Episode 238 : How to Approach Motherhood From Babies to Teens and Stages In-Between

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the first Winey Palooza Parenting and Marriage Summit, and I am so excited to introduce our second presenter, Rebecca Maddox El Hakim.

Did I do it right? It was perfect.

Um, Rebecca is a mommy blogger blogging at elmama.com since 2008.

Wow.

What started as a place to document my— her life with 2 children and 1 on the way grew to a place that now documents all things El Mama. And she's had 150,000— 150,000 views. Our family has also grown. Her family. We have 5 living children, age 15 months to 15 years, with a second trimester loss in the middle of that. The loss journey and journey to have another baby after that has connected her with so many moms. She couldn't believe that 1 in 4 women have a miscarriage or pregnancy loss. Oh, heartbreaking, heartbreaking, heartbreaking. And I'm so excited that you're here. And you're such a fabulous mom. And we can't wait to hear from you. Her topic today is how to approach motherhood From babies to teens and stages in between.

Thank you so much, Rebecca. I realize that 2 years have gone by since that bio was sent to y'all, so everyone's older.

Oh my gosh. Well, and I realized that I looked this over and didn't realize it was in the first person, so I should have changed that.

Yeah. It's fine. From one Rebecca to another. Yeah, we now have— our littlest is 3 years old and he's the one that has RSV and our oldest is 17 and a senior in high school. And so we are all in that stage of trying to figure out what he's gonna do next year. So what I am looking forward to talking to you guys about and continuing the conversation is I have— I had the pleasure of being able to listen in through most of the sessions yesterday and to the session this morning. And I just feel like there's so many things that hopefully we'll be able to just add on from there because there's been amazing, wonderful nuggets from other moms and professionals that they have in their experiences. So the one thing that I really hope that we can take away today is to be intentional. So when we're talking about our approach, Parenthood and marriage in the various stages. The reason why I kind of wanted to focus on that is because, because I do have, uh, 5 living children from 3 to 17, so the stages are various. My husband and I have been married, um, for 19 years, so we're gonna basically focus on being intentional, um, having a healthy perspective, healthy expectations, and being thoughtful. I have, yeah, I've been blogging now for about 15 years and started elmama.com just more as a place to kind of share my experiencing raising kids. And at the time we had 2 and our 3rd on the way, our daughter, we were expecting our first daughter and we had 2 sons. Okay. So my husband and I have been married for 19 years. We met in Los Angeles and got engaged 20 years ago. And at the moment we have 3 teenagers, a tween, and a 3-year-old. In our family, we have an autism diagnosis, we have ADHD, we have had now 2 miscarriages, one that we had last year at 9 weeks and one at 18 weeks, which was our daughter in 2017. We have had extreme highs and we have had extreme lows. I think, you know, losing our daughter and our baby recently. My father passed away. My sister who had Down syndrome, she died less than a year after my dad. We've had a parent with cancer, job loss. Um, but with all of that, we have survived. And I think even through those struggles, we have grown closer. Um, and I think a lot of it comes down to perspective and expectations and thoughtfulness. So go back with me to our wedding day, um, and Maybe go back to your wedding day too. I heard the story earlier that Seth sang to Rebecca on their wedding day, and I actually sang to my husband Mustafa, and he sang to me at our reception, both of it being a surprise. But that day, as I'm sure a lot of yours, wedding day was a dreamy day. It was picturesque. And I think most of us probably said similar vows to one another. And if you could in the chat, just type something that you remember promising, if you remember a promise that you made on your wedding day. For us, like, some of the easier ones to recall is for better or worse, in sickness or in health, until death do us part. And ours ended with as long as we both shall live. And I think that's the, the first expectation we kind of start out with in a marriage, um, is not to expect perfection, but to expect to be together until the end. Um, and that means no matter what. And of course, I'm not talking about things that are exceptions, like, um, but I'm talking about faithful marriages where both partners feel safe. So So that's just to put that out there. That's what I'm talking about right now. But if we remove the expectation that there is no out and we never consider an out, what does that do when the hardships inevitably come? Because they will come. This picturesque day is one day in a lifetime together, hopefully. So for us, We were able to find a way and continue to find a way because there's continuing to be things that come up throughout our life together. We did premarital counseling before we were ever even engaged because we were very serious and kind of wanted to learn and figure— try to do the best we could if we were going to get married. And we've continued— I've continued to take parenting classes and do studies with other moms. Um, and I think that is really like so much of what I learned in premarital counseling I carried with me in parenting, and I feel like it helps with both of those relationships. And so one thing