Sustainable Parenting | Raising Confident Kids with Positive Parenting Strategies

124. How to Stop Nagging and Start Working Yourself Out of a Job

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Ever notice how you're stuck in a cycle of constant reminders with your kids? You’re telling them to pack their lunch, grab their cleats, finish their homework—yet you’re torn between enjoying feeling needed and resenting this never-ending role.

In this episode of Sustainable Parenting with Flora McCormick, we explore the powerful shift from being a micromanaging parent to a coaching parent. You’ll learn how to move from constant control into Positive Parenting Strategies that help kids build independence and “struggle muscles,” while also giving you more peace and freedom.

After listening, you’ll discover:

  • How shifting from “fixing everything” to a coaching mindset helps kids build resilience and confidence.
  • Why small struggles, like forgotten items, are valuable learning opportunities.
  • Calm Parenting Tips to regulate your own nervous system so you can guide instead of rescue.
  • How asking problem-solving questions empowers children more than giving ready-made answers.
  • The surprising freedom that comes from working yourself out of the parenting “job.”

If you’re ready for Kind and Firm Parenting that reduces stress and builds long-term responsibility, this episode will give you the tools to do just that.

Join me next week as we discuss the woman underneath the role of mom, and how attending to yourself can help you be the calm, confident parent you want to be.

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✨ Schedule a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting, so we can answer any questions you may have. Together, we'll make a plan for your best next steps to have more calm & confidence in parenting - while having kids that listen!:)

✨ Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen, for strategies that take you out of the "gentle mom - monster mom" cycle, with effective positive parenting strategies.

✨ Sign up for an upcoming LIVE ONLINE workshop with Flora, or purchase a past replay: https://sustainableparenting.com/workshop where you get 30 min. of learning and 30 min. of LIVE Q & A time, with replays sent afterwards.

✨ 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:

Do you find that your kids are needing constant reminders and struggle to be able to think for themselves about how to pack their own lunch or get all their things to soccer practice? And yet you find yourself in this push pull between kind of enjoying being needed and that feeling of, oh, I'm going to provide everything in the backpack that they need and they're going to be like, yes, thank you, mom, but also feeling like resentful about that role that you have to constantly fill. Friend, today I want to give you a simple shift of how to change that cycle for yourself, so that your kid is the one packing their own lunch, bringing their own things to soccer practice or dance, and you are more in the space of just being able to enjoy your child and be alongside them in the journey of life. 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. So first I want to talk for just a sec about what gets in the way of us building our kids up in a way so they can be more independent and self-reliant. We like being needed Most of us stereotypically moms, but I'll say I've also seen it in dads there's something innately in us that loves to feel needed, and I think it's a biological thing.

Speaker 1:

Right Start from the very beginning and we develop a loving relationship as we are needed. There's something you know, whether it's a pet or a human or a, I mean this is how we get addicted to these little games. Things that feel like they need us to do something develop a connection for us. They develop attachment, a connection for us. They develop attachment. So if we don't feel needed, it's disrupting to the system. However, one of our primary roles and jobs as a parent is to work ourselves out of a job. It's to have us not be needed, obviously, in terms of thinking of how to get dressed, thinking of what needs to happen next in the morning routine or evening routine, knowing how to pack a bag and have what you need at a soccer practice. It is our job to work ourselves out of the job of doing those things for our child, of them needing us to do it.

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And this, this is very confusing because it's like we get mixed messages. Right From the very start. We're told to be a loving, caring mom means we are meeting all of our child's needs and yet then, every single year, as they get older and older, to be a loving, effective parent means to do less and less to meet their needs ourselves and do more and more of teaching them how to meet their own needs. And this just is so front of mind for me right now in this season of starting a new school year, because there's something about every new school year where I just really kind of get this glimpse of how my child is growing and how they've grown. And wow, they really are like a fourth grader now and they really are a sixth grader now. And if you're not seeing that, if you're like gosh, no, I feel like my kid is behind. And they are at a grade or age where I still feel like I'm doing so many things for them that I don't think I should have to do at this age. Let's fix that.

Speaker 1:

And there's really one primary piece missing here, friend that it's not complicated, but it can be hard to shift. So here's the real change, friend, it's that we move ourselves from being micromanaging mom to coaching mom. If we are frustrated that our child is not doing more thinking for themselves, it may be because they don't have to we're doing all the thinking for them. Or we're frustrated they aren't owning things more on their own and we may be the ones that are owning it for them. We got to get out of our own way. Oh, I hate to deliver that bad news. That has something to do with what we can do different and not just what our kid needs to do different. But that's what I'm here for, friend. I'm here to be real because I've had to face this. I just had to face it today. It's like every single day I'm facing this. This is one of my biggest challenges in parenting getting out of my own way of wanting to constantly fix and rescue things for my kids and instead trusting their ability to grow and be competent.

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As Daniel Siegel says, who's the author of the Whole Brain Child and no Drama, discipline and just all around amazing expert around child psychology, he says, every time we rush to fix, we interrupt the child's opportunity to practice tolerating frustration and building resilience. John Gottman, who's also the author of a wonderful book called Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, who talks about emotion coaching. Says children who are shielded from small struggles don't develop the confidence to face bigger ones later. Author of Positive Discipline and also highlighted in this Sustainable Parenting podcast, where I was honored to be able to interview her in episodes 57 through 59. She says one of the core principles is if we're over rescuing, we communicate. I don't trust you to do this or to learn this, so have faith in the child.

