Sustainable Parenting

111. Setting up the Summer for More Joy and Less Battles

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Have you been looking into the summer with worry that you will be losing your patience DAILY?!  

Are you afraid it will leave you ready to get those kids back to school within days?!


By the time you finish listening today, you will know:

• What to do when you reach the end of your rope.


• How to solve the five most common trouble spots: toys, technology, treats, morning routines, and evening routines.

• The single most important phrase to stop saying.


• The best-kept-secret that unlocks more joy and ease - the SHORTER rope!

Join us for a workshop on June 11th, 12-1pm MST, with 30 minutes of teaching and 30 minutes of Q&A. 

Registration is here: https://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:

Okay, friends, today is real talk about surviving summer. If you've been going into these months of June, july, august thinking I want to have fun, I want to be excited, but there's also this like pit in my stomach, tightness in my chest, thinking that I'm likely going into more battles and power struggles and sibling fights all day long, then this is the episode for you. There is one top phrase that I always hear parents say about summer, and you are going to know by the end of this episode why it is going to totally change things to not focus on that word and the phrase. Instead, that gives you a strategy forward into more joy and ease. 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.

Speaker 1:

I just got off a clarity call today with a client who is going to start working with me at the end of the week and said her main desire of reaching out was stress about summer she said Flora, I just can't even picture my eight and six-year-old getting through summer without constant battles and already here, just when we have the weekends together, I am losing it by three quarters of the way through the day. And if my husband comes home on weekdays he often finds me just throwing my hands up, super frustrated, and then when he steps in and he's more of a authoritarian parent, I get mad at him because I'm like I've been patient all day. Why aren't you more patient? And here's the thing I unlocked for her, the same phrase that I want to unlock for you. That is the gateway to a whole lot more joy and ease, less battles, less power struggles, less sibling fights.

Speaker 1:

But first I want to talk about the word that I don't want to hear you say this summer, and that is the B word. No, maybe not the B word that first came to mind, although I will say side note. I just watched the new movie called Night Bitch and I 1000% recommend it to anyone who has had struggles in becoming a mother, a sense of confusion in who you are, a sense of both overwhelm and underwhelm. That motherhood was both overwhelming in so many tasks, so many decisions to make, so much unknown and yet also very underwhelming in the monotony of the day-to-day food preparation, diaper changing, feeding. If that has been overwhelming to you, I definitely recommend watching the movie Night Bitch. It's phenomenal. I cried. I reached out to my kids and held their hands afterwards, just in this deep connection for all that we've been through in getting through those early years. Side note on that. But that's not the B word that I want to give to you today.

Speaker 1:

The B word I want to invite you to not say this summer is busy. Do you find this like? People meet up at the park or the pool or wherever, and it's so easy when someone says, hey, how's summer going, that you respond with oh, it's so busy. And I have made this a pact of mine, with packed with myself and actually just with my brother I was just visiting him and we were talking about this to never use the B word. But especially in summer it's so tempting when people ask how's the summer, to say it's busy. And, friends, what's the value in busy? It's just doing, it's stuff, it's words on a calendar. To me, that's what busy represents. Calendar to me, that's what busy represents and I don't want to end my summer days or weeks or months saying we were so busy. No, friend, it's not about stuff, it's about quality time and connection and building memories.

Speaker 1:

I want, when someone asks how summer going, to say, okay, we've been really making some special memories or it's been really full of some quality time with each other or having experiences we don't usually get to have during the year. So my first invitation to you is to drop the word busy. Try to let go of the B word and replace it with something that has more value. Why does this matter, friends? Not because I'm trying to be nitpicky or overly Pollyanna, but because our words affect our emotions and our emotions and our thoughts affect our actions. So if we are just constantly responding to people about busyness, then we are just going through the slog of stuff and events and words on a calendar without stepping back to really create it to be what we want the experience to be. So then, that phrase that I promised you, friend, that I want to invite you to, to give you more joy and ease in these memories you're making and events that you're getting to go to or activities that you don't have the chance to do in the school year, the phrase I want to give you is this that if you keep getting to the end of your rope, what you really need is not more patience, but a shorter rope. If you keep getting to the end of your rope, you actually need a shorter rope, not a longer one.

Speaker 1:

I see this time and again. Parents come to me and they say I'm just losing it with my kid. I am gentle all day, I am patient, and then they're just not listening and they're fighting with each other. They're asking me for a popsicle for the 57th time. They are bickering again, begging for technology, and I just hit my limit and I explode. Maybe send them to their rooms, say I'm canceling everything and I hate it, but, gosh, they just won't stop.

Speaker 1:

Here's exactly what's happening in that story, friends. That mom is losing her kindness, not because she needs more patience, but because she's lost her firmness. It is this teeter-totter. I wish you could see my hands holding like a balance. I'm showing you know that teeter-totter sort of effect that they really do balance each other out. If we are losing our firmness, it causes us to also lose our kindness. We need both together to feel kind and firm and have more joy and ease. That is the gateway, friend, if you've been losing your kindness, it's because you have been losing your firmness to have, yeah, the space where you won't get to the end of your rope. We got to shorten that rope. What does that look like?

Speaker 1:

I am going to be super concrete here, going into the summer. First of all, let's clarify some things in advance and in my episode episode 63, we dive deep into this of how do we clarify the expectations for toys tech treats. Of how do we clarify the expectations for toys tech treats and our morning and evening routine. Friend, those are the five most common trouble spots in the day, and especially true in our summer. If we do not have clarity on when they can get a Popsicle or how much technology, or if we're buying stuff all day long at the amusement park, we are going to have battles over it. So, to have more fun this summer, have those discussions in advance about toys tech treats, morning and evening, and if you want guidance on that, check out episode 63 of this podcast. Also, if you were like, how on earth do we have less battles between siblings? I just don't want them constantly at each other's throat.

Speaker 1:

Have a shorter rope. Have clarity on the solutions of how else they can solve problems together and then have boundaries on if they are choosing to use the not so great methods that they are going to have consequences lost technology time, lost freedoms of playing with friends or whatever the thing may be. That makes sense If you're at a swimming pool with a bunch of other kids and you're just saying, please get along, please get along, and they keep not getting along, not getting along, please get along, please get along, and they keep not getting along, not getting along. That shorter rope looks like. Let me be clear when you're getting along in this way, like you either choose to swim together or you like, find other things to do with other people in the pool, then you get to stay in the pool and when you don't, you don't, and then you follow through that shorter rope my friends of maybe removing one or both of them, saying let's just sit down and take a break for five minutes and see if we can try again. Man, does that have the power to change how? Pool time is way better than patients, patients, patients blow up.

Speaker 1:

So from this summer, if you want a more enjoyable summer, I invite you to two things Drop the B word, no more busy, and instead focus on the value you're looking for. And when you find yourself dreading going into summer and you want more tools, think of how can I have a shorter rope so I don't get to the end of my rope. And, fred, if you need help with that, I am both offering a workshop June 11th, 12 to 1 pm online Montana Standard Time, where you get to come, have 30 minutes of teaching from me and 30 minutes Q&A, and that registration is in the show notes below this episode. And if you'd like to dive even deeper for more personalized solutions, always there's a clarity call link so we can do that.

Speaker 1:

Friend, I hope this empowers you to have a more enjoyable summer ahead, so that you're parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time and it feels finally sustainable to be a mom or dad or caretaker. Join me next week as we're going to talk about technology over the summer and how we can curb those daily questions, that desire for more and more tech time, and why it matters, why it's important and the option of how to turn towards more independence building instead, and why that is going to equip your child for a better school year after the summer. See you then.