Episode 162 Summer Sanity Tips For Parents

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza Podcast with Rebecca Greene. Welcome to the Whiny Palooza Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family. Hello everyone, happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday.

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza Wednesday. Have some wine and join us on Winey Blues Wednesday with the Greene family.

Cha-cha chicken. Where's your father and Lily? You have to try to get on the screen with me if you can. Can you sit with me? Try to cover that. Do you see the ring light behind you? Oh, well, we can see the ring light. We do not have tech support tonight. We are already— I think we have crashed from our crazy June if you have followed us. At all. June was really busy for the Greens, right Ella? And, um, since school has let out, we have been going to bed too late, getting up too early, and I think my husband just crashed upstairs, so I'm not gonna bother him. And Ella and I have to get up early, so Ella was like, can we do this now? So I apologize that we are a little bit early. Ella, can you tell us— is that— oh, there's Grampy's here. Hi, Grampy. Hi, Dad. Um, Ella, can you tell everyone why we have to get up early tomorrow?

I'm getting braces.

Ella is getting her braces on in the morning, so we have to actually go to bed early and get up early. We are not used to that anymore. So, um, we are going to talk about our topic so that I can actually get children to bed at a decent hour tonight, which I have not been doing job of. Are you already off schedule? How is your summer going? Are you keeping your kids on a schedule? Are you staying up late? What is going on in your house? So the topic this week is summer sanity for parents. They can't see you. We need a bigger— I think we need to use the computer again. What do you think? I didn't love the computer. So as we are talking, please feel free to chime in and tell us your tips for staying sane in the summer.

Are you talking to them or me?

Oh, and I'm gonna— and I told you this before we started, Ella, if I say something, you are welcome to chime in and give your two cents. So I'm gonna tell you my tips, but I also want to hear your tips. So if you watch this later, feel free to comment and tell us. So Number 1, do what works for your family. And what I mean by that is I started to see people posting their schedules, like this is their chore chart for their kids each day, this is their homework schedule for their kids each day. And what's summer for? And I, um, used to—

I give your kids a break.

Give your kids a break. So Ella, I used to feel bad about myself when I saw that. I used to be like, oh, I'm not structured, I'm not doing a good job. And I finally— I feel differently now. I own who I am more the older that I get, and I own that I want summer. And to me, summer— to me, and I'm not right or wrong, but for my sanity, we went gangbusters, um, with activities and homework and school. We need a break, right? My family needs a break.

So do your kids.

And my kids need a— my kids need a break. We have no camps this week. It is relaxation, chill out, regroup. And if structure works for your family, they say that kids thrive on structure and routine. If you want to keep your kids on a routine and a bedtime and you want to get them doing chores and homework every day, then I say you do you, and I want you all to do what works for your family and that will keep you sane, okay? So my sanity needs a break, right? Okay, number 2 is the fancy word expectations, and I love this word, and it's the solver of many problems. So number 1 is we need to adjust our expectations. Right now we are all in an adjustment phase. We were in a schedule, we were in a routine, and now the kids are home and things are different. So everybody's adjusting. So I call this the adjustment phase, right? And I used to drop my kids off and have a little bit under 5 hours to get all my stuff done, and now I don't have that. So now, you know, now my expectations, my kids know I have to be clear with my expectations. My kids know that I still have to clean, I still have to cook, I still have to run errands, and I still have to get work done, right? So Lily was so sweet, she saw me writing my blog yesterday and I was like deep in thought and she felt so bad interrupting me and she's like, "I know you're working, but when you have a chance, "Can I have some hot dogs?" So I like that they're actually observing that, you know, I still have stuff to do. So yes, I can cook her hot dogs when I'm done, but I still have stuff I have to get done. So things don't just stop because the kids are home. So I think that what keeps us sane is explaining to our kids what we expect. What are your clear expectations? So if you expect your kids to do their chores before anything else, then we let our kids know, this is what you have to do, right?

Yeah.

And if I expect my son to mow the lawn every week, I have to explain that to him.

Yeah, make sure you are being verbal about your expectations. Sometimes kids don't just catch on to them.

Yeah, sometimes we expect our kids and our husband, I'm talking for myself. Sometimes I expect my kids and my husband to read my mind. And what I have learned through the years is, uh, that is not true. And right, and I have to actually tell them what I want. So I want Max to mow the lawn once a week. In fact, we're overdue and he needs to mow the lawn. And, um, I want Lily to have a math tutor, and that's like an expectation, right? Anything else you can think of with expectations?

I think you said a lot of it.

