Sustainable Parenting
Are you tired of power struggles, whining, and tantrums with your kids? Does it seem no matter what you do, they just. won't. LISTEN?!
Friend, you are not alone. I have been there. And I can't wait to share with you the pathway to more joy and ease, getting kids to listen in a way that is still loving, kind and connected.
Welcome to Sustainable Parenting.
Here we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline, so you can parent with kindness and firmness at the same time.
In this podcast, we share simple transformational shifts, so you can finally be the calm, confident parent you always dreamed you'd be.
With my master’s degree in counseling, being a mom of 2 young kids, and 12 years of experience coaching and mentoring parents internationally, I have found the secrets to being a calm confident parent.
These 15 min. episodes will drop each Wednesday and boil down parenting theory and psychology into bite-size strategies that are easy to understand and implement, and for that reason...finally feel sustainable.
Sustainable Parenting
89. How to Thrive Over the Holiday Break
Do you get so frustrated with the chaos of holiday breaks with kids?
Do you sometimes even end the break saying to yourself, "GET THEM OUT OF HERE! I can't do this anymore."
Today's episode is a breath of fresh air - to empower you with tools to make this holiday break waaaaay more doable and enjoyable.
We will explore actionable strategies that can turn holiday stresses into harmonious family memories. From maintaining bedtime routines to carrying familiar snacks, discover practical ways to create predictability and security for your children. I also share insights on the art of prevention, including how to craft a flexible plan for daily activities that minimizes decision fatigue and keeps family tensions at bay.
Throughout this episode, real stories and proven strategies highlight the power of setting clear expectations and having proactive discussions about behavior. Transform your holiday breaks by learning how to skip overwhelming events, maintain a balance of kindness and firmness, and ultimately, enjoy quality time together.
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You're listening to Episode 89 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach and early childhood mental health consultant. This week, we are getting so close to the holiday break, and many families may already be on break when this goes live, and so I want to give you some tips for surviving this break with your kids having time off of school, whether it's preschool or elementary. These two key suggestions are how truly I survive the holiday breaks and enjoy them so much more. 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, friend. Just a quick reminder if you have not yet subscribed or left a review on this podcast, please do both, as it will help make sure that you can keep hearing from this podcast and helps to share this message with others that are in need of that kind and firm balance. Okay, so here are, honestly, the things that help the McCormick's to thrive not just survive but have things go way better during our vacation break time, and I want to give it to you now for free. This is what I tell my clients too, and I want to help you with these two key tips today. So they are be predictable and be spending your time on prevention so you don't have to put out fires.
Speaker 1:Predictable and prevention First key thing be as predictable as possible in those key areas of life that are your routines. So if bedtime your child usually has a noise machine, find a travel noise machine or find the white noise app to download on your phone. If your child is used to having a couple of books when you are about to put them down for a nap, bring a couple of key books with you. If your child is used to having a lot of healthy fruits and vegetables, bring those healthy fruits and vegetables on the trip. I remember my favorite thing that I invested in when we went to Disneyland last spring break was that we went to the grocery store and we bought like apples and little cuties and baby carrots and oh my gosh, those were saving graces to have that predictable snack that I knew really gave my kids positive energy that they could have that during the day in Disneyland, because when we were having all this other junk like, they were running on fumes and fumes lead to tantrums and tantrums lead to moms just melting down and hating the vacation.
Speaker 1:Moms and dads right. So as predictable as you can be at the snacks that they like, at the sleep routine that they like and then also at the pace that they like, if you know that your kid gets easily overwhelmed when they're in a big crowd, don't expect that it's going to be different in the big crowd at Disneyland or the big crowd at the downtown parade for the holidays. You know, know who your kid is and stay being predictable with the types of routines that you know work best for them. So that might be like our family does not choose to go to those big holiday parades and sometimes I feel like a scrooge of a mom. But then in other ways I'm like but I know my kid and I want to honor that.
Speaker 1:I just was working with an amazing mom this week that I'll call Maria and she was talking about like this guilt of missing out on going to a birthday party for her kid because she was like I'm just starting to think we need to not go to some of these because of the amount of sugar and candy, because my kid just totally gets dysregulated by that and I don't know what else to do. And I said, and I just wanted to assure her, like a lot of the work that I do with parents sometimes comes down to that reassurance me being able to hear their story and validate the places in which I'm like that is totally your right to make that choice and you are doing the best thing for your child by making that choice. That is not doing the best thing for your child. By making that choice, that is not hurting them developmentally or socially. That choice sounds like it's coming from a place of really tuning into who they are and what their temperament is. So, friend, I want to give you permission, to give yourself the permission, guilt-free, to not do some of the things that you think may not match your child's needs in terms of late nights or amount of people or whatever the thing may be. So this is all about staying predictable. Stay with your routines that you know are important to your child as best you can.
