The Whinypaluza Podcast with Rebecca Greene Episode 020 Sunshine Parenting

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza Podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. 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 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, this is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast. I am so excited today. I have Audrey Munkee with me. She is a mom of 5. A summer camp owner and director, an author, a speaker, and the host of the Sunshine Parenting Podcast. Audrey shares simple strategies for helping parents raise socially and emotionally intelligent, responsible, thriving kids through creating the connection, social skills, fun, and growth of summer camp at home. Thank you so much for being here with me today.

Oh, it's my pleasure, Rebecca. It's great to be here.

I was just telling Audrey when I met her that I feel like I'm meeting a celebrity because I read her fantastic book, Happy Campers, that you all need to go read. And I've been listening to her podcast and getting to know her. So this is so exciting for me.

Oh, well, that, that's so nice of you. So kind. And I'm glad you enjoyed my book.

I loved your book. I learned so much. We're going to talk about— I learned so much. So good for me to read this book. And my kids are— your kids are older than my kids, I believe. My kids are— Max just turned 14, Ella is 11, and Lily is 8. So, so what I love about you and what is different about you for me is that your kids, you have grown kids. I mean, some of your kids are still teenagers, correct?

Yes. Right now my kids range from, uh, my youngest is 17 and my oldest is 27.

So, so what is wonderful for me to listen to you and to read your book is that you are raising fantastic, thriving adult kids and are ahead of me. And what I love is I love hearing from people who have older kids than me. So that is what makes you even more special to me in this world of parenting.

Oh, well, thanks. I do think that it's really important to find, you know, people who are a little bit ahead of you, whatever it is, like with parenting or your job or, that you, you know, you respect, you like what they're doing or how their kids are turning out and just kind of getting ideas from them. So I've always done that too. I have had a lot of mentors over my years with who have older kids and I've watched and asked them what they do. So I think that's great. That's what we all need. And I'm sure you're doing the same thing for kids, you know, parents of kids who have younger kids right now. Yes.

Yes. And I have a very good friend who has older kids and I ask her so many questions. So you are so right. We need, friends and people and mentors and people in our life who have kids who are older than ours, for sure, 100%. I want to start, I want to go back and I want to ask you what inspired you to become a parenting coach among all the things that you do?

Well, you know, I think it's similar experience to a lot of people who work with children and youth. So, you know, my love and my, my main job is as a summer camp director. So I've worked with all these kids and I love doing the trainings for the counselors and creating this wonderful community where kids grow all these skills. And as the years have gone on, I found that not only is a big part of my job communicating with and educating parents about camp, about their kids, about what we're doing, but also I really have felt compelled, and I wrote about that in my book, that I love that kids love camp so much, and I love that they find it to be a safe, happy place. And I know that they're only with us for a few weeks. And so I really want that kind of magic, that connection, that community that we create to extend a home for our campers. So, you know, I want our campers not just to have that experience at camp, but to find and be able to have that other places. So really it came from that, knowing that the work that I do is one piece of it, but it's like this whole village thing. We also need parents to do their, their thing, just like teachers. I, I love working with teachers. Um, you know, we're all on the same team wanting to raise these great kids, but oftentimes I see parents acting as if they're like kind of against or contrary to like these other people who work with their kids. And so it's really important— coaches, teachers, parents, camp people, everybody— we need to kind of all be working together. So really it came from that. I think a lot of it also came from when you're training camp counselors, you know, you're training these people, you have 10 days, 2 weeks to train them on all the important things about working with kids. And so when you have to develop trainings for that short of a time, you get a lot of great resources and materials that are really helpful for parents too.

Well, and you've touched on so many important points, and, and I think that as parents, we also need to realize, first of all, we can't do it ourselves. We need, you know, camp counselors and coaches and teachers. And I, I mean, I need everyone to help me raise my kids. Doing it alone is just too hard for sure. And I love that you have taken your experience as a camp counselor and developed it into a book and a podcast and helping parents. And you're doing amazing work. And who knew that it would stem from being a camp counselor. Like, this is unique. I haven't talked to anyone else who has said, my main job is I'm a camp counselor. So that's pretty awesome.

Yeah, it's, it's a different, it's a different thing. I do feel really fortunate because working with kids at camp is so fun because we don't have any of the academic, and at my camp, not even athletic pressures. We are 100% focused on the just having fun, building community and friendships, and just making sure that we're bringing out the best in everyone and making everyone feel like they belong. So it's really a gift to get to work with kids in this particular setting. It's, it's unique in that I think in other places the social-emotional stuff becomes sort of a side or footnote and sometimes gets ignored, but for us it's our primary focus. So that's why summer camps are really good at helping kids with social-emotional growth and development. So yeah, so it's, it's kind of a natural outcropping, I think, of just being in this amazing industry.

It's amazing. And for someone who did not go to overnight camp, I went to day camp. For someone who never experienced it, I want you to know that reading this book, I was like, man, I really missed out on a lot.

Well, I do think that, I mean, I do think that you can create a lot of the same things though. And that's the thing, not to, you know, you can create that for your kids. And, you know, I think that the overnight camp, the independent experience can also be in other settings as well, but you can kind of see as you read that, kids do flourish and grow sometimes better in situations where their parents aren't right nearby. And that can be a day camp, that can be other settings.

Yeah.

And so, you know, not everyone needs to go to summer camp to get these experiences, but it's a great place to have them.

