Sustainable Parenting

63. Clear expectations for Toys, Tech and Treats & More!

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach • Episode 63

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Wondering how to have less arguments and battles each day?
Today we are tackling 5 key areas of daily life - that can take the battles waaaaaaay down.  I know it takes some effort. But would you rather spend more time on  🎯preparation or putting out fires? 🔥  My votes on the preparation. 👌🏼

By the time you finish listening, you'll know:

  • Ways to set clear expectations that motivate your children to follow the house rules.
  • Tricks to conquer bedtime battles and morning chaos.
  • How to get your child to do what you ask, the 1st time you ask it.

Unlock the secrets to a smoother, more joyful time with your family by trying out our practical tips. And don't forget to check out episodes 14 and 23 for even more insights into managing bedtime and morning routines!

✨Want more?

1) Use this link for a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting.

2) Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen

Flora McCormick:

Hi, friends, you're listening to Episode 63 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, licensed therapist, experienced parenting coach of over 15 years and mom of two kids. Today we're diving into solutions for summer stress. I promise you, friend, when I address these five key areas of our busy life in summer, it takes down so much s tress decreases power struggles, increases my chance to be sitting by the pool or sitting in the backyard in a lounge chair with a book or talking to my friend with a cup of tea or a glass of wine. So I want to give you these same tools for summer survival. Let's dive in, friend. First of all, I want to highlight a client of the week. So this couple came to me I'm going to call them Joe and Susan and Joe and Susan had a elementary age child who was having some difficulty in his Montessori school getting in trouble. Teachers really frustrated with rude, disrespectful, inappropriate behavior, and they were frustrated with these things at home as well. And after just three sessions of working together just 30 minutes per session Joe had this to say, alongside his wife, S usan, " Boy, we had a really good few weeks. It's been really positive. A lot of our interactions that I've had with him have been way more calm and when things did escalate, I could calm it down with your tools and I've been teaching him more about his brain instead of being just reactive and coming into our session today, I was trying to think really hard of any sort of bad or challenging thing we would need help with and I really couldn't think of anything. So that's great." riend, i f you're in a similar place, you are struggling and you're thinking I don't have time to make this really get better. I don't know if I can even get on a wait list with a therapist. Sometimes examples like this family with Susan and Joe we can move within just three sessions into having more calm and ease. So I share that story to say, if you're in that place and you'd like to know what it could look like for you to move quickly into more easy times as a family, reach out via the link in my show description or check out my website sustainableparenting. com.

Flora McCormick:

Now let's dive into these five key areas where we can really save so much stress if we just make some agreements in advance in these five key areas. This is what they are, friend, are you ready. Write this down or actually you might be able to remember them. Just simply, we want to think about making agreements in advance about toys, tech, treats morning, and evening. Toys, tech, treats. Morning evening Toys tech treats morning evening Toys tech treats morning Okay, you get it. So toys tech treats morning evening. Toys tech tricks morning Okay, you get it. So toys tech treats \

Flora McCormick:

morning and evening.

Flora McCormick:

.

Flora McCormick:

First of all, we want to think about why are we doing agreements in advance? For I don't get what this really matters. I tell my kids all the time what needs to happen. They don't listen to me. That's not going to change anything. But here's the deal.

Flora McCormick:

When I call it an agreement in advance, I'm not saying you like, ask your kid permission to set a limit, but I'm saying that you're really clear ahead of time how they get access to privileges and freedoms and power, and the opposite being, if they don't respect the limits, how they don't have as much access to privileges, freedoms and power if they don't respect the limits, how they don't have as much access to privileges, freedoms and power. So laying this out ahead of time, I mean you could picture if you were in that situation. There's just like being hired for a job. Hey, when you do X, y, z, then you get this bonus of a privilege or you get this freedom of maybe being promoted to being a boss and having less people tell you what to do and you getting to be more of taking the lead on what's happening. So it's the same kind of idea. When we're clear ahead of time, it motivates people to do their best, just like it would for us in a job as adults. I believe our kids' job is interacting around the things of their world, and when we can be clear, it motivates their best behavior. So that's why, now, how, how do we set clear expectations and agreements in advance?

