Taming the Overwhelm, part 2 of 2

*Originally published in the April 2018 Glover Park Gazette

(If you missed part 1 you can find it here)

If we want tame the overwhelm, who do WE need to be? We can’t wait around for everyone else to change first.

Listen: Scramble the letters and what do you get? SILENT. To listen we must not talk, nor may we think about talking. Our kids act, behave and do what they do because of what they think and believe. The most efficient way to know what they think and believe, and to modify what they think and believe, is to listen to what they have to say.

Refrains from commenting: Letting it go, avoiding mini-lectures (even if they are really super duper amazing!). If their shirt doesn’t match their pants, if they spill some Doritos when they are filling their baggie for lunch, when their hair is not your favorite, when they got a B on a test. You guys – lighten your load – every moment doesn’t have to be teachable!

Interprets our kid’s behavior compassionately: If they tidy their room by chucking everything into a “corner of shame”, notice the effort. If they wake up late, remember they were studying for a big test the night before. If they are watching lots of tv, maybe they are stressed (not lazy).

Notices improvement: They brought that C in French up to a B- . They woke up on time this week 2 times instead of zero times. They tried a vegetable. They ignored, instead of hit, their sibling. Focusing on lots of 2% improvements is more encouraging then focusing on everything that is going wrong.

Understands what is normal, passing and annoying developmental behavior: Two-year-olds say, “NO!”. Four-year-olds have tantrums. Teenagers roll their eyes. Most kids try lying. Most kids don’t really care about chores and won’t do them up to your standards until they pay their own mortgage. Trying to ‘parent’ your child out of these normal developmental stages is a giant waste of our limited parenting mojo.

We are up and ready to go before we start nagging children: We get off our phones. We worry about our own hair, weight, clothes before we criticize or lecture them about theirs. We have our own exciting new adventure where we have to learn something new and make new friends.

When we tame our own overwhelm FIRST, we become the parents our kids need us to be so our house and family can be harmonious (not quiet) and cooperative (not obedient).

Time Management Strategies for Busy Parents

*Originally published in Washington Parent, April 2018.

Dashing from one thing to the next? Constantly running late? Feeling overwhelmed by everyday events, or surprised by forgotten appointments? This is modern-day parenting: too much to do in too little time. As a professional organizer and a certified parent educator, I see parents and families bump into the time problem frequently. Many people (maybe even you) assume that the feeling of being overwhelmed is a fact of life that can't be helped. Fear not - there is hope. A combination of improved time management and engaged parenting can make all the difference in the world.

In working with parents, I have noticed three lifestyle changes that offer big rewards in terms of taming your time. I recommend that you focus on one at a time. Why only one? When we try to "fix" everything at once we start off excited and hopeful, and for a while we can deal with the enormous energy, effort and discomfort required to make major changes. Soon enough, it's all too much. We lose steam, our energy drops and hope turns to disappointment as we let ourselves down. Eventually, we give up and go back to our old ways, feeling defeated and dejected. Focusing on just one of the following three lifestyle changes at a time will enable you to find success and create family harmony in the time you have.

Transitions

Transitioning from family life to the working world, from our early morning cup of coffee to waking up the children, from checking our work emails to reviewing homework, from reading stories at bedtime to preparing for the next day's meetings - life as a parent is filled with transitions. "The first moments of every encounter matter," notes Julie Morgenstern,  New York Times Best-Selling author of six books, including "Organizing from the Inside Out." "If you are prepared for the first five to seven minutes of reconnecting, you will buy yourself hours of freedom," says Julie. That means before our kids wake up and  before we pick them up at school, we truly stop "adulting" and transition to parenting. Close out, focus and connect. "You have to stop shoving in one more thing," says Morgenstern. The false sense of productivity that we feel at pick-up time when we delete one more email or send that last text will actually slow us down. Lack of connection between parent and child leads to misbehavior, and dealing with misbehavior gobbles up time, energy and good will.

Children are most likely to cooperate when they feel a sense of connection and closeness with their parent, so focus on drawing firm lines around parenting time: forget about email for the moment, put the phone on airplane mode, stay off the laptop. Doing so will open up opportunities for more connection, resulting in less misbehavior on the part of your children.

Special Time

"Special time" is a period of several minutes set aside every week to focus one-on-one with each child. It's a date we put on our calendars and show up for, even if our kid has misbehaved. Special time is predictable, reliable and consistent. I like to think of it as the physical manifestation of our unconditional love. According to Kathy Hedge, Executive Director of the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP) in Kensington, Maryland, "Special time is always the first suggestion for improving the parent-to-child connection. During special time, we turn off all devices and dive head first into our child's world for 20 minutes or so."

