 --> 06:44.691
[SPEAKER_00]: And it isn't your head.
06:45.111 --> 06:48.193
[SPEAKER_00]: A transition is its own kind of work.
06:48.833 --> 06:55.997
[SPEAKER_00]: A new schedule, a new wake-up time, new everything, new teachers, new emails, new drop-off process, new pick-up process.
06:56.057 --> 07:03.582
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes these emails, honestly, I read these high school emails, and I'm like, it's my numbing first of all.
07:04.082 --> 07:05.403
[SPEAKER_00]: They write so many words.
07:06.123 --> 07:08.445
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's complicated.
07:08.525 --> 07:13.608
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these emails are complicated and they ask you to do so much and there's 75 links.
07:14.309 --> 07:19.272
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent 45 minutes setting up my own account on PS school.
07:19.312 --> 07:21.154
[SPEAKER_00]: There were three different things I had to do.
07:21.614 --> 07:24.956
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I got in there and I spent another hour just looking at it all.
07:24.976 --> 07:26.738
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know what I was looking at it.
07:27.838 --> 07:32.842
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the first six weeks of school is its own season.
07:34.136 --> 07:39.259
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the year, it feels like a whole year and just those first six weeks.
07:39.379 --> 07:40.299
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an adjustment.
07:40.860 --> 07:55.148
[SPEAKER_00]: The stretch where everyone is a little more law, LeBra, a little quicker to tears, a little shorter with each other, where you're doing everything for the first time again and none of it is really automatic yet, and so everything is so arduous.
07:56.048 --> 07:58.129
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not failing the season.
07:59.410 --> 08:01.512
[SPEAKER_00]: you are in the hardest part of it.
08:01.772 --> 08:03.774
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference in it matters.
08:04.815 --> 08:11.660
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's where I see good loving, capable, beautiful, lovely parents have a hard time.
08:12.100 --> 08:14.622
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly the moment we pile more on.
08:15.716 --> 08:20.520
[SPEAKER_00]: New school year, fresh start, so we sign up for new activities.
08:20.980 --> 08:25.183
[SPEAKER_00]: We say yes to extra commitments and play dates.
08:25.724 --> 08:31.849
[SPEAKER_00]: We decide this year, we want to run a tight ship with the color-coded card and the charts and the this and the extra.
08:32.329 --> 08:39.434
[SPEAKER_00]: We add right at the moment when our capacity is at the lowest and I did this for years.
08:40.055 --> 08:43.458
[SPEAKER_00]: I believed that parenting was getting things done.
08:45.815 --> 08:46.597
[SPEAKER_00]: I did it for years.
08:46.837 --> 08:49.302
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was the holy grail of parenting, was getting things.
08:49.362 --> 08:52.688
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought that if I didn't complete these things, then I was doing nothing.
08:53.029 --> 08:54.051
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't parenting.
08:54.191 --> 08:56.155
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't, you know, running my ship.
08:58.420 --> 09:00.361
[SPEAKER_00]: So then I'd lose it and then I'd feel terrible.
09:00.421 --> 09:02.163
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next day, I do it again.
09:03.083 --> 09:10.528
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're depleted in the evening, after you've been getting a million things done, what's your first move?
09:11.309 --> 09:14.611
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you one, push through and get louder and stronger?
09:14.651 --> 09:17.713
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you be, go quiet and shut down?
09:17.733 --> 09:21.516
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you see add more, more tasks, more things?
09:21.936 --> 09:26.079
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you do, I don't know, you just, it all spills out and it's a mess, it's just a mess.
09:27.567 --> 09:45.743
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what I want to give you today per mission to do less on purpose, not because you don't care not because you've given up as a parent I think that's something I really struggled with if I did less than somehow I wasn't parenting right I wasn't doing enough I should doing it all best I can.
09:47.875 --> 09:53.219
[SPEAKER_00]: But doing less is an actual strategy during a hard adjustment.