Flora McCormick:

Toys, tech, treats, morning, evening. We're going to start with toys, no-transcript, like. If you want to make an agreement in advance that we're going to. When we want to move on to a new activity, we need to first clean up what we've been doing. Then that's going to help us a lot when the moment comes up that they're about to run outside to do something with the neighbors and you go hey, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa I see these board games still on the table and they will be more motivated to say, oh, yeah, that's right, and they come back and they will be more motivated to say, oh yeah, that's right, and they come back, or that you've say it's really, you know, clear that when you handle putting your bike away after it's been ridden all around the neighborhood, then you have access to it tomorrow. But honey, if we're all going to bed and I see that bike laying in the driveway, it's not going to be available for a day. So let's make agreements in advance about how we're going to handle the toys we're playing with, the stuff, tech.

Flora McCormick:

Tech is our second category, which is a really big hot topic during the summer, and I, like I just talked to a family today actually the same family I was highlighting at the beginning Joe and Susan who were saying they were like not wanting tech to take over because lately they've been setting more limits and noticing what, how it impacts way better behavior. But then, with the summer, they're like but how do we get a break without giving them that break on technology? And so we taught, we brainstormed and there are many different ways we can make sure that our kids are having downtime and that we're having downtime where we're not feeling as much pressure to solve battles or structure anything. And and well, side note, we don't need to structure everything, and that's a whole nother conversation that we'll get into down the road. But coming back to what we're talking about today, I want to say that in terms of technology, we can, you know, have alternatives to video games and TV, like audio books, like involving them usefully in what it is we're doing, like cooking with us. We can get out some more creative things like Play-Doh, sidewalk chalk bubbles or, for older kids, like a glue gun and a bunch of popsicle sticks so they can go crazy creating, or beads and pipe cleaners. There are a lot of unstructured activities that can still take up a lot of time for kids that don't have to involve technology. I mean, the audio book is a little bit of technology but doesn't quite fry their brains, quite the same. So, aside from that, be clear with them.

Flora McCormick:

What is your expectation? Yes, we get an hour every morning of cartoons, because it's summer or no, we're only going to do it on the weekends. What do you want to agree on in advance? This helps our power struggle so much when we're clear ahead of time and we're not making game time decisions day to day, sometimes giving them a lot more and then the next day feeling like ah, that was too much and trying to pull it way back. All of that just feeds more power struggles. Okay, so we've covered toys tech.

Flora McCormick:

Third one is treats. Same thing. I noticed my kids just wanting to freely go to the pantry like every five seconds, or you know. They know we do a lot of popsicles in the summer. So it's like right after breakfast I'm being asked can I have a popsicle? So we make an agreement in advance. You know what plan is After lunch every day, you are welcome to have a popsicle. You're welcome to give as many away to your friends as you want to. That's the one time of the popsicle. Don't ask me at 805 and don't ask me 15 times a day. We're gonna do one popsicle and this is our time. Same with treats. I'm like here's where the apples and the carrots and the fruit and all these things are available freely to you. Here's access to all of the you know pantry stuff that is available to you. And we're clear about other boundaries. We're not having um sodas throughout the day. Those are things we have with a meal. You know a fizzy water? We call it like a bubbly. I don't know um sparkling water you can have with dinner and that's the one time we do it, so the more you can be clear.

Flora McCormick:

Toys, tech, treats, these things decrease your battles and your constant asking and things just feeling chaotic. The last two pieces morning and evening. To dive deeper into what you can do to help your nighttimes go better, please check out episode 14, the secret to ending bedtime battles. And if you are would like more help with helping the morning and how you get out the door, feel free to check out episode 23 ways to calm the morning chaos. Okay, friends, so your tips for this week are to focus on making agreements in advance around toys, tech, treats and your morning and evenings. Thanks so much for joining me and, as always, I hope this is a week that you're continuing to grow using tools that are kind and firm at the same time, so the parenting finally feels sustainable and joyful and easy.