How is this a time management tool when we are already too busy? Building the relationship takes time in the beginning and saves a huge amount of time in the long run by radically reducing children's misbehavior. Through special time, we gain our kids' cooperation, help, goodwill and humor. How much smoother would our days be if our family members were more consistently cooperative and helpful?

Share the Load

Parents, we are often so hard on ourselves and want to make life easy and smooth for our kids. Being busy, having meaningful work and pursuing outside interests can nourish you as well as your family. Kids are often capable of far more than we realize and begin to grow in new directions when we step out of their way. When Hedge took on a bigger work commitment as PEP's executive director, her teens stepped up to the plate and assumed more responsibilities, pitching in to cook dinner and contribute to the family chores. Think about the win-win of creating more time in your day by training kids to take responsibility for chores, self-care and home care. The caveat here is that kids will need time and practice to grow into our standards. If we can learn to love a lumpy bed, appreciate overcooked pasta and not worry about the corners of the living room that didn't get vacuumed, kids generally won't mind pitching in.

Family life is fluid, rapidly changing and unpredictable - that we know, for sure! Sharpening up our transitions, closing out our work day  before we re-enter family life, creating special time each week with our children and sharing the load - these crucial habits will give us the renewable energy we need to keep our family life harmonious, on track and fun.

Tips to Go

Have device-free time in the morning while kids are getting off to school and again during dinner and at bedtime.

Create and maintain a once-a-week special time - one kid with one parent for twenty minutes. Put it on the calendar, let the child direct the activity and watch cooperation increase.

Invite kids to help with chores, self-care and the routines in the house. Learn to love their standards, knowing they will become faster and better as time goes on if we prevent criticism from squashing their desire to help.

Make time for self-care. Meditation, exercise, reading and getting together with friends are all renewable energy sources. Don't overlook them on your parenting journey.

Paige Trevor is a certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP) and a leader of PEP's "Parenting 5 to 12 Year-Olds" classes. For more information on PEP's resources for parents, see pepparent.org.

Mountains: The View and the Crevice

This post is inspired by Jack Petrash's book, "Navigating the Terrain of Childhood". With babies we start in the Outer Banks (are we asleep or awake? is the baby part of me or separate?).  Two's and Fours's are the Appalachian mountains - the peaks of cuteness, walking and talking, the valleys of tantrums and saying "no". The Great Plains is elementary school years where they love us, they mind us (mostly), there is the occasional hail storm or tornado, but it's pretty flat and predictable. The teen years are the Rocky Mountains, majestic and big and dangerous. Here are some random thoughts having spent a good 7 years here.

The View: The view is only achieved by climbing yourself. Also, you can make it to the top and find that it's cloudy, and even though you climbed and you might be in right spot you CAN'T TELL!  Sometimes we just have to wait out the clouds. We can't will them away, or positive think them away, or party them away, or exercise them away. Sometimes we just have to wait.

The Crevice: What goes up must come down. When we have accidentally fallen into a crevice we must remember that to get to the view we must keep going. Imagine being in a deep, dark and steep crevice. After we have looked around and found the crevice inhospitable, we need to slowly, baby step by baby step walk up. It's frustrating because once we DECIDE we want out, we want to get out immediately. If we get airlifted out we actually haven't learned anything except how to wait and be rescued. WHEN we fall back into a crevice (we always do!), then we will have experience and practice taking those baby steps (working out, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep, having some fun, doing something artistic).

The Long View: The long view, this majestic view is only available AFTER we have crossed the Rocky Mountains ourselves. (or BEFORE we cross the Rocky Mountains, when all we see is the beauty and potential). We can hear other traveler's stories, we can look at photos, we can go on YouTube and watch clips of other people traversing. But after, and ONLY after we do the hard, grueling, rainy, hot, cold, sunny, hungry, boring, tiring hike can we sit back on the plains and see our path unfurl behind us. Even though we notice only the snowcapped glory in the longview, the crevices are still there, and the crevices are what add the contrast, the gratitude and the wisdom.

Perspective: Perspective is earned & experienced (aka there ain't no shortcut). I thought as a CERTIFIED Parent Educator I might dodge a few crevices, because, you know, I KNOW stuff. I read stuff, I write stuff. There are no shortcuts for any of us. We all have to walk across our own Rocky Mountains to get into adult-hood.