that I think has really helped so much is in having a healthy perspective is to be intentional about the words we choose and the words we use. We have a lot of words that we, we will not use in arguments. I'm not saying we don't use them at all, but we will not use them in arguments because they don't work well in trying to resolve conflicts. So if you guys have those as well. And I'm not talking about like cuss words or things like that, but just other words. Like, for example, um, you can type them in the chat if you have them in your own relationships, or if there's just words that are triggering to you that you're like, you don't, you know. Um, I think I remember telling my husband— this is when we were going through premarital counseling— like, I didn't want to be called weird, or I don't know, there was just certain things. Now I think that actually the word doesn't really bother me, but there was, there was words like that. But then there are other words that are just in general that kind of need to be off the list for everyone. So that's words like never words, any of the words like never, always, everyone, none, ever, all, all those words that are like definitive. And because when we use those words when we're arguing, it really makes the other person feel like they're being attacked. When maybe we need to just describe like how something is making us feel. So we have those, we have hot button words, like we have kids that they have certain words that they, that really trigger them. And so we try to be really intentional about not using those words even when we might feel that way, feel that the kid is acting that way or doing that, that thing that they, they don't want to be called out on. We have to choose other words to just try to be respectful. Of that. We try to talk about how something makes us feel with— so rather than saying, "You never do the dishes without me asking," instead we say, or try to say, "When you do the dishes without prompting, I feel very proud of you." That kind of thing we will still get because we have teenagers who will be like, "Ugh," you know, they'll roll their eyes, but it's a totally different response than the one that says, you know, you never do this, and where they feel attacked. Instead, they'll kind of laugh it off, and then they'll, they'll, they'll try to do it the next time. So it really makes a big difference. So let's talk a little bit about just various stages of parenting. Obviously, we don't have a lot of time. So it's just, I just kind of want to kind of do broad strokes over some of these different stages. But, um, as, as I mentioned earlier, we have 5 children that we are raising, and I think honestly the expectations we want to try to set, set ourselves up, um, at the very beginning to not have our expectations get mixed up with comparison. You know, if we can stop this comparing trend early, we will train our brains and we will train our hearts to have a healthy perspective. So I want you just to imagine that you are a mother of young children. So for some of us, that is our current state. Some of us, that has been a while. And for some of us, you know, maybe that is something we long to do. So you are a mother and you bring your child to meet other moms and children at a playgroup. You arrive and you hear other— another toddler speaking in full sentences, but your child isn't speaking in sentences. But you've already seen your pediatrician. You've been told that your toddler is developing right on track and that, that they're using simple words and not putting sentences together yet is, is perfect for exactly what they're expected to do at this age. And then you have a choice. You have a choice then where you can either choose to compare your child to this other child that's doing something different, maybe quicker than your child is, or you can say— and you'll feel like you're going to be miserable because you're going to be worried— or you can trust the expectations that you already set and you can move on and you can be happy for them or not ever think about it really at all because you know that your child is okay. You've already set that expectation and you're going to be much happier. Our 3-year-old, this is Jimmy. If you can hear the coughing in the background, that's him. He is, uh, he came home during the pandemic. I was working at a preschool at the time and in administration. And so we both came home and I was home with all the kids while they were doing their school. And then he and I have just stayed home since then. Um, we found out last minute in July that I was, um, I had been hired and I was going to go back to work full-time. And we had no backup plan for childcare. And the expectation was that he was going to be okay. We were going to find a place for him. But we did expect him to have some separation anxiety because we knew that he would be very attached to us and maybe not trust others right away. Um, we expected him to maybe not know certain things that kids that were already in school would already know, like he might not be able to recognize what the number 3 looks like, but he could count. And so, or he might not be able to recognize all of his colors accurately or tell you what certain letters were, but there were other things that we were doing with him at home that were very valuable. So we knew that he might not be totally adjusted right away, but that he would, we expected him to adjust pretty quickly. We found 2 places, like, so we started interviewing schools and they started interviewing us. It was actually a very stressful situation when looking for just a preschool for a 