09:53.740 --> 10:04.349
[SPEAKER_00]: I call it under Parenting and it's one of my favorite things to teach, because it helped me as a perfectionist and overachiever and constant doer.
10:04.889 --> 10:06.931
[SPEAKER_00]: It helped me give myself permission.
10:07.711 --> 10:10.694
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can use it in many times in our life.
10:10.754 --> 10:13.596
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have to be just during back to school.
10:13.736 --> 10:15.017
[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during grief.
10:15.818 --> 10:18.120
[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during separation.
10:18.640 --> 10:20.302
[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during divorce.
10:20.662 --> 10:23.804
[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during a new work environment.
10:23.944 --> 10:26.586
[SPEAKER_00]: I've used it during a family move.
10:28.388 --> 10:32.651
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we just need to embrace doing less as a strategy.
10:32.751 --> 10:40.017
[SPEAKER_00]: So under parenting means you stop trying to optimize and you start trying to survive.
10:41.257 --> 10:48.445
[SPEAKER_00]: you lower the bar with intention, and you decide which things matter and which things don't.
10:49.326 --> 10:50.508
[SPEAKER_00]: You say it out loud.
10:51.108 --> 10:54.993
[SPEAKER_00]: These six weeks are not the six weeks to do it all.
10:55.934 --> 10:57.656
[SPEAKER_00]: And the choice is not a failure.
10:57.796 --> 10:58.677
[SPEAKER_00]: It's being smart.
10:59.678 --> 11:05.221
[SPEAKER_00]: What you don't do is you give up on connection and I think this is where people take the wrong turn.
11:05.241 --> 11:14.747
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, oh, I'll do special time later because I can't do special time because it's back to school and I'm too busy and we have activities and I've got to do a play date and I'm exhausted and I can't do connection.
11:15.127 --> 11:21.811
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where we kind of run into a problem because when we drop connection, then everything seems to fall apart.
11:22.731 --> 11:27.557
[SPEAKER_00]: So the goal for the next six weeks is not a family that's thriving on paper.
11:27.717 --> 11:30.440
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a family that's connected and still standing.
11:31.061 --> 11:31.882
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the win.
11:33.183 --> 11:36.627
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me tell you some specifics about what I want you to do last with.
11:37.328 --> 11:39.831
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to have low prep meals.
11:40.672 --> 11:43.295
[SPEAKER_00]: Serial and fruit is a meal.
11:43.756 --> 11:45.898
[SPEAKER_00]: Frozen stuff you can eat it.
11:46.459 --> 11:48.081
[SPEAKER_00]: Rotiseries are great.
11:48.462 --> 11:49.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Breakfast for dinner.
11:49.763 --> 11:50.404
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
11:50.564 --> 11:51.385
[SPEAKER_00]: Case a dia.
11:51.806 --> 11:53.047
[SPEAKER_00]: Super quick and easy.
11:53.788 --> 11:57.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Just feed the kid and have a calm table and feed them what they want.
11:57.513 --> 11:58.554
[SPEAKER_00]: Just for a few weeks.
11:59.938 --> 12:00.978
[SPEAKER_00]: viewer activities.
12:01.038 --> 12:03.979
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to do every activity the first month.
12:04.039 --> 12:05.980
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay to start something in October.
12:07.140 --> 12:09.101
[SPEAKER_00]: An empty afternoon is good.
12:09.361 --> 12:11.061
[SPEAKER_00]: It leaves time for connection.
12:11.802 --> 12:13.022
[SPEAKER_00]: Protect your calendar.
12:13.922 --> 12:16.123
[SPEAKER_00]: One week night commitment not for.
12:17.023 --> 12:20.545
[SPEAKER_00]: guard the blank spaces, like it's an appointment because it is.
12:20.685 --> 12:23.686
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to put special time in my calendar.
12:24.247 --> 12:29.729
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to put it in there so I would do it because then I felt productive like I was doing something.
12:29.889 --> 12:31.850
[SPEAKER_00]: But I got rid of a lot of other stuff.