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Where, where there is no opportunity to fail, there is no opportunity to learn. So, friend, what does this mean for us? How can we make this shift? It doesn't mean just, you know, kick your kid to the curb, let them face all the harshness of life and suck it up and figure it out, friend. But it means that we're conscious of not letting our own reactiveness, when our kids are hurting, get in the way of doing what we know is best.

Speaker 1:

That's what really happened for me. The hardest part for me was not the conscious knowing that I needed to help, let my kid learn from the struggles of life, but it was what was happening in my nervous system in those real life moments. For instance, I can think of the time when my daughter was about a first grader and we were going to dance and she did not pack her dance shoes and we were halfway to dance and we both realized it and she was crushed and she started to cry and of course that feels terrible inside my body and my nervous system and I, every, every cell in my body wants to fix it and be like oh God, you're going to be like embarrassed in front of your peers and your teacher might yell at you and I don't want any of those like sort of awful things to happen to you. There's this protective side of me as a mom that's battling with the side of me that knows this is a growth opportunity, the moment to be a coaching mom instead of a micromanaging mom. It wasn't my job to own that. It was my job and opportunity to coach her through how to build, struggle muscles, how to learn in that important moment.

Speaker 1:

First important step to making a shift here is regulating your own nervous system, being able to pause, notice that reaction in yourself, take a deep breath, calm your own reactiveness of like. This is not a situation I need to solve and save my child from the saber tooth type or tiger Like if that's what's kind of activated in my body. It's like whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not going to crush her, this is okay, taking a breath, mindfully, shifting my inner conversation to something more productive, saying she can do this, it's okay, we can do this, it's okay. And part of this is I say I talk with parents a lot about shifting our mindset about what is the golden moment.

Speaker 1:

I used to think the golden parenting moment was going to be like sitting on the edge of my child's bed at story time and telling them a great lesson of how you are a kind, responsible person, and they'd be like oh yes, mom, you have the best advice. And it's not. That's not how they learn to be more responsible. It's a golden moment of them missing an opportunity and experiencing how that doesn't feel great and making a plan in their own mind of how they're going to avoid that in the future, whether it's dance shoes or a missed assignment at school or not having their instrument for music class Right, it's.

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The golden moment is actually experiencing the challenge, growing the struggle muscles of. I can get through this, I can come up with a solution. I may have to improvise, I may have to figure out a different system for remembering, but I can do it. And they get that best when we are coaching and not when we're micromanaging. And they get that best when we are coaching and not when we're micromanaging. And then from there being able to say, boy, I wonder what we can do to work through this challenge. And you know, with that question I was shocked. This little first grader said I think there's a lost and found mom and they have extra shoes. I guess I'll have to wear some of those. And I was like, oh, that's a great idea. And she was kind of whimpery, like I hope they have my size. But it was like, yeah, I hope so too, let's see. And as we got there, um, we did find a size that was a little bit big, but it worked. She did it. And guess what? She made it through, she learned how to be resourceful and she never forgot her dance shoes ever again.

Speaker 1:

That shift that had to happen was not just in me being prepared to let her struggle, but my ability to regulate myself when she was struggling and resist the urge to like panically, save her. Not fix it, not rescue, but just support. And that's the difference, friend. To be able to shift into supportive mode is how do I support without fixing or rescuing here? So I invite you this week to think about the challenges your children are facing, the transitions that they're in, whether they're having a hard time at preschool drop-off or they're having a hard time with their afterschool schedule or their load of homework that, if you're feeling tempted to fix or rescue, I invite you to pause.

Speaker 1:

Think about some personal regulation of your nervous system that's getting really activated in protection mode. That might be taking a breath. That might be squeezing your shoulders as you breathe in and then relaxing your shoulders as you breathe slowly out. That might mean shifting your mantra in your head to he can do this, he is capable. And then, with your words, try to ask instead of tell. Ask a question like I wonder what we could do with this challenge. I wonder what your thoughts are of how you could solve this. I wonder what your thinking could make this better Instead of giving suggestions of fixing and rescuing.

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And notice what your child comes up with.

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If they struggle, you can offer a couple suggestions child comes up with.

Speaker 1:

If they struggle, you can offer a couple suggestions, but the biggest thing that I see often is not even asking the question to the child and giving them an opportunity to solve it themselves.

Speaker 1:

So, friend, as you move into this new school year, I invite you to consider how to shift into not robbing your child of opportunities to learn when you feel trigger, focusing first on regulating your nervous system and second on asking a problem solving question.

Speaker 1:

And, as always, I hope this equips and empowers you to be the calm, confident parent you've always wanted to be raising confident kids that are self-reliant and capable in this world and also generous and kind. And all the while, I hope these tools help you so that parenting finally feels more sustainable. Please join me next week, as we'll be hearing more about, and join me next week, friend, as I want to invite you to a conversation about the woman underneath the role of mom, and if you've been attending to her lately, perhaps you've been in a space all summer long of really needing to be in your major mom mode, and with school year back in, there's an opportunity to step back and give some space for you. What does that look like and how can that better position you to be the calm, kind, not yelling mom that you wanna be? See you then.