So Ella, you're gonna agree with this. I like a balance in our summer. I like a balance of downtime and relaxation, and I also like things that are scheduled. And what I mean by that is like Ella is taking some theater camps. She's doing two— you're doing two camps and you're actually a counselor one another week. So you're gonna have some weeks with downtime to relax and do what you want and you're gonna have some weeks where you have something to do. So I like that balance, and I like going to do fun stuff, and I also like just like chill out time, right? Do you agree with that? [Speaker] Yeah. [Speaker] So that keeps me sane to have like a balance. The interesting trap that I keep seeing parents fall into, more mothers because I talk to mothers, is don't compare yourself to anybody. And I keep seeing people falling into that trap, And I just told my friend that we all need to remember, and Ella, you'll relate to this, Facebook is our greatest hits, right? So what I mean by that is we're showing our best parts of ourselves on Facebook. Like, I'm not posting on Facebook today, I'm exhausted. Like, I didn't post that. I didn't post, I'm exhausted, I just want to sit down. No, I don't come— I try not to complain on Facebook. I try to put out all my dirty laundry. Do I want to be authentic and real? Absolutely. But I want to be positive and I want to put out positivity to the world. So then what happens is people like my friends fall into the trap of only seeing what people choose to share and thinking that this person has this fabulous life. She even mentioned someone, and I swear it says on my head, tell me your problems. I guess Ella asked me to go on early, Tayton, so I— she's my sidekick. Seth has crashed. Seth has been burning the candles at both ends. Is that how you say it? Staying up too late, getting up too early. Yeah, he's exhausted. So Ella's my partner, and Ella asked me to go on early, so I swear I have on my forehead, tell me your problems. So I have—

you're the therapist.

So I have heard people say, oh my God, they have the most perfect life, and what am I supposed to say? Well, no, I know a lot of stuff that you don't know, and their life is not perfect. So bottom line, nobody has a perfect life. Everybody has stuff, everybody has problems. Don't compare yourself to people's greatest hits on Facebook. Don't think that everybody has a perfect life. Nobody has a perfect life. So I think not comparing myself to others is one of my keys to staying sane. So if they're taking a beautiful summer vacation, good for them. If you want to take a vacation and you can afford it, go plan it, right? If you're feeling jealous of something, make it happen. That is what I have changed to instead of feeling bad. Yeah, I never believe that anybody has a perfect life, Tayton, ever. I know better. And I know that people choose very carefully what they put out to the universe, right?

Right. Nobody's gonna go on Facebook and post all of their problems.

Right. So we talked about do what works for your family with structure and relaxation. Adjust your expectations, be clear about your expectations. Have a balance of downtime and fun. Don't compare yourself to other people. And the big thing for moms is continue your me time. We had a lot of stuff going on while the kids were in school, you know? So I'm still going to take my dog for, you know, we went today, we only went on a mile. Yesterday we went for a 2-mile walk. Oh, Patty loves your glasses. Thank you, Patty. I'm still gonna take my dog for a walk. If they wanna join me, great. If they don't, I'm still gonna do it. I'm still gonna go relax in the hot tub at night, they're welcome to join me. What else am I continuing? Like, if you exercise, keep your exercise going. If you love to read, pull out a book, your kids will join you. My girls love to read, we could have reading time, Ella.

That'd be cool.

So I know that your kids are home, I know that a lot of you are trying to work, but you still have to balance in some time for yourself or you're gonna feel crazy. That's my two cents, and you probably agree, right? Summer goes really fast, so make sure that you make some summer plans. And what I mean by this is, before we blink our eyes, it's gonna be— I wanna make you sad, Ella. Before we blink our eyes, it's gonna be September, and we're gonna be getting ready to send our kids back to school. And I don't want us looking back and saying, I didn't take the vacation. I didn't send my kids to any camps. If the camps are all full, just learn for it for next year. I know that when, you know, certain camps come out, I know I have to jump on it because there's certain ones that Lily wants to take. So I learned one year when they were full that the next year I went on earlier to get her on right away. So, um, Um, not only, Tayton, not only are back-to-school supplies out already, but I don't know if you caught my text the other night, but I— when I went to Hobby Lobby, there was Halloween decorations and fall decorations, and Lily and I were like, what is going on? Isn't it June? Like, summer like just started. Can we, can we hold off?

Um, no, just melt.

I know, like by July all the back-to-school supplies are out. It's like rushing, rushing, rushing. So don't be upset.

They're trying to rush to the next thing that's gonna make them the most money.

So like, for example, I want to go— they still can't see you. Can you get nice and cozy? I want to go to Virginia to see our family. Seth's brother and his family are there. My brother and his family are there. I want to make a trip to go. So if I don't plan it, it's not going to happen, and it's going to be September, and I'm going to be sad I didn't go. So make sure that you make the summer plans that you want. I've never gone on Maid of the Mist, I would really love to do that this summer. So I also tend to talk to my kids and say like, what do you really want to do this summer? Is there anything that you really want to do? Is there anything you really want to do, Elle?

Well, I didn't get to jet ski in Riddlebee.

Jet ski, okay, so when we were gonna go jet skiing, we were so disappointed to hear that Max who's 15 can't drive a jet ski. So I don't know how that is in New York State, but this is when we were in South Carolina. I don't know. So the kids want to go jet skiing, so we will have to do that this summer because we did not get to do it in Myrtle Beach.

