Harmony in the Home

Do you ever worry about how you’re doing as a parent? If so, then join the club. I don’t think I’ve ever met a parent that doesn’t worry about their kids or how they are doing as a parent. It is very normal to worry.  We love our kids so much and being their parent is one of the most vulnerable feelings we will ever have in life.  The brain doesn’t like to feel vulnerable.  As soon as the brain gets a whiff of vulnerability then it sends in the troops to set up a worry stand to blockade those vulnerable feelings of rawness and kick them to the curb. Sometimes when things are moving and grooving and life feels content for a nanosecond then the brain will actually start to borrow worry to reminds us to not feel too much joy or it’ll be stolen from us like has happened in the past in other settings or relationships. Today you will learn how we can embrace the worry bear a little bit more and not be mad at it so it wont have such a hold over us.   As always, hopefully today will be just what you needed to hear to make parenting feel a little lighter so you can have more harmony in your home. PS  “If you’re worried about being a good parent then that means you already are a good parent.” - Unknown Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

We are talking about what makes us blow our top! How come our kids can do something which makes us ragey, but if we hear about another kid doing the same thing we are all soft and mushy about it?   Like if our 4 year old niece or nephew  secretly cut their hair and butcher it,  we think it’ll lead to a cute story later in life, but if our kids cut their hair at 4 then we lose our minds and want to ban scissors in the house for life. Today I’ll unpack triggers and how to be aware of them. Together, we will learn how to diffuse them vs detonate them at every turn and then blame our kids for our behavior.   When we don’t recognize our own behavior then it’s a lot easier to blame the 4 year old vs looking within.  The only problem with blaming a 4 year old for our side of the street is we give all of our emotional power to a 4 year old.   I love 4 year olds, but if I can’t trust them to walk through the house with a sharpie marker, then I’m definitely not going to give them the kids to all of my emotional power.   Hopefully today will be just what you needed to hear to make parenting feel a little lighter so you can have more harmony in your home. Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

I polled all of you about laundry and wow did you have a lot of strong emotions.   You know how I love strong emotions so I’m here for it and will try to lighten your load  a bit.   I’m speaking about laundry today, but even more about lightening our emotions around it so it doesn't have such a hold on us all.   Unfortunately, laundry is here to stay so we have to take control of the raffia. One of the biggest pain points with laundry that you told me is the folding/putting away step so today I have a laundry hack that will help to talk your brain into doing what it doesn't want to do; and get your family on board too.   Hopefully today will be just what you needed to hear to make parenting feel a little lighter so you can have more harmony in your home. Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Do you ever think or exclaim “What were you thinking?" when you’re kids make wonky decisions?   I’ve done it a million times as I’m also a listener to our podcast too.  So today will be for both of us to bring more insight on what they are thinking and how we can see their behavior as separate from us and not a reflection of us and our worthiness .  Their side of the street does not dictate how we are doing and is not our report card for our value as a parent.  Hopefully today will be just what you needed to hear to make parenting feel a little lighter so you can have more harmony in your home. Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Does it ever seem like parenting feels hard all of the time?  If so, then today’s episode will be just for you if you don’t know how to show up when it’s so hard.  Or  you may feel an immense amount of guilt for not enjoying every second of parenting.   Or you may  feel like parenting is just too dang hard and you’re doing it all wrong. Or if you may feel that you’re messing it all up which will lead to plopping your kids in therapy when their older or homeless living under a bridge  If you are like me and have ever felt any or all of these sentiments, then today’s episode will be just what you needed to hear to make parenting feel a little lighter so you can have more harmony in your home. Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Do you have trouble finding a good balance between your personal life, professional life, and parenting life? You may feel terribly overwhelmed, as I sometimes do, by the pile of work in front of you. Maybe you ask yourself, “how am I supposed to get anything DONE?!” In this episode, I hope to demystify that process by explaining what I call “Maintenance Mode” work. Chances are high that the way to find good balance in your life is not by completing all tasks, but by doing a little bit of each at a time until they are as done as they can be. You see, the dishes and the laundry literally never end, unless you decide to return to your prehistoric roots, walking the earth in the buff and eating with your hands! The grass never stops growing. But once you take even a tiny step toward washing the dishes or taming the jungle in the backyard, you have entered Maintenance Mode, the ideal place to be. Now, my personal favorite method of organizing tasks is Dave Braun and Troy Amdahl’s Oola method (see Episode 73). Oola partitions life’s many tasks into 7 groups: Fitness, Finance, Family, Field, Faith, Friends, and Fun. BUT you should adopt the organization that works for you, and tweak it to your specific circumstances. As you take small AND consistent steps toward finishing a finishable task, or toward controlling an unfinishable task, I promise on a stack of Bibles, you will see the results of working in Maintenance Mode. Remember: you’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Can we walk the tightrope of doing exactly enough for our kids so they succeed? My son Grady (who, at the time of recording this episode, is 11) was curious about one of his cousins who has taken a job at a cinema. He asked questions like “how does he know which button to push for a customer ordering popcorn?” and “how does he know where to GET the popcorn?” I explained the concept of “job shadow” training to Grady. His cousin will start work as a trainee and watch a seasoned cinema worker. Grady’s cousin will start doing the work, imitating the trainer’s example. Soon enough, Grady’s cousin will be doing his job without much assistance. Eventually, Grady’s cousin will know the work well and be able to take on his own trainees. Parenting follows a similar pattern. Children aren’t little employees (that probably violates FLSA labor laws!), but they learn how to be humans the same way employees at a business learn new skills. Children can take on new tasks — whether putting dishes in the sink, tidying their own rooms, hanging up their own clothes, or making their own food — pertinent to their age and stage of development, under your supervision. And eventually, they will (for they must, if they are to grow up as they should) be able to do most tasks without your hands-on assistance. The point I hope to drive home in this episode is this. Not only can you teach your kids anything, you can do it on your own terms. Suppose you’re studying Kerry Flatley’s Self-Sufficient Kids program or reading Merrilee Boyack’s The Parenting Breakthrough, and you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tasks you’re “supposed” to be teaching your kids by the age they are that you haven’t done. Well, HALT that train of thought before it leaves the station, and here’s why: Your parenting decisions, if you choose them consciously and love your reason for choosing them, are yours to own and stand by. You might still be making lunches for a child who knows how to prepare food. Or you might be teaching your six-year-old to make PB&J sandwiches. If you love your reason for continuing to provide, or for teaching a skill and retreating for the child to claim the independence their developing brains crave, that’s all that matters. Only you have a stake in your parenting process. Remember: you’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Do your kids ever make you want to pull your hair out with their wacky antics? Do you stress out when your children do unsafe things due to their self-perception of invincibility? Maybe most importantly, do you worry that you have no idea how to parent your “invincible” kids? Well, this episode is for you, because the things I’m gonna lay down are going to allow you to take so much pressure off your shoulders about doing the right thing when it comes to parenting. We put so much pressure on ourselves to parent “the right way” — whatever that means! HA! I have to constantly remind myself that I'm not as big and powerful as my ego wants me to think that I am, especially when raising kids. Continuing what we talked about last week in episode 155, I’m going to talk about that theme. We aren’t powerful enough to mess up whatever destiny holds in store for our kids. We can lay groundwork for their success, and we can do everything “right” according to our limited vision, and they will still do some things (or maybe many things) very differently from what we imagined for them. Kids do wonky stuff! I know I did, and we’re going to share our crazy wonky “I was the invincible kid” stories I asked you for on Facebook. But remember, when your kids are doing wonky stuff, that you did equally crazy things. This is a growth experience. That is part of their soul contract, agreed upon between them and God, or the Universe, however you look at it, before they were born. On the other side of the coin, we’re not powerful enough that we can make what our children do mean something about us, try as we might to externalize our value and worthiness to them. All that does is make YOU upset. A child’s wrongdoing or right-doing does not affect your worthiness or enough-ness for good or ill, so stop making “how your children behave” a criterion for feeling worthy or fulfilled. Dr. Vanessa Lapointe has some valuable tips about this, and the link to that video (https://fb.watch/dgRDqUolZS/) will be on my blog and in my newsletter. As you practice having grace and compassion for your kids through their “invincibility” learning experiences, giving them an abundance of love and affection, and allowing them to be what their destiny intends for them to be, I promise you will see good things in your life! Remember: you’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

