66. Stress-Free Time Away: When your kids stay in the care of parents or relatives

Is it possible to leave your kids with someone else for an extended period and still have peace of mind?

In this episode, we  give you 3 key ways to ensure your time away from your kids is smooth for both the caregivers and the kids.   

We'll unpack 3️⃣ essential strategies to empower your kids by being visual, verbal, and comfortable with letting go.

After listening, you'll learn:

• How to effectively use visual aids to maintain routines.
• Techniques for communicating with both your kids and their temporary caregivers.
• Tips for creating a consistent environment to ensure a smoother transition.

Discover how to set up visuals for key routines like bedtime and morning preparations, ensuring your children feel secure and supported even in your absence.

Wishing you an stress-free time of rejuvenation. :)

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

you're listening to episode 66 of the sustainable parenting podcast with me, flora mccormick, licensed therapist and parenting expert of 15 years. I love to help parents know how to be kind and firm at the same time, so that things finally feel sustainable. And today we're talking about how do you handle, in a kind and firm way, this dynamic of leaving your kids with someone else for an extended period of time. Whether it's during the summer to attend a retreat, like several people are doing with our sustainable parenting retreat here in August, or it's for a vacation, you're going on with your partner. There are moments where we might have our child with someone else for a period of time and we want it to go as good as possible. So let me give you my top three tips for an effective time away from your kids. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing, to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome, and for today's listener of the week, I want to highlight I'm a Betty who said Flora's parenting tips are easily incorporated into everyday interactions with our kiddos. Flora's knowledge and passion for helping families comes through as she provides parents with sound, evidence-based solutions to help with the toughest of struggles. Please reach out to us and let us know that you were the one that left that review, named yourself, as I'm a Betty, and we will give you access to our free course, either how to stop whining for good or how to get kids to listen and friend. If you've gotten value from episodes previous to today or after today, please make sure that you download, subscribe so you don't miss future episodes, and that, if you haven't yet leave a review, by going to the main page of the of the show and scrolling down to the bottom of all episodes you see, for a chance to leave a four-star review we could select you in an upcoming episode for a free course.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Now, this topic is really important one today about how do we help our kids to be as successful as possible in a moment where we're going to be away for an extended period of time, and I want to give you three quick ways to empower your children and to give yourself that sense of really knowing you're doing the right thing, so that you can enjoy your trip away and your kids can enjoy their time with whoever they're spending that time with. So the three things that I want to encourage you to do this week when you are thinking of your kids being away from you are to be visual, be verbal and be okay with a little bit of letting go. Be visual, verbal and okay with a little bit of letting go. Stay tuned to the end of the episode to make sure you get all three key parts All right. The first piece is be visual. This is something that I noticed. A lot of families don't do so. When, if you have any key routines in your household like maybe your bedtime routine is that your kids have a snack while you're reading one story on the couch, then they go and brush their teeth and get jammies on and then get in bed for two more books then I would recommend making a visual for whoever the children are staying with. That clearly represents those key components, so they know they can go by that same pattern and point to it, so that the kids know that this is their pattern to keep following while they're with this other caregiver. So anything you can put into a visual form of how things typically go in routine times of your family or in how you solve problems can really help it go better for the person who's watching your child. And maybe you have key when thens about how your kids are most motivated to take care of things. So when you are ready in the morning by the time the timer goes off, then you're able to bring a toy from this little basket by the shoes into our car with where we're going. That would be really helpful to have in a visual form to help the people taking care of your kids I'm going to just assume it might be grandparents so that they can go by that same routine and motivator as well. So that's how we can help it go better by having some key visuals.

Speaker 1: 5:04

If you have ways that your kids typically solve problems together, like you like to use timers for them to be able to you know kind of clearly know where the boundary is Like. We're leaving in 10 minutes. I'm starting this timer for 10 minutes so that you clearly know when it goes off. That's our moment to need to have our shoes and our coat on so that we can be out the door, or that's the moment we have to have our flip flops and our goggles and our swimsuits so that we can get to the pool on time. And when you've got it all set by the time that timer goes off, we'll be sure to, you know, bring a toy in the car with us, or have lemonades when we get there, or, you know, be able to stay all the way until five o'clock or whatever the thing may be. And if we don't, we don't. So those key ideas conveyed through visuals can be helpful.

Speaker 1: 5:56

If there are ways that you like to help your kids solve problems, I find it super effective to have like a wheel of choices that have some of those ideas on there. Again, this visually helps the kids and the adult that's watching your child be able to keep that same consistency. Second thing that I recommend is be verbal. If there's something that really matters to you, talk about it with that adult. Like you know, I really don't mind what you guys do during the day. You can feed them more ice cream than we normally do, or go, you know, more TV than we normally do, but please, please, please. It's super important to us that you keep to the bedtime schedule, because that will really be so much harder for us when we come back if you don't keep to that piece. So, whatever the pieces are that are really truly so valuable to you, verbalize it.

Speaker 1: 6:47

Don't assume that they will know what is the most important place to keep the routines versus where they maybe have more flexibility. And, third of all, be willing to let go a little bit. So know that things are likely in this other person's home to not be exactly how you would handle them at home, and that's okay as long as you've vetted this as a safe person. If some things are handled in a little bit different way than you generally would with how they, you know, if they do a bunch more sunscreen instead of the long sleeve for getting into the pool, or if they do later dinners and like do them right before bed and normally you like to do dinner and then some playtime in bed, you know there's room for some flexibility, and I think it's important to make sure you don't micromanage the person that is going to watch your kids, so that they can have freedom to have their own relationship with the children as well and their own routines with the kids. So these are some things that I really recommend.

Speaker 1: 7:58

And one final key thing in terms of how to help the child emotionally if they're feeling like some worry about the separation from you, is you can use all of these concepts, be visual, be verbal around, um, how your love is with them. You can be visual in terms of leaving them some notes behind that can be opened up. You can be verbal in terms of let's. I want to remind you my love is always, always with you, no matter where we are in the world. Let me even give you a kiss on the hand where you know you have mommy's kiss, always, anywhere and any time of day. You can put that up to your cheek, up to your heart, and know that you're getting a little kiss from mama. So you can do some routine things that either verbally or visually represent that your love is with them no matter what, and also that you're going to come back.

Speaker 1: 8:51

There's a really nice Daniel tiger episode that says grownups come back. You can Google for that, um, but I love that concept and being able to even have a picture of you that the caretaker say it's the grandparents can point to and say remember, mom and dad always come back. They will come back. They're having a great time where they are. You're having a great time where you are and they will come back. So those are some key ideas to help the trip go as great as possible. And, boy, if you're having some time to retreat with your partner or if you're interested in coming to our retreat August 2nd through 4th, reach out to me, as we do have two spots left and would love to have you, um get rejuvenated, restored, build up and supported in your parenting role as a mama um, with us at that retreat here in Bozeman, montana. All right, friends, hope you enjoy these moments of rest and we'll see you again next week.