3-year-old. And we found the first 2 places we found were completely wrong for him. And I knew this because their expectations of what he should be able to do didn't match what he actually could do and what we knew was, was okay for him. We knew he was smart. We knew he would pick things up quickly. So when they said he wasn't ready for their program because he didn't want to separate from me to go with a total stranger he'd only just met to do his assessment, which he did finally go, but I had to go along with him. I thought, good job, Jenny. And then finally, the third school we looked at, we knew was the right one. We knew it because there was no job interview for him, for a 3-year-old. He got to join the class. With me for a Halloween, like, snack and treat party before actually starting at the preschool, and it was a perfect match. Um, all of that came down to really us setting realistic expectations for him and not feeling like he wasn't enough because these two schools that really weren't the right fit said he wasn't, uh, he wouldn't fit in in their program. And honestly, he ended up at the best place for him. So we also want to think about social skills. So I'm kind of putting my tween and my teens together, and also we're going to talk a little bit about learning differences. So this one is a huge topic in our house with having the 4 older kids. We are constantly working on social skills, and just, I think, for as a parent, I want to have a healthy perspective when I'm thinking about how they're doing, because kids just tend to want to put their heads in their phones all the time. They're— they are not as good. I mean, my children aren't at interacting with people in person as, as we were growing up, because they just don't— they don't have as much opportunity. And I think that— I think that the pandemic is one of the things that really was hard particularly hard for them in their— in growing up socially. And so I want to be real realistic in my expectations of what it is that they— where they should be, and knowing that they might be a little bit delayed because of the things that have happened over the last 3 years. So one of the things that we expect of our older children is that when we go to a social setting, like our— like visiting family and Basically, we're around other family members. We do expect our kids to greet everyone. We expect them to not be on their phones. And so we, in fact, some of them, we don't, you know, they aren't even allowed to have the phone if we know that they're not gonna follow that expectation, then they're gonna pull it out. We don't expect any, them to do any hugging or anything like that. But that is just, but we do expect them to greet and say, hello, nice to see you. To everyone. We also have expectations for how they behave in sports and in school, but we're not there to give them reminders. So this is where we hope that the expectations we set as a family for how we're supposed to behave will come to mind. Now, our oldest son— I think I mentioned earlier we have an autism diagnosis in our family, and that is our oldest son. He was diagnosed at 3 years old, and he was— being our oldest child, uh, I've really had to shift my perspective very quickly because he and my next son are only 20 months apart. And so there was a lot of things that I just had no clue what I was doing and didn't know what to expect, but I also wanted to appreciate who he was as a person and that there were certain things that he would, he just did differently, but that it was okay. So even when he was diagnosed, it was out of a response from a preschool teacher just giving him a really, really hard time because he had learning differences. And so I had to learn how to really fight for him early on and have kept that up throughout all of the years. That he has been in school. It's less now because he's learned how to really advocate for himself, which is wonderful. But just a little bit about, about expectations when it comes to social skills, particularly with my autistic son. And he moved schools in 3rd grade so that all of our children could be at the elementary school. And doing that, he left behind his best friend. From elementary school who was actually a friend that they would do playdates together. Um, we would all, uh, they would come to— he would come to our house, they would go to his— he— my son would go to his house, they would, um, take him to ballgames and things like that. Um, he, from that point until this year, he has not had any social relationship like that. And so that has been a real struggle, but we knew, we knew that he needed to be with his siblings. And then the following, in middle school, he needed to transfer schools again just because obviously middle school, they change schools. And where we live, students don't just, don't just go up to the next school. They get to choose the school that kind of fits them. So he's very musically gifted. So he goes to middle school. So we had to sit down with him. And what we did was we set expectations of kind of goals and things that would help for him to be able to do so that he could just learn how to have relationships, learn how to behave in social settings because he wanted to. Um, so he would go to the dances, he would— the middle school dances, which are awkward for anyone— and, uh, he would set up like friends to meet there, things like that. Then we get to high school, he goes to another school, and this school is a music school in Houston. And so he is going to this school and doing very well, but socially the pandemic hit. He has no one that he spends any time with outside of our house