Absolutely. 100%. You talk about so many important concepts. I'm— now there's no way to touch on all of them. One of them is You talk about the importance of connection before correction, which I love. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, Tina Payne Bryson and Dr. Dan Siegel, in all of their books starting with The Whole Brain Child, No Drama Discipline, have really like— they, I think that they coined that, Tina did, connection before correction. It's so fundamental. I think we often have it wrong with kids. You know, we think that if they have some kind of misbehavior, we need to like punish or, you know, fix it or whatever. We're always kind of chasing after these things. And actually, when you're constantly, you know, criticizing and punishing, it doesn't ever work. So this is the frustration of adults working with kids, is that you're, you're trying to correct something for your child's good, but it's not working because you're coming at it from the wrong direction. And really, what we're all seeking— and when you think about equating it to, say, you were in a workplace, you were in a job, And you know, what motivates you to get better, to do better? It's the person, the leader, the supervisor, the mentor who guides you, who holds your hand, who says, oh my gosh, you know, I really like working with you. Here's some of the things that I am noticing that you're doing really well. You are awesome at creating stuff and your ideas. Here's something that I'm noticing that, um, that could really make you better, you know? So it comes from when you feel like you are appreciated and loved and that your relationship comes first, you're way more likely to want to do better. So, I mean, we always all know that, that the people you want to do best for are the people you love and respect. And I think sometimes we forget that as parents. We think, well, we're the parent, they should be more respectful, they should listen to us, they should do all this stuff. And really our kids are people. They're people just like us. And there was something I just read recently and I'll try to track it down, but you know, one of the, the ideas, obviously teenagers need to develop their own identity and independence. So that could be one aspect of like risk-taking and rebellion. Another aspect of it is they start realizing that they're not being respected, that they're, you know, the way they're being talked to, the way that they're being treated. Is not really fair as a human. So a lot of times I think parents can look at even just their— in their other roles, like how would you, if you were— if you're a supervisor at work or manager, how would you talk to your employee who makes a mistake? But in everything regardless, our relationship with our children needs to be our top priority. And that's the one thing I start the book with, that anytime I talk to parents, I talk about that. If there's one thing you want to get right, it's your relationship with your kids.

Yeah.

I mean, it really is. It really comes down to that. If you want your kids to still want to call you when they're 30, you know, if you want to spend holidays occasionally with them, if you want to be close with grandchildren, I mean, all these, if you look ahead in life, do you want to have your kids think of you as the person who nagged them and berated them and was disappointed in them? Or do you want them to remember you as that safe place that you were the— they were the first person that you wanted to tell when something good happened, and they were also the person that you could depend on when you were struggling?

Making me so emotional over here listening to you. I am such a sap. You know, I am flashing back on a conversation with Kay this morning, and my kids are all home today. What a, what a school year. Oh my goodness. So, so Lily has Zoom. She's my 8-year-old. She has Zoom from 9 to 12 on Wednesdays. And I have to keep checking on her to make sure she's doing what she needs to be doing. And she wasn't on her Zoom. And what would I have said to an employee? I would have been like, you know, don't remember, don't forget, you know, 11:15, you have to jump back on the computer. You're a little late. I would have been so nice to an employee. And to Lily, I was like, what are you doing?

Yeah. Well, we all do that. And that's the thing. I mean, there's no, there's no perfection in here and there's no, yeah. But, but you also, once you start being more aware of that and how we are, you can also then repair, you know, you can go back and say, you know what, I realized that the way I spoke with you. And I also just on a side note, requiring an 8-year-old to be on Zoom. I mean, that's just a whole nother, that could be a whole nother podcast episode. But if I, if I were in charge of the world during this pandemic, which of course I'm not, I would have said, let's take this year to connect and rest and pursue hobbies and read more and exercise more. And let's just do a do-over. Let's just do a do-over. Let's just all start over instead of feeling stressed about, oh, people are getting behind and some kids are back in school and some aren't. And you know, it's just, I feel like we all, I mean, the world was a mess before the pandemic. I mean, our culture, the kids were already really stressed. Parents were stressed. I was talking to a friend last week. We were on a, on a walk and she said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to like get up at 7 in the morning and get to school and get all the kids off. And like to go back to that sort of frenetic schedule. I hope we don't. I hope that we reset and, and we take this as a cue. Okay. This is not working, obviously, in this setting, but how can we go back in a way that's better for everybody, for our wellbeing, for our relationships, for that connection? If you don't have time with each other, it's hard to have a good relationship.

So true. I enjoyed the time off when everyone was home and activities were all canceled. And so many people were so upset. And I felt like I was taking this big, deep breath and just enjoying my family. I, I enjoyed it.

I know, and it's funny because you don't want to say anything positive because obviously a pandemic is terrible and people have lost their lives and it's very stressful, and it's very stressful especially for people in poverty or who have hourly jobs. So it's more stressful obviously on some people, but I think like you, I— there have been some, um, many silver linings, especially for those of us who've, you know, been working really hard for a long time in jobs that are sort of unrelenting. It's been a, I think, kind of like a sabbatical. And you also realize it's funny because there's been a lot of financial loss. But I was wondering, there's also been— people don't spend as much. Like, you don't have as much to—

Yes, it's true.

If you're not eating out and you're not going on vacations and everything. So I just wonder how it all— in the end, as we look back on this, when people say, oh, I lost this much income or I lost this much, how much of it will be, but I also gained the time with my family and these kind of things that you can't put a price tag on. So I'm with you on that. I mean, as long as we can get past the fear for our parents and ourselves and the health things and just the wellbeing of everybody, then, oh man, it's been, yeah, it's been a, it's been a time.

It's been rough. It's been rough. You talk about so many things. It's so hard to know which questions to ask you