FINAL THOUGHT: Invest in good shoes, enjoy your breaks and your views, be sure to hike with good humored friends that aren't judgy, eat nourishing food, minimize the sugar, booze and caffeine (but don't eliminate them!). 

Teeny, Tiny, Bitty, Baby Steps

Teeny, tiny, itty, bitty baby steps!

Coaching clients in organizing and parenting, and trying to make changes in my own life, I have come to see that real and sustainable change comes from repeated, tiny, teeny, bitty little things. After I lead a parenting class, I see the "There's a NEW Sheriff in town" syndrome where parents want to go back home and implement everything. DIVING into the deep end of the pool takes so much energy, is so abrupt and jarring that we quickly swim to the side, heave ourselves out, and head right to the snack bar. Then we pack up our bag, leave and never get into the water again  because it was uncomfortable and non-productive.

INSTEAD, setting and fulfilling the teeniest of goals actually creates dopamine (the feel good drug) in your head. Once the dopamine is flowing we create a self-sustaining energy source for change. Let's see it in practice.

Parenting - Keep doing all the things you are doing and add in spending 20 minutes a week, scheduled, with each child, one on one, doing what they want (avoid screens). If you are a nagger,  keep nagging and write down when you nag to see if you are nagging to relieve stress, or to avoid your own problems, or to make someone do something they really don't want to do. Listen to your child without commenting after the listening (WHAT?! Yes we CAN!).

Workout - honestly, the number one thing that helps EVERYTHING is working out. It promotes healthy sleep, it creates creativity, it reduces blood pressure. If there was a drug that created as many benefits as working out we would pay SO MUCH MONEY for it. I am passionate about it. I understand you have a 1,000,000 excuses why you can't. Keep those excuses and do it anyway. I'm talking a 10 minute walk around the soccer field when your kids are at practice. Getting outside is awesome because nature and Vitamin D help everything too. If you can't get motivated,  just put on your workout clothes and see what happens. The Kaizen Way has some more awesome tips. Keep reminding your lazy brain that getting started takes 90% of the energy.

Organizing - There is no magical there there if you have been disorganized your whole life. There is no turn-key, there is no mystical book that has THE answer. Part of the trick I learned from David Allen of Getting Things Done, set the bar so low that you find success, not what you expected, huh? Here's the visual that came up in my head.

Imagine you want to play soccer (be organized), the barrier to get onto the soccer field is so, so low you can just lift your foot and swoop, there you are ON the field (open my mail every day, pitch the trash and put bills in 'action' and the rest in 'pending'). Then when you look around a few days later (and the mail has piled up, because it will) you think to yourself, "I'm a soccer player! Look, I'm on the field, not still sitting in the stands."  ("I'm an organized person"), and off you go to participate (re-boot your mail). Not, oh my gosh, I'm a loser, I'm never going to get off the bench (Oh my gosh, I'm a loser, I'll just do the mail tomorrow and have a coke and lie down right now.)

Teeny, tiny, itty, bitty, baby steps. We often discount them because they are "too easy". DO. NOT. OVERLOOK. THE. BABY. STEPS! (I am yelling, in a loving and nurturing way.)

Micro Goals is a quick article about the same thing.

Spring Cleaning

“Clutter can play a significant role in how we feel about our homes, our workplaces, and ourselves. Messy homes and workspaces leave us feeling anxious, helpless, and overwhelmed. Yet, rarely is clutter recognized as a significant source of stress in our lives,” Psychologist Sherrie Bourg Carter wrote in an article for Psychology Today.

This is a quote from this Parenting Isn't Easy blog that's making the rounds on Facebook.

Sometimes we can truly fix a parenting problem simply (not easily) by de-cluttering, purging, re-booting and tidying up. TODAY you can do one or all of these things.

1. Get your taxes in order - what is ONE action you can do today? Find accountants phone number. Download forms from investments. Fill out two pages of the organizer? Getting started IS the solution. (Beating yourself up will only slow you down.)

2. Each person gets two coats and two pairs of shoes in the entry way. The entry way is the window to the soul of your house. Make it easy going, clear, and peaceful. 

3. Buy condolence cards-sad things happen, we want to be able to send a hug as soon as possible.

4. Get more sleep! Fatigue causes brain clutter, brain clutter causes stuff clutter, stuff clutter causes relationship clutter. Turn your phone / devices off at 9pm tonight! See what happens.

5. Contact me for assistance! (see below)

Taming the Overwhelm, Part 1 of 2

It's all too much!