12:33.195 --> 12:34.836
[SPEAKER_00]: lower the bar on your house.
12:35.156 --> 12:38.357
[SPEAKER_00]: This one is really hard for some people.
12:38.417 --> 12:39.738
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people say, I can't.
12:40.398 --> 12:43.919
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to have my environment be a certain way or I get anxious.
12:44.780 --> 12:46.981
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's true, you got to look deep.
12:47.161 --> 12:49.502
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that so important to you?
12:50.162 --> 12:56.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because you're not able to rest because you're not able to.
12:57.905 --> 13:03.548
[SPEAKER_00]: really sink into being connected to your kids or being alone in the mess.
13:04.208 --> 13:08.310
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because your life is so chaotic that you need to control something?
13:08.450 --> 13:11.611
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because you have control issues and you have to control that?
13:11.631 --> 13:14.172
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't control that, then you feel that control.
13:14.533 --> 13:17.514
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something in there that you should take a look at.
13:18.214 --> 13:19.815
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll talk about how you can do that, too.
13:21.431 --> 13:28.557
[SPEAKER_00]: But nobody gets more connected in your family because the sink is cleaned out or the dishes are done or the laundry is folded.
13:28.957 --> 13:30.478
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody gets more connected.
13:30.738 --> 13:34.341
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's sometimes sacrifices connection.
13:34.701 --> 13:36.783
[SPEAKER_00]: Your kitchen does not have to be spotless.
13:38.335 --> 13:39.516
[SPEAKER_00]: Let bedtime be simple.
13:39.976 --> 13:44.779
[SPEAKER_00]: On the hard nights, the routines can be three steps, not 10 connection over the checklist.
13:44.999 --> 13:46.240
[SPEAKER_00]: Make it easy.
13:46.520 --> 13:51.643
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody gets in one bed and we all read one book and that's how it's gonna be for the first part of school.
13:53.964 --> 13:55.345
[SPEAKER_00]: No, none of this is giving up.
13:56.709 --> 14:03.395
[SPEAKER_00]: All of it is you deciding where you're limited fuel goes because it can only, you only have so much.
14:04.096 --> 14:16.406
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to choose to spend it on connection, you have to choose to spend it on your kids, on your sanity, not on these standards of clean houses and beautiful meals and activities that don't really matter.
14:17.427 --> 14:19.348
[SPEAKER_00]: because the truth is underneath it.
14:19.929 --> 14:22.310
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't pour connection from an empty cup.
14:22.410 --> 14:27.493
[SPEAKER_00]: If you do all these other things that you think you need to do, you're not going to be able to connect with your kid.
14:27.513 --> 14:29.695
[SPEAKER_00]: And I see so many families saying that.
14:29.735 --> 14:32.176
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm too exhausted to do special time.
14:32.276 --> 14:38.380
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm too tired to connect with my kid because they put so many things on the important list above connection.
14:38.900 --> 14:40.401
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the kids are acting out
14:45.935 --> 14:55.789
[SPEAKER_00]: When you run yourself into the ground, trying to do it all, the first thing that goes is the very thing your kids need most from you, your calm, your presence, and your patience.
14:56.830 --> 15:01.818
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you prioritize all the other things that don't matter, those things are sacrificed.
15:03.043 --> 15:07.525
[SPEAKER_00]: under parenting on the small and important stuff is what protects connection.
15:08.566 --> 15:11.467
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is more important than anything else.
15:11.787 --> 15:14.088
[SPEAKER_00]: It's as important as food and water.
15:14.108 --> 15:16.830
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's talk about regulating yourself.
15:17.270 --> 15:26.174
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, under parenting clears the space, but there's a second piece and it's the one that changes the evenings the most.
15:26.814 --> 15:27.455
[SPEAKER_00]: It's you.
15:28.175 --> 15:28.815
[SPEAKER_00]: It's me.
15:29.416 --> 15:29.996
[SPEAKER_00]: It's us.