How do you teach your kids to feel tricky emotions? This is an important topic — so important that we’ve addressed it a few times during the run of our podcast. This isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last! Emotional regulation is a skill for life! Whether you’re new or seasoned, I hope this episode will be a great help, or a helpful review. In this episode, I’ll help you understand WHAT emotional regulation is (and it’s not creating emotionless robots!), WHY emotional regulation is an important tool for kids to learn, and WHO it’s for — because it’s not just for kids! I’ll also help you see WHERE, WHEN, and HOW to appropriately practice it with exercises such as modeling and role-playing. I can’t stress enough how helpful it is for kids to have healthy role models. As you work on this alone and with your kids, I promise you will all see benefits! Remember: you’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Do you ever procrastinate? How about … get distracted?! I procrastinate and I get distracted sometimes. No shame in that! This episode is about our habits of hiding from work that needs doing. I don’t mean like house work or schoolwork, but inner work. We all have something in our lives that we don’t enjoy. We’ve focused a lot of negative energy toward it. It could be the dishes, our unfulfilled vision board, our unrealized fitness plans, any or all of our bad habits, or maybe the cleanliness of our house — which is often coupled with negative energy toward the culprits! At any rate, we find ourselves using that thing, or those things, and the mind drama we’ve created, to obscure a more pressing underlying matter. We may be bothered by problems at work, deeply wounded from past traumas, or (this one’s a doozy and is probably the most common) we don’t feel good enough. And, instead of working on this or the outward problem, we spiral in inaction — we self-distract, and don’t act! In my own process of doing this work, I noticed that I spent countless hours and vast emotional bandwidth on being concerned about the micro details of my children’s lives — things that were totally out of my control to begin with — in order to feel some semblance of control over my life. I’ve talked about this before in Episode #150. Wouldn’t you know, though … when I stopped trying to control other people and focused my energy on my own “side of the street,” I felt like I had control again! In this episode I hope to give you some illumination and hope to help you manage your own distractions and their resultant mind drama, all of which is preventing you from taking action for your outer AND inner problem. As you sort through your emotions and consistently practice focusing on what IS rather than what you want or don’t want, I promise you will be able to attend to your inner and outer issues. Remember: you’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!