Do you feel your parenting could do with an upgrade? You upgrade your phone so why not upgrade your parenting!

I know that there are many parents out there today struggling, and I honestly believe many of them, unnecessarily. If you are here, you might be one of them?

• Are you tired of feeling frustrated and overwhelmed?
• Negotiating, arguing, nagging and cajoling?
• Kids on their devices All.The.Time?
• Kiddos not listening?
• Going to bed too late?
• Rushing around All.The.Time?
• Tired. Tired. Tired.

It breaks my heart to see the negative effect that this is having on children today. I hear of children who are still being punished and not thriving while their parents continue to repeat what is not working because they do not know that there is another way. I hear of children who are lying and being manipulative, children struggling to be heard, who are under incredible pressure to achieve, be successful and happy yet simply don’t know how to behave. And we wonder why the rates of childhood anxiety and depression are at an all-time high!

It doesn’t have to be this way. And truly, it doesn’t take much to turn it all around and I can absolutely help you get started.

I have been upgrading my parenting practices and working on developing myself as a mom for 12 years. My children are THE most important thing in my life (as I’m sure yours are to you) and I feel that I owe it to them to be my absolute best and continually raise myself to raise them. I want my children to be respectful, resourceful, responsible, resilient, reliable, confident, courageous and motivated and believe that it has to start with ME. I have to put in the work and effort required towards this because, trust me,  it doesn’t just happen by osmosis.

I had a dad in one of my parenting groups say this:

“I sign up and pay for the latest fitness gizmos, hire a nutrition coach when I need, buy new golf clubs, Netflix, self-development programs at work, spinning classes and some, and yet if you ask me what is the most important thing in my life, hands down I will tell you it is my children. Why is it then that I have not put a single dollar or real effort towards being the best dad I can be? I haven’t even read a book.  If I struggle with something at work, I put my heart and soul into working out why and finding a solution to it. Yet when it comes to my kids I just keep going hoping that the struggles will end. Why have I overlooked this for so long?”

Okay, so now he’s guilted you out I’m guessing you are in! And this information is FREE!

If you want to do something about it, you are in the right place. I can help you.

Your kids are the most important thing in your life so don’t they deserve you to be UNABASHEDLY BADASS (don’t you just love those words, they are so powerful. Talking words, I also love the word serendipity…) at being their mom?

If you are not feeling good about your parenting and are struggling with some of it, you can change it. You can step up and do what you need to do to raise your bar. For yourself and for your kids.

As of now, you are going to commit to stopping bumbling along, half-hearted about it all, especially when it is no longer serving you or your kids as well as it could.

I know that you know your kids deserve more than a half-hearted mom. But it’s scary huh? The thought of having to add more to your list to do can be overwhelming. I get it, but, the ridiculous thing is this: you won’t actually have to add more and do more. You will actually do less! Trust me.

The reality is this: Your kids need you to be an UNABASHEDLY BADASS parent.

Keen to jump on board? Ready for your upgrade?

You might be unsure if you can do this or not able to visualize yourself as being badass enough or badass at all? I can assure you that if you have a child, you can be badass. It’s just that sometimes when things are tough, you stop believing in yourself and your capacity to do anything different to what you are doing right now.

Don’t worry, I can help you. It won’t happen overnight though. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We have to be reasonable here.  And for the records, a badass parent is not a perfect parent, there’s no such thing!

The first thing to do is this: you have to see what you aren’t seeing because as soon as you do, change will be inevitable.

STEP #1: TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT YOUR LIFE:

Start to see it AS IT IS and ask yourself – is this really how I want my life to be?

We live in a busy, digital time. A time where it’s easy to believe that more is good. Where it’s easy to get caught up in the frantic rush and consumption of it all. And as amazing as some of this is, and it is, it does not mean we have to suffer for it.

Here’s what I think it has done to us. It has turned us inside out and upside down.

It has disorientated and distorted our sense of priority and focus.

It’s become too easy to prioritize and focus on the wrong things: the “icing”, the extra’s, the trimmings. Things that are all well and good provided there’s a “cake” baked to accommodate it.

But here’s the problem: there’s often no cake. There’s no solid foundation. The basic structure necessary to support the extra’s is not there. There’s not enough support for all the icing. The cake collapses.

Let me explain.