15:31.010 --> 15:36.374
[SPEAKER_00]: It's our calm and that's a hard thing to gain in parenting.
15:36.914 --> 15:38.175
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can help you do that.
15:39.056 --> 15:43.079
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot calm a child from a place where you yourself are not calm.
15:43.859 --> 15:45.400
[SPEAKER_00]: The work starts in you.
15:45.701 --> 15:47.362
[SPEAKER_00]: It always starts in you.
15:47.542 --> 15:48.883
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not being critical.
15:49.263 --> 15:50.144
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts in me.
15:50.264 --> 15:52.666
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the most uncombed parent there was.
15:52.806 --> 15:54.527
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a disaster.
15:54.667 --> 15:56.889
[SPEAKER_00]: I was uptight and annoying.
15:57.049 --> 15:59.350
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I can't imagine why my kids even wanted
16:01.473 --> 16:03.756
[SPEAKER_00]: but they catch it, right?
16:03.796 --> 16:06.098
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a cold, like you sneeze it onto them.
16:06.759 --> 16:08.962
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wondered why as me was so anxious.
16:10.003 --> 16:11.425
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she had an anxious mom.
16:12.806 --> 16:19.734
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you walk in the door, a wound tight, like I did, dragging those kids up that hill, it's still remember vividly.
16:19.794 --> 16:21.396
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember what we were wearing.
16:22.580 --> 16:23.980
[SPEAKER_00]: they wind tighter.
16:24.841 --> 16:34.503
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you are able to soften even a little, even a fake soften for 30 seconds, they've got something to settle against.
16:34.823 --> 16:44.826
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the thermostat for the room, not because it's fair, because it's not fair, but just because it's true, unfortunately.
16:45.626 --> 16:46.706
[SPEAKER_00]: They vibe off us.
16:46.926 --> 16:47.206
[SPEAKER_00]: That's,
16:51.635 --> 16:54.536
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question stops being, how do I get them to calm down?
16:54.556 --> 16:58.497
[SPEAKER_00]: And becomes, how do I find my own calm first?
16:59.577 --> 17:02.478
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, under parenting is one, and it will help you stay calm.
17:02.938 --> 17:14.062
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to give you some actual tools that can help you to learn to be a naturally calm person by forming new neural pathways in your body, and that's what I've done over the last.
17:14.863 --> 17:22.955
[SPEAKER_00]: 16 years tried really hard to be the compare and I've gotten there and it didn't take me too long just about a year.
17:22.975 --> 17:24.878
[SPEAKER_00]: So try this week these tools.
17:24.898 --> 17:24.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
17:29.525 --> 17:30.946
[SPEAKER_00]: Walk away to center yourself.
17:30.986 --> 17:37.030
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the number one thing that I started doing early on when I feel it rising before you say anything you regret.
17:37.070 --> 17:42.094
[SPEAKER_00]: Walk away, step out of the room for 60 seconds, go to the bathroom, splash water on your face.
17:42.634 --> 17:47.678
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even need to excuse yourself, but you can't say, hey, I got to go pee and go to the bathroom.
17:48.498 --> 17:52.521
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaving is not losing and not everything needs a response.
17:52.561 --> 17:56.984
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to respond to your children for everything you can be quiet.
17:58.862 --> 18:01.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Find a mantra, one that you like to repeat.
18:01.850 --> 18:04.015
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not an emergency is a good one.
18:04.657 --> 18:06.642
[SPEAKER_00]: Not disrespectful, dysregulated.
18:07.668 --> 18:11.730
[SPEAKER_00]: say it about them, say it about yourself, find something that resonates.
18:12.510 --> 18:13.911
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be your meditation.
18:15.452 --> 18:17.973
[SPEAKER_00]: Slow the breath, slow the system.
18:18.053 --> 18:23.076
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to tell myself, especially during sibling fights, I used to say, I am slow.
18:23.336 --> 18:24.456
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm walking slow.
18:24.657 --> 18:33.441
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm breathing slow and I would slowly walk toward them while I was breathing slowly and it actually works to slow down your system.