or outside of school until this year. Suddenly this year, after putting in the work and going to therapy where we would set goals, this was like during the pandemic where it was, you know, his therapist and him would say, you know, I want to initiate this many conversations this week, or I want to send this many text messages, um, or send a message on Teams or whatever it was. After doing all that, finally this year he is, he's arranging things. He's, he's heading down, um, he, his school is downtown. He's able to manage himself to get to an internship where he plays piano for a boy choir. He is able to go and meet his friends for dinner and then take the train back to be able to get home. He is— it's just amazing. I— we don't know what the future holds for him, as we don't know for any of our children. We expect a lot, we expect great things, and I think that that is— that has really helped a lot because when we receive that diagnosis at 3 years old, there's just— there's a lot of worry, a lot of things that you can get into your head about, you know, will he ever live outside of the home? Will he ever go to college? Will he ever, you know, will he be able to be in mainstream classrooms? Will he have any, you know, special skills that he's able to really, you know, excel at? And the answer has been yes to all those things. I mean, we don't know, will he get married one day? I don't know. I think he will. He's very interested in girls. So, But I think that that is just— it's helped to have healthy expectations for him and make like small goals along the way. Um, so let's go ahead and talk about, uh, conflict in home. So I tried to find an image for this. I couldn't find an image for a freak-out parent or calm parent. Um, I want you to go to the chat and tell me if you are are you the freakout parent or are you the calm parent? Because usually in most relationships there's one or the other. Um, and if you're not sure, like, what does that mean to be a freakout parent? Um, so what I'm talking about is like when there is a, uh, a conflict or there is a, um, a child who is suddenly bleeding from their head and needs to go get stitches. Which parent are you? Are you the one that's, um, that's calm and almost like, almost like a zombie, not reacting? Or the one that's like, ah, screaming and kind of going crazy and completely freaking out and, you know, wanting to call 911 and rush to the emergency room? Um, in our, in our relationship, my husband, at least starting out, he was the freak-out parent and I was the calm parent. Like, the calm parent to— oh, I wouldn't even be able to get anything done. Like, I wouldn't even get the child to where they needed to get help, and that was because I was trying to, uh, be balanced, um, and, uh, kind of balance things out. Because honestly, you can't have two of either. You can't have two that are completely calm, like to the point of not getting things done, or, uh, freaking out and not able to get things done. So, um, we have reached a point where We now are kind of like, we've sort of met in the middle where we are able to handle things that happen with our kids. I mean, yesterday was an example where our son has had a fever with RSV off and on for 12 days. Yesterday I thought like his lips looked a little bit blue. I sent my husband a picture 'cause I had stayed home from work. I sent him a picture. He called me calmly, which is totally different from 10 years ago, how you would have responded. He's like, "What do you think? He's cold?" We just had this very calm conversation. I had called the pediatrician, and then my husband came home for us to take our son to the doctor together. Everything's fine. The doctor said he's probably had— He's like, "I can't really tell from that picture, but he probably just has a little bit of—" you know, he was probably cold or whatever, and he'd had a— he had a little bit of fever then. So, but all that to say is that we found this like common ground. I know we've talked about that a lot in some of the other sessions. It's like it can be kind of complicated when you have two different styles. Um, I think, I think it just takes kind of being open and to try to figure out what works for your family so that you can reach that point of of kind of facing adversity in a calm way. And then let's talk about just reframing our thoughts. So I don't think I have a lot of time, so I'm going to try to just kind of go through this but give you guys a little bit of examples. And if you have, I think it would be nice, and I'll have to change what I can see because I can't see what's coming in the chat, and so I might need help, Rebecca, with that. But what I thought we could do just as an exercise is talk about things like how we think about our children and how we can reframe that in a healthy way. So for example, instead of saying, you know, my kid is out of control Um, we could say my child is spirited and fun, or, you know, you can think about it in a way that's positive. Um, it doesn't mean you live in like la-la land where you're not actually trying to help your child grow to be the person that they're meant to be. But, um, I, I don't necessarily like the term strong-willed. So like I would say instead of strong-willed my child has solid leadership skills. I think the other thing to just think about is that there are, there are things in life that, that happen in life that we can't necessarily reframe. You know, they just are. Um, but I feel like I know a much better life as a wife and a parent, not expecting perfection. Admitting when I'm wrong, and trying to see the positive in every challenge and situation.