By icing and trimmings and extra’s, I mean things such as: multiple hockey practices a week, math tutoring, ballet, Cubs, Sing Along With Mother Goose for babies, Brownies, Prepare for baseball season camp, Mandarin lessons, Gymboree, baby Mozart and Bach paraphernalia, piano lessons, girl guides, golf, the latest fashion accessories for 5 year olds, Spring league baseball, tennis, swimming lessons, art classes, summer camps and programs, summer camp baseball, mom and baby yoga, choir, fall baseball, winter baseball, spring baseball… by the way, when did every sport become year round????

On and on we go, caught in the frenzy of all these great things, but the volume and long-term effects of them on our family life can often become close to unsustainable.

We get caught up in the icing, the trim, and the extras. And I’m not saying that some extra’s are bad. Not at all. What I am saying is that I don’t believe they should be at the expense of sacrificing children’s basic needs.

AND here’s a biggie for us all: Prioritizing our phones and checking our phones All.The.Time. Checking on our phones, when there is no reason to do so. This is HUGE. Like freakin’ HUGE guys. We have to learn to PUT.OUR. PHONES.DOWN and keep them down.

STEP #2: EASE UP ON THE ICING

I speak to moms where the majority of their time is caught up in the icing, trim and extras. I get called because they’re tired of their kids not listening or that they don’t know what to do. Their child’s behavior is challenging them and most of them are exhausted. Fed up with no idea what to do or what they need.

When we start chatting, it becomes evident that this is not the only problem: and the problems are consistent:

It turns out that bedtime is often a nightmare (they cannot get their kids to bed). If you struggle with bedtime, then you might want to read this blog post I wrote on just this – 10 Tips To End Bedtime Struggles. And as for the mornings, they are a gong show (they struggle to get out the door in the mornings). They are running from a. to b. to c to…. focused on the extras like crazy people. Some of them will go as far as saying that their kids are out of control. They get home after all of it to no meal, no homework having been done, it all being too much and too late. Literally. They have had enough.

In being focused on the icing, trim and extra’s, there’s no time for the cake. They have no shortage of icing, but no cake to support it.

If what we are doing isn’t leveraged to meet our core needs, it’s like always making the icing for the cake, but having no cake baked to put it on.” – Gloria DeGaetano

We have to see life as it is, to take stock and prioritize, be mindful of what’s most important, and if necessary, cut back on the some of the extras. Until we prioritize the basics, there is simply not enough time to devote to the cake a.k.a. family meals, playing in the playground after school, kids out on their bikes in the hood, getting kids to bed on time, getting our sh*t together so that we can get up early enough to get our ducks in a row so the kids are up and at school on time without a mad frantic rush and feeling like we’ve been hit by a bus Every. Single. Morning.

I was stuck in it too but I found a way out. I had to dig into my badass-ness, be super-mindful of the life I really wanted to be living, ease up on the icing and focus on the cake.

STEP #3: RE-INSTATE THE BASICS: BAKE THE CAKE

I know. It’s hard. You’ve tried to change things here and there, but it always slips back to the same old, same, old. This life that is your life just crept up on you and despite having the best of intentions, it is not what you thought it would be. You are doing everything and more for your kids to set them up and give them the best start in life. But the more you do, the worse it seems to get. It’s okay. I’m here. I have your back. Do not be too hard on yourself.

Trust me. I was right where you are. Then I woke up. Saw it as it was. And change it I did. If you find yourself reading this and thinking I’ve been a fly on your wall, I can help you change it too. I just saw a post on FB yesterday from a mom saying: why did I wait so long? WT…!

You have to be UNABASHEDLY BADASS in your desire to feel the way you want AND DESERVE TO FEEL and take action to create the life you and your children deserve and would rather be living. You have to start upgrading your parenting practices just as you upgrade your phone.

YOU deserve to feel good. But to do so, you will have to re-orientate your priorities, ease up on the icing and focus on baking the cake. Once the cake is baked, you can choose how you add the icing and how much of it you want (provided the cake doesn’t collapse).

Oh, and one last thing…

As for SERENDIPITY? I think it speaks for itself. If you have got to this point in this blog, I think that you will feel that it was serendipitous.

You were meant to find this piece of writing at this moment in your life so that you can start to put some badass into your parenting practices and bake some amazing badass cakes!

If you feel that you would benefit from one-on-one coaching, please do reach out to me and book a 30-minute call where we can discuss your challenges and come up with a plan from which you can begin to implement strategies for positive change. You can email me at louise@yourparentingpartner.com

Partnering you,

 

 

PS. If you haven’t tuned into my podcast The Parenting In The Thick Of It Show, you can do it here. There are over 300 episodes on all things parenting.