18:33.461 --> 18:34.081
[SPEAKER_00]: Your central
18:37.583 --> 18:40.305
[SPEAKER_00]: The slower it is, the slower you are, the calmer you are.
18:41.626 --> 18:42.586
[SPEAKER_00]: These are small.
18:43.447 --> 18:50.291
[SPEAKER_00]: They look almost too small to matter, but I tell you what they work and I've used them every single day.
18:51.612 --> 18:58.136
[SPEAKER_00]: 90 seconds of finding your own floor changes what the next hour in your house feels like every single time.
18:59.528 --> 19:13.855
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you don't manage it because you're going to you're going to slip up, you're going to yell, you're going to say the wrong thing you're going to get mad because you are depleted that's not failure, that's just a opportunity to repair.
19:14.830 --> 19:16.311
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I was short.
19:16.411 --> 19:20.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I yelled, I'm working on it.
19:20.374 --> 19:21.655
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to do better.
19:23.116 --> 19:30.362
[SPEAKER_00]: That sentence teaches your kid more about being human than a perfectly calm evening ever could.
19:30.762 --> 19:34.405
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you mess up, you have an opportunity to have an incredible lesson.
19:35.486 --> 19:40.590
[SPEAKER_00]: Repairs the skill, Mount Perfection, especially him now, especially back to school.
19:41.878 --> 19:46.560
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get really practical because a lot of you have after me asked me some version of this.
19:46.800 --> 19:49.801
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do actually say when they walk in?
19:49.861 --> 19:52.722
[SPEAKER_00]: Because everyone wants to say, how is your day?
19:52.742 --> 19:54.402
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we want to know, they've been gone.
19:54.522 --> 19:55.843
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to know what's going on.
19:56.463 --> 19:57.603
[SPEAKER_00]: Where were you for seven hours?
19:57.643 --> 19:58.604
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell were you doing?
19:59.064 --> 20:02.145
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get a fine shrug every time.
20:03.065 --> 20:05.586
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's not that they don't want to talk to you.
20:05.627 --> 20:06.887
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that they're depleted.
20:06.907 --> 20:07.768
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't answer.
20:07.808 --> 20:09.008
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is too big.
20:09.028 --> 20:10.169
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been too many hours.
20:10.189 --> 20:13.531
[SPEAKER_00]: There's too many things to comment on or not comment on.
20:14.111 --> 20:16.213
[SPEAKER_00]: How is your day is an enormous question?
20:16.273 --> 20:16.853
[SPEAKER_00]: Just think about it.
20:16.873 --> 20:18.174
[SPEAKER_00]: If somebody asks you, how is your day?
20:18.934 --> 20:20.395
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, uh, fine.
20:20.935 --> 20:21.255
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess.
20:21.595 --> 20:21.935
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
20:22.436 --> 20:22.836
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.
20:23.816 --> 20:27.858
[SPEAKER_00]: So first remember the 10 minutes don't lead with the question at all.
20:28.218 --> 20:29.179
[SPEAKER_00]: Lead with presence.
20:29.199 --> 20:30.480
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's snack on the counter.
20:30.500 --> 20:32.200
[SPEAKER_00]: A spot next you on the couch.
20:32.240 --> 20:33.421
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you're home.
20:33.841 --> 20:38.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the tank get a little fuel in it before you ask for anything because I'll tell you what.
20:39.244 --> 20:40.544
[SPEAKER_00]: Those kids don't eat at school.
20:40.924 --> 20:41.405
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them.
20:42.185 --> 20:43.005
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe some of them do.
20:43.545 --> 20:44.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And then how do they come home?
20:45.046 --> 20:46.826
[SPEAKER_00]: They're they're famished.
20:47.266 --> 20:48.686
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so hungry.
20:49.326 --> 20:51.207
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like empty empty empty empty.
20:51.247 --> 20:55.607
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you go from like 7 a.m. into 4 p.m. and no food?