Speaker 1:Second key thing that really saves us during the holidays and to help ourselves enjoy our break of like two weeks off together in our home is to spend that time on prevention. Spend that time on prevention means look at our schedule. Well, there's a couple of things that it could mean, but one piece is looking at our schedule and saying, okay, if we have just endless days with nothing scheduled, let's maybe talk a little bit about a loose framework of a schedule so that we can have a plan for what's going to happen, so that I'm not constantly being begged every single day. Can we go to jump time? Can we do this? Can we do that? And like, can I have another candy cane? Can I, you know, go to the Target and spend all the money I got for Christmas? Like, if I don't want to have these things that keep getting asked of me and I have to make a decision, then I am more likely to be calm. So, some amount of predictability. Let's look at the week ahead and you know, I know you might get some candy. Let's make a plan of how we're going to spread that out. You may get some money. Let's make the plan for the day that we're going to go. Do that, you know.
Speaker 1:Any amount of planning can help us not have to be in a space of decision, which leads us to space of stress, which leads us often to spaces of tantrums and upset and mom and dad losing it. So think about any loose schedule and if you've got especially younger kids, you may want to even like break out a piece of paper and make some like a rectangle with some sections and square out the day. If you've got an open day ahead of you, like let's kind of plan that we're going to go outside and play in the snow in the morning, then we're going to come in and have a snack, then we're going to play with our toys inside for a while, then we're going to take, have lunch and then rest, and then we're going to play with our toys inside for a while, then we're going to have lunch and then rest, and then we're going to maybe go out and do something else in the afternoon or early evening or go to dinner, so that there's some sense of the kids knowing what's coming. This kind of ties in again to being predictable and friend. Just a side note here predictable is one of the key underestimated aspects of attachment. A lot of parents that I meet that are oriented towards gentle parenting and wanting to have secure attachment, focus on those aspects of supporting feelings and validation and connection, which are all absolutely important, and yet they sometimes haven't really heard about or focused on how important it is to be predictable.
Speaker 1:Predictable is also about our own. This is just a total tangent for a second Predictable is also about our own mood, and so, part of all these things I'm talking about to survive the holidays in a better way, I want to make sure I'm making choices that keep me predictable, that I'm not going to be the mom that's, like you know, happy, happy, happy and then totally freaks out because I'm like, I'm exhausted and you're asking me too many things and they're like whoa, where did that come from? I want to make sure that I'm making choices that are, you know, respecting what I need in this time frame, having things discussed ahead of time, so that I'm not getting to the brink of my patients by constantly debating whether I want to go to Target or not, whether I want to let them have candy or not, like I want to make sure I'm making choices that help me stay predictable. So that's another super important part of being predictable, so that, if you're not losing it, the kids and you are more likely to enjoy the holiday week. So two key things be predictable and spend that time on prevention rather than putting out fires. To come back to the prevention, instead of putting out fires, I also want to recommend you have those clear discussions in advance about what kind of behavior is going to lead to what type of privileges. So if you're at a family member's house, be clear in that space that, like honey, if you're having a hard time, you need to scream and be upset and say a bunch of you know angry things. Just so you know, even at grandma's house we have this space over here that we've decided we can help you to kind of reset back to your factory default settings. We can re um, uh, stabilize, we can re-regulate in this space and with this plan. So have those discussions in advance.
Speaker 1:If you're planning to go out to dinner, you know, discuss in advance what is going to be going on in that dinner. You know kids that are sitting nicely in their chair are going to be. Kids that get to order dessert or kids that get to have lemonade with their dinner. Kids that are not will not, or kids that are wiggling all around and start to leave the table more than once are going to be, you know, asked to take a break in the bathroom with me until you're ready to be a good boss of your body again. When you say that in advance, man, it really helps usually prevent needing to put out fires during the dinner. So have those discussions. Spend the time on prevention so you don't have to spend it putting out fires.
Speaker 1:And, friend, I really hope these two key aspects of predictability and prevention help you to just let love on those kids this holiday time off. Enjoy your time together and have it be a space where you're having joy and ease in your home. If you need help with this and you are saying by the end of holiday break, we absolutely had no joy and ease, or maybe not none, but, man, we're struggling to find joy and ease among all the battles Reach out. I would love to work with you. I have spots open in the new year. 2025 can be a fresh start.
Speaker 1:I mean, it is truly my goal to have parents leave my program saying I enjoyed my time on my holiday vacation where I didn't last year. I enjoyed my time on the trip that we took where we did not enjoy our last trip, and I see this happen again and again and people sometimes, when you think about paying for consulting on a parenting level, it can seem like, wait, I'm only going to spend money on my kids, why would I do this for myself? But then when parents realize, wait, if I'm spending like $5,000 for a trip to Disneyland, and if I spent a little bit more towards some coaching so that we'd actually enjoy that trip and have it be like a peaceful, fun time instead of battles, power struggles and whining and crying heck, yes, get me into that. So just a reminder that during this holiday time I am still having clarity calls in the new year to sign people up to work with me. And here's a fun testimonial that I got.
Speaker 1:Actually just after Thanksgiving. One of my current clients said the holiday break was so much more enjoyable than it has been before Before. I used to be like, oh my gosh, get them back to school by the end of our holiday weeks and this time over Thanksgiving. Overall, we felt more peaceful and calm. We actually enjoyed our time together. Thank you, chelsea, for sharing that and others. I want you to know this change is possible for you too. Just go to the description of this episode and scroll down till you see the link to set a call up with me or to link to my website and choose a service option. All right, friend, for now let this be another week. You parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, so that parenting finally feels sustainable. Talk soon.