Originally published in the March 2018 Glover Park Gazette

We know family life is stressful. Anyone else try to jam five pounds of stuff into a one pound bag? We have carpool, we have to manage those darn devices, we have to cook healthy meals, we have to keep the house clean and organized, we have to save for retirement and tidy the yard. It IS actually OVERWHELMING.

When we feel overwhelmed we become stressed, cranky, short-tempered, terse, naggy. We talk to ourselves like, “I can’t stand this. They should do what I say. I am always yelling. They are always fighting”  Our feelings and emotions are our fuel. When we use fuel like anger, fear, anxiety that comes from overwhelm we usually leave behind some pretty toxic relationship debris. I shudder to think of the shame, blame and pain I accidentally heaped on my beloved children trying to get out the door every morning.

On the other hand, when we are in the process of taming the overwhelm (It will never be fully tame. We have got to keep our expectations realistic.) we have access to patience, calm, and creativity.  We start talking to ourselves like, “I got this. My kids are mostly cooperative.” (NOT obedient!). “I can focus on work today. We are a perfectly good enough family.”

When we are using overwhelmed fuel we tend to reach for caffeine, booze, gossip, mindless internet search. When we using the tamed fuel we tend to reach for working out, truly resting, hanging out with friends, food that really nourishes. Whatever cycle we are in, it usually reinforces itself.

What are we supposed to do?! The first thing is to ask the proper question. NOT, the very self-satisfying and yet super ineffective one, “When are those guys going to shape up and do what I say so I can be the parent I want to be?” The question that will yield the most results is, “Who do I need to be to tame the overwhelm, foster harmony and cooperation?” You can bet your bottom dollar that who your family needs you to be is not nagging, reminding, cajoling, blaming or yelling!

Who we need to be is a parent who listens, refrains from commenting on every darn thing, and interprets our kid’s behavior compassionately (meaning we don’t take everything they do or don’t do personally). The parent we need to be notices improvement, understands what is normal, passing and annoying developmental behavior and focuses on themselves.

Easy, right?!  HAHHAHAHHAHA! Next month we’ll go into detail on the HOW to do these things. For this month we can focus on who we are being and is it fostering cooperation?

The Power of Sleep

When life gets overwhelming, instead of nagging . . . try sleeping.

SLEEP

Yours, ours, and theirs. It’s a tool. It’s a lifelong skill. When things get rough with a child, go back and clean up bedrooms and everyone's sleep routine. This is a bit of a paradox because you can’t MAKE someone go to sleep AND you can do a lot around the whole sleep topic to make the bedtime/sleep time more effective, successful and pleasant. Take a quick look at Underused Parenting Tool: Sleep for specific recommendations and sleep requirements broken down by age.

If you want more detailed information on sleep and the brain, check out The Organized Mind. Daniel Levitin shares detailed scientific research about sleep and it’s truly fascinating. Here’s a good juicy quote: “Sleep is among the most critical factors for peak performance, memory, productivity, immune function and mood regulation". If you live with children, who couldn’t benefit from better MOOD REGULATION? He is pro nap!  Check out what happens, for you and your young child when we nap: “Naps also allow for the recalibration of our emotional equilibrium-after being exposed to angry and frightening stimuli, a nap can turn around negative emotions and increase happiness." Think new power struggle de-escalation strategy – take a nap!

For the teen set, Michael Bradley has this sobering thought on sleep, ". . .some frighteningly large percentage of what we diagnose, therapies, and powerfully medicate as adolescent mental illness is actually sleep deprivation." Teens need nine hours a night, if they have to wake up at 6:30 am - that's a 9:30 pm bedtime with a DEVICE DOWN time of 8:30pm. Close to impossible in our culture of AP classes, full year sports, and time spent socializing online.

Never underestimate the power of sleep to increase family harmony and cooperation.

Mindful Parenting

Listen to this weeks Nifty Tip. Violeta and Rob from Dolcezza invited me to come and chat on their new podcast, the Dolcezza Sherbet Experience. We covered topics from stress to screen time and a whole lot more!

Notice What is RIGHT!

Noticing what is RIGHT promotes creative problem solving....

When my son was in middle school he had trouble getting up. He set his alarm, he hit snooze, I yelled, nagged, reminded and shamed. One night I decided I was going to take him to a high school open house in the morning, so he didn’t need to be ready for school. I thought this might be a good time to see what would happen if I did nothing. Carpool was coming to our house for his younger brother anyway. His alarm went off, he snoozed, it got later and later. When carpool tooted their horn he came RACING down the stairs, uniform on, teeth unbrushed, hair uncombed, backpack slung over his shoulder. I stopped him before he ran out the door and said, “Wow, I see a kid who wants to get to school on time.” I then informed him he was going to the open house.

