Sustainable Parenting

109. How to Decrease Your Disappointment and Frustration in Motherhood

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Ever feel so stuck in frustration and Annoyance - in parenting? 

Today I will be giving you 1 key tool that I believe is the secret to decreasing frustration (even if your kids don’t change)!

Key topics we will cover include:


• Children's behavior isn't a sign of parental failure. It’s a normal part of development


• "A child's job is to test rules and boundaries to see what happens when they do"


• Lowering expectations doesn't mean abandoning standards for respectful behavior

Join our lunch and learn workshops held monthly on Wednesdays at noon. 

Find information at sustainableparenting.com/workshop-4


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

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3) Buy a 3 session Coaching Bundle (saving you $100) - for THREE 30-min sessions 1:1 with ME, where we get right to the heart of your challenges, and give you small, powerful shifts that make a huge difference fast.

Speaker 1:

Hey friend, have you had some disappointment lately? Frustration that you keep having battles daily, or annoyance that the kids just pick and pick and pick at each other, or overwhelm that your kids have been saying such awful things when they're angry. Friend, today we're going to tap into the primary tool that I think is important for us to have in our tool belt so that we decrease disappointment, annoyance and overwhelm, and it's one simple phrase that I'm going to give you today. 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 before we dive in, I quickly want to highlight Lady Bird, mom who left a recent review, who said my husband and I and our kids are so grateful to Flora. We've been to a number of parenting classes and looked at so many online resources. Flora is the only person who helped us make changes that showed a positive effect within the first few days. We love seeing so many positive changes in our family with simple and easy to use strategies. Thank you so much, friend. If you'd like to leave a review to share how sustainable parenting has been impacting your life, I would be so grateful. It helps others to know what's possible in their families too, and you can do so easily by scrolling to the bottom of all episodes, clicking on that fifth star and leaving a comment. Also, be sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you regularly get the downloads each week and don't miss a single tool and strategy to be parenting with more kindness and firmness at the same time. So parenting finally feels sustainable.

Speaker 1:

Now let's dive into this frustration, disappointment and overwhelm and the singular tool that can be transformational. I want to tell you a story of a parent that I was working with. Jenny was a stay-at-home mom with a young toddler, a three-year-old and a five-year-old, and she found herself regularly frustrated and overwhelmed and disappointed in her role as a mom. When she came to me, she said, with her head downward cast and her eyes drooping and a sigh Flora, I just don't know if I can keep doing this. I mean, I gave up everything. I have a master's degree in my profession and I gave it up to be a stay-at-home mom, because this is what I thought I wanted to do. But I'm exhausted and I don't feel like I'm doing this well. I yell at my kids. They keep pushing boundaries, bedtime's a mess. They're constantly doing the things I've asked them to not do. It seems like, no matter what I do, I can't calm my son down from his upsets. I just don't know if I'm cut out for this. And as we use the singular tool that I'm going to give you today, jenny, within two weeks, told me I feel different. There's a lightness, there's a improvement in the kids not pushing my boundary and there is an improvement in me not feeling so overwhelmed. We're still having challenges, but I don't feel so heavy by them and I feel like things are getting better.

Speaker 1:

So here's what Jenny did she used this tool that we call adjusting the expectation gap. The expectation gap have you ever heard of this before? It's this measuring stick. Expectation gap have you ever heard of this before? It's this measuring stick, basically, that says the size of the distance between how we think things should be and how they actually are, can often be a measure of the size of our stress, the size of that space between how we think it should be and how it actually is is like this window Picture, the top being the should and the bottom being reality. The bigger that gap, the bigger the window opening, the bigger our stress, the bigger our sense of overwhelm and disappointment and frustration.

Speaker 1:

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying okay for us all to be happier as parents. We'll just give up any hope or expectation that they should be polite and respectful and responsible. Okay, hear me out, friend. That is not what we said to Jenny. Poor expectation that they should be polite and respectful and responsible. Okay, hear me out, friend. That is not what we said to Jenny. But what I did say to Jenny is you know, what I notice is a lot of what sounds so stressful and overwhelming is not the fact that the kids are battling, but the story you tell yourself in your brain when they're battling.