Well, I don't know if it's just me or everyone.

I think everybody wants to do that. I think that's a good thing to put on the summer list, and I think we need to talk, and each person needs to pick one thing. Yes, Maid of the Mist, jet skiing, Virginia trip. My neighbor went jet skiing at the harbor the other day. Yes, the harbor has so much stuff. That's where we went kayaking and what? Canalside is the harbor, right, Tayton? That's what you're talking about. And I think like, what is it, Riverside? What is that restaurant? River Works. River Works has a lot of stuff to do. So one of my big tips that I want to share is get out of the house. And what I mean by that is sometimes if we're home too much, we go crazy and we feel more stressed. So even if we do one thing that day and get the kids out of the house or get yourself out of the house, I feel so much better. Like Ella and I went to the library and Wegmans today, and for me, um, yes, Riverworks, yep. Um, for me, I don't know about Ella, but just doing those two errands like just like kind of like reset me and made me feel better. I don't necessarily want to just like be home every day. So if you guys are going crazy or your kids are going crazy, get out of the house. Just go do one thing. Doesn't have to be elaborate. Another tip that Ella's gonna love is that everybody needs space. And my kids were adorable swimming in the pool together, they were adorable playing basketball together, but before this, before this vlog, Lily was in the family room, Ella was in the playroom, and Max is in his room. They were all in their corners. They all like to take space and get away from people. Yes, we like to do things as a family. Yes, we all come together. But if your kids are getting on each other's nerves or you're feeling like they're fighting too much, send everybody to separate corners. They need some space. Is that a good tip, Elle?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think— I definitely agree.

I think you're good at removing yourself when you need some space. I think you're very good at that. Okay, this next one is, um, for everybody, but I do want to talk to Ella about it. We have to make sure that ourselves and our kids are having connections. And, you know, for Ella, for example, she will go to theater camp and see her theater friends. So those are good connections for her. And, um, someone like Ella, if you have a kid like Ella, she likes a lot of alone time and downtime, wouldn't you say? But when I force her to make plans or I make plans for her, she's always happy I did, right? Most of the time. Most of the time. So sometimes I have to like say like, let's call so-and-so and invite so-and-so over. Max is 15 and he's gotten good at telling me like, I should say asking, "Can I go play basketball with so-and-so and so-and-so and can you drive?" Sometimes he has a ride, sometimes he doesn't, but I like that he's like making social connections and I need it too. You know, like Monday I was home with my kids all day and I went out with, you know, Tayton and my friends Monday night and I needed it. I needed to get away. I needed a break. Like we need that stuff.

Without your children. So I don't have to sit and watch you talk.

I didn't bring you.

Exactly.

You don't want to watch me talk to my friends?

No, that's why I said without you.

I wouldn't bring you, kid. I wouldn't bring you. Okay, so last but not least, you can do this. I think that we can all do hard things. I know that Days like today, I'm exhausted. I'll be honest with you, I'm really exhausted. When Ella said— don't cough on me, kid— when Ella said, can we do this now? I was like, let's do this because we're all exhausted. I know, I love my Gigi time too, Tayton. I needed— she's coughing on me. I don't want her germs. You can do hard things, you're doing a good job. Don't compare yourself to the mom who's home for the summer doing fun things with her kids. If you're at work all day, you're doing a good job. If you're taking your kids to do fun things, you're doing a good job. If you made your kids empty the dishwasher, you're doing a good job. If you're all chilling on the couch, what am I gonna say? Like we are. You're doing a good job. I'm doing a good job giving my kids downtime. My kids worked so hard. I just got Max and Ella's report cards. I'm so, so proud of them, and they deserve to take some downtime. So your expectations can change through the summer. They don't have to stay the same. This week I'm like, we're chilling out. Next week it's gonna look different. Um, Lily has camp next week. Like, things are going to change next week. So as your expectations change, tell your kids tell your spouse. And I hope that you're staying sane. I hope you have a wonderful summer. There are so many tips to stay sane, so please feel free to share with us what's keeping you sane. Let me know if you found any of these tips helpful. This Friday on my podcast is Wendy— oh my God, Tayton, what's her last name? Pratt? Is it Wendy Pratt? I loved her. She is a wonderful woman, and we talked about body image. So you're gonna love this. Oh, Pat! Yes, Pat! I knew you would know. Wendy— Pat. I was close. Loved her, loved talking to her, and I'm even gonna want Ella to listen to this one because she has such a healthy view of on body image and I loved her tips. Most of the time. What are you saying behind me?

Most of the time.

Most of the time. So I'm sorry we were early. I did this as per Ella's request for her to be my co-host tonight. I'm going to definitely put us all to bed early. We are all staying up way too late this week and I hope you're enjoying the start of your summer. I appreciate you all joining And Ella, anything else?

No, nothing. Nothing?

Okay, will you sing us out?

Thank you for watching Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Greene family.

Thank you so much. Have a wonderful week.

Bye.

Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. This show has been produced by Market Domination, LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.