20:56.828 --> 20:58.148
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you ask them questions.
20:58.228 --> 20:58.888
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have homework?
20:59.428 --> 21:00.088
[SPEAKER_00]: How's your day?
21:00.888 --> 21:02.569
[SPEAKER_00]: They're probably like, please stop.
21:02.689 --> 21:03.649
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, here's the questions.
21:04.009 --> 21:06.049
[SPEAKER_00]: I missed you so much or those statements.
21:06.549 --> 21:06.789
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been
21:10.812 --> 21:12.494
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the funniest thing that happened?
21:12.714 --> 21:15.096
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you and I'm so glad I got to pick you up.
21:15.696 --> 21:16.857
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me the best part of the day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me your worst part of the day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But you do it after you give them the apple, please.
21:21.376 --> 21:28.759
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you need to come to pick up with a snack and do it, if you have to fix the snack and have it waiting when they walk in, that's good too.
21:29.900 --> 21:45.507
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the most connecting thing you can do is just take the pressure off a kid who knows they don't have to perform a good report for you is a kid 10 minutes later who starts telling you everything on your own if you're quiet and you listen they'll tell you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Connection isn't the download.
21:49.001 --> 21:52.805
[SPEAKER_00]: Connection is being safe enough that the download eventually comes.
21:52.885 --> 21:53.946
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually they'll tell you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so.
21:57.620 --> 22:02.442
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we get back into schedule without stretching so thin that we lose it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because you do need some rhythm.
22:04.022 --> 22:05.383
[SPEAKER_00]: Kids settle into predictability.
22:05.423 --> 22:07.984
[SPEAKER_00]: We all know that kids like schedule, yeah, yeah.
22:08.024 --> 22:10.244
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a difference between rhythm and pressure.
22:10.424 --> 22:12.245
[SPEAKER_00]: And this month, we just want rhythm.
22:13.065 --> 22:17.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Your schedule doesn't have to be like this, like someone's saying, like, hour by hour thing.
22:18.403 --> 22:22.606
[SPEAKER_00]: Build a routine around just a few things, not a hundred things.
22:23.266 --> 22:31.471
[SPEAKER_00]: Wake up as a thing, landing after school as a thing, wind down before bed as a thing, dinner as a thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just find three anchor points that you can stick to every day, not 17.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Everything in between is allowed to be loose.
22:42.070 --> 22:43.851
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not running a boarding school here.
22:43.912 --> 22:46.734
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just running a house with little kids or big kids.
22:47.594 --> 22:51.637
[SPEAKER_00]: You're building a few reliable moments of safety into the day.
22:52.498 --> 22:53.879
[SPEAKER_00]: And add slowly.
22:54.019 --> 22:57.221
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to have the whole system running by week one.
22:57.702 --> 23:00.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Just breathe into it, just relax.
23:00.944 --> 23:03.846
[SPEAKER_00]: Get one thing steady, then add the next.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A routine you build gently in the next two months.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then it ramps up as the year goes on, unfortunately.
23:14.734 --> 23:16.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Pick one anchor this week, just one.
23:16.575 --> 23:18.897
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the 10-minute landing after school.
23:18.957 --> 23:20.658
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's a common bed time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Get that one steady, reliable before you touch anything else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One anchor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the, what was your best and worst things today?
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[SPEAKER_00]: One anchor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Done consistently.
23:32.365 --> 23:34.967
[SPEAKER_00]: Beats five done frantically.
23:35.836 --> 23:37.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep checking on your own tank as you go.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The measure of whether your routine isn't, is working, isn't whether it looks impressive.
23:42.341 --> 23:46.344
[SPEAKER_00]: It's whether you can actually maintain and sustain it, or is it too much?
23:46.984 --> 23:47.985
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you need a shrinkage?
23:48.145 --> 23:50.087
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you need more under parenting?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Good, do it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's you being smart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's you deciding that connection is the most important thing, not the all this other crap.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining me on the Peace and Parenting Podcast.