Speaker 1:

But the story you tell yourself in your brain when they're battling, when they are not getting along with each other. You have two roads. You can go down the high expectation road which says they should not be doing this, they should get along well, they should be well-behaved, they should always be just perfectly nice to each other. And when they're not, I feel like I'm failing. We tell ourself the story that we're failing. The other road, with a smaller expectation gap, says, oh look, they're battling with each other. Of course they are. They just landed on the planet three years ago, five years ago, even eight or nine years ago. Three years ago, five years ago, even eight or nine years ago, they don't yet know how to do this thing of conflict management. I'm going to work on teaching them. Yes, it takes effort, but it totally decreases the overwhelm when we have that expectation brought down.

Speaker 1:

You feel the difference as you hear those two stories that you can tell yourself. Similarly, if the kids get so big in their emotions and we're like, why do you have to get so worked up? Why does he get so mad? Why does he get so sad? Why does he get so mad? Why does he get so sad, then we are filled with the story that is also saying I must be failing somehow, that I can't seem to talk my kid down from this place, that I can't seem to prevent him getting so angry.

Speaker 1:

The road that we took Jenny down instead was what she started to define to me. As I'm telling them, they are allowed to kick, scream and throw things and I'm like ooh, tell me more about that. She's like, instead of being like, don't do that, don't be so angry. I'm like you're allowed to be super angry and if you need to throw things and kick, you are welcome to do that in your room. You are welcome to just punt your stuffed animal across your room. You are welcome to be in the safe space that we're going to create together and, in a nurturing way, be like you've got that space. Honey, I'm not mad at you that you're angry. I'm noticing that you're angry and I'm acknowledging that's a normal feeling and I'm going to give you a space to express it. That does not hurt people or property and she's like it just freed me and it's calming him down faster. So I'm not so exhausted trying to talk him down the off the anger curve and he is feeling really like improved confidence that he's also being allowed to feel his feelings, and I'm not like criticizing who he is. I'm normalizing this feeling. That's the change in the expectation gap from shoulds and shame and blame to a place of yes, of course this is going on. This is a normal human experience and we're going to make a plan for it From the phrase that comes to mind that really embodies this so fully is something I saw on a hospital website even before I had kids, when I was first learning in my master's degree in specializing in youth and adolescents and counseling them.

Speaker 1:

It said a child's job is to test rules and boundaries to see what happens when they do.

Speaker 1:

That's it.

Speaker 1:

It is their job. Boy, do they clock in some days like for overtime, from the moment their feet hit the ground till the evening. There are other days they kind of settle in a bit, but it is their job to test rules and boundaries, to push here and there to see what the rules are in the world. They don't know them and their best way, just instinctually to figure out what those boundaries are is to push against them and to see if you really mean it. So what is our job? Our job is to hold those boundaries in a kind and firm way and to teach. To teach by teaching, not just by correcting, friend. These are the things that really get us to find more joy and ease in parenthood, lowering that expectation gap from should. You, shouldn't be this way to. Of course, it is your job to test rules and boundaries to see what happens when you do. And, friend, if you're needing help to equip you with how to hold those kind and firm boundaries, that's what we're about.

Speaker 1:

Here at Sustainable Parenting, we offer lunch and learn workshops that are noon once a month on Wednesday. You can find that information at sustainableparentingcom slash workshop, or you can go to the information in the description of this episode and schedule a clarity call with me to talk about one-on-one work. For now, friend, I hope this tool of the expectation gap being adjusted can help you have the same results as Jenny, so that you're parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time in parenting finally feels sustainable. Don't forget to join us next week, friend, as we're going to talk about three keys to getting kids to listen. The first time, the first time you ask them to do something, catch you then.