Later we chatted about ways to wake up on time. He told me he loved that delicious twilight sleeping between snoozes, and it was hard to get up when he did that. I asked him if he would consider setting his alarm LATER (counterintuitive, and yet genius, I don't mean to sound braggy) and wake up the first time. More sleep, less snoozing. He was willing to try and guess what?! I probably had to help him get up once a quarter. I was no longer worried, upset, anxious or mad at him. I really saw him as someone who could get up on time.

Where can you notice and comment and appreciate what your kid is doing RIGHT?!

Psst...you guys, that means it goes for us too, no more carrying on that we are the worst parents!

Beware - We Are Not Parenting Ourselves

They have their own mountain to climb . . .

Have we accidentally found ourselves in the terrain of parenting our younger self instead of the actual child that lives in our house?

Were we asked to grow up too soon and do too much and maybe parent our own parent so we have given our child our, time, our attention and service? Instead of being grateful and energized by all we have done, they act entitled and unmotivated?

Did we party too much in college? It makes sense to us then put our kids on lock-down so they don't do the same thing, because we think, 'of course they would do the same' instead of observing who they actually are. Maybe they are not as compelled to alter their brains as we were  because they had an entirely different childhood then we had.

Do we feel like we need to control things, stop bad things from happening, give warnings and information because something big and scary happened to an adult in our life that we couldn't control?

Did we have an overly controlling and intrusive parent so we are super laissez-faire with our kid believing that freedom=faith in them?

Our kids were born on a different mountain then us, they have different dragons to slay, they have other demons in their heads. We cannot protect them from the journey, the dragons or the demons. 

When we feel like we are speaking to deaf ears, repeating ourselves, doing things that aren't solving the problem - STOP, and see if we aren't accidentally parenting ourselves. If we are, take a deep breath and look around, it's a new mountain and we are now the support team on their mountain journey. 

Quiet, Shhhhh, Hold On, Give Them a Second

Shhhh.. ...

You know that idea that you teach what you need to learn? THIS is what I teach because I need to learn it (and learn it again, and re-learn it, and learn it over and over).

Most of us parents talk too much. It relieves our anxiety, it makes us feel in control and we have so many good ideas. In addition, we aren't such good listeners and we don't practice the patience we so often ask from our kids. We rush our kids, we don't consider, or really even know their thoughts and desires. And you know why we might want to get super duper curious about what our children think, feel, want, need, desire?

Rudolf Dreikurs put it so well .. . . "We need to accept our children as partners in the business of creating family harmony. Their ideas and viewpoints are important, particularly since they act in accordance with them!"

Instead of lecturing your small people this week, try one or more of the below. . . 

1. Talk 80% less at your kids.

2. Give advice only when asked (eek, what? impossible, I know).      

3. What ever advice you want to give them - turn it around on yourself (stop procrastinating, clean your room, go work out, call a friend, get off your device, practice your piano).

4. When it's necessary to give them directions, go to them, get down on their eye level, touch their arm lightly and give the direction.

5. Give them a minute to respond, let their brains work, allow space for cooperation, accept some bad decision making because ...as Mark Twain said . . “Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.” Best to get some of that bad judgment out of the way before they leave the house.

6. Ask an open ended question and then listen, and do nothing else. "How can mornings go more smoothly?" "What meal would you like to learn how to cook?" "How can we make 2018 better for our family?"

I promise, if you do one or two of these you will learn A LOT about the people you live with!

Stress!

Family Life, it's stressful!

Stress - it's everywhere, we are stressed, our kids are stressed, we are stressed about being stressed. I've come to think about stress a bit like food. We can't NOT have it, AND we have to select nourishing stress over sugary/caffeiney/boozey stress. Let's do a listicle (less stress!):

Junk Food Stress

1. mindlessly scrolling on social media
2. comparing our kids to other peoples kids
3. sugar/caffeine/booze
4. over-scheduling so we don't have to deal with kids and screens at home
5. over-spending, using a credit card when it can't be paid in full at the end of the month
6. too much stuff (shoes, clothes, kitchen gadgets, sheets, towels... jammed up and squeezed in drawers and cupboards)
7. reinventing the "getting out of the house" or "going to bed" routine every day
8. our kids problems, that they can/should solve (getting up, homework, friends, fashion)
9. how our co-parent parents, trying to get them to change
10. procrastinating (start your taxes, people!)

Nourishing Stress*

1. waking up early to workout, meditate, journal or read (it IS stressful to do this)
2. goals that are just out of reach, and not totally crazy
3. doing Special Time with our kids on a regular basis
4. menu planning / healthy meals / healthy food in the house
5. creating and maintaining routines
6. our own problems (our career, our relationships, our hobbies)
7. connecting with friends (can be on social media, or the phone, or in person)
8. making & eating greens, caffeine free drinks, booze free evenings
9. continually editing our stuff and calendar so it reflects our values
10. going to the Dr's for annual exams, mammograms, colonoscopys, mole checks, etc

*The "aha moment" is that the good for you stuff causes stress also. Trying to fit it in, not wanting to, it's uncomfortable - all stressful. And at the end of the day the nourishing stress makes us feel good tired and the junk food stress makes feel wired tired.

Ask & Show, Don't Tell

What do you think training is? (Pssst . . . this is a great way to start training your child – with a question about what they already know!) Go back and think about parents, coaches, bosses, and friends in your past that really trained you well. Did they give lectures? Did they use terse and annoyed voices? What elements inspired you to do well, to try something new, to persevere? Training is not telling your child to do something. Training is asking what task your child might want to do. Training is asking the child to show you what they already know about the task. Watch, listen, learn. Provide some instruction, encouragement, and independence. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Some tasks you can help your child train in include: putting chips in baggies, making a salad, folding towels, sorting laundry, making YOU a cup of tea or coffee, sweeping the porch, buying presents for relatives (use a budget) on Amazon, grating cheese, setting the table (fancy & not fancy), calling a doctor's office to make, cancel or change an appointment, riding the bus. 

Training is relationship building. Remember, do NOT train if it’s really game time, do not train if you are cranky, do not train if you are trying to MAKE the child responsible for his laundry. Training is a life-long skill and a real relationship builder. Such a win/win! Check out Splish, Splash . . . Chores and Seriously, How Do I Get Them to do Chores for a few more tips and tidbits and a sampling of chores by age. 

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Treat, Treasure or Trash?

It's tiiiimmmmeee. . . . .

The holidays are officially over. It's time to review Treat, Treasure or Trash.

I love, love, LOVE holiday cards. LOVE, and, it's time to let them go. I will sit down one last time to flip through each and every one. Appreciate everyones kids, vacations and pets and then I will release them. 

Treats: Your holiday cards to me. These are treats. I can watch your life from the sidelines and be grateful you thought of me. However, your holiday card to me is NOT a treasure. I do not need to file it, keep it, store it, box it up, label it, or put a rubber band around it. If I keep your treat, with too many other treats, it turns into trash that I have accidentally filed, kept, stored, boxed, labeled or rubber banded. Who needs trash in their house?

Treasure: My holiday card is a treasure to me. I keep a few so my kids can have copies. I throw a few into my daily tickler file so a few times a month I remember how cute my boys are, how great our vacations are and how much I still love my husband and the Bentley. 

Trash: After January 10th-sh, holiday cards are trash. We pitch the trash and open up our mantle piece, our piano top, our good silver bowl to emptiness. Emptiness invites calmness and creativity. Then we go on to live our own big lives and wait for the days to get short and the 2018 cards to roll in!

Rest, Reflect, Reset

Bentley is taking a minute to review his year. . . . 

There is no parenting finish line, it's more like a giant, cosmic, joke of a game of whack a mole. So instead of trying harder, going faster, comparing ourselves to everyone else we need these tools before we start on a brand new year.

REST - we can't do it all, there are seasons of parenting that need to be respected and honored. Dreaming is a great thing to do while you are resting. try - First a Dream.

REFLECT - what worked in 2017, remember - we can only build our house on strengths, never on weakness. Did we yell less? Did we listen more? Did we laugh heartily? Did we minimize criticism? Did we have fun? Where was I too firm? Where was I too friendly? What tasks can my kids take on for themselves? Where am I over-parenting and where am I under-parenting? Do I need to think about my own life more and let the kids be? Am I working too much and I don't have enough time with them?

RESET - The new year is the perfect time to re-set. If you need help with household chores, maintenance and dinners, check out the FlyLady, she'll get you on track. If you need Parenting support, check out PEP (I'm leading THREE bootcamps this winter!). If you need workout help, try Beachbody On Demand. If you need nutritional support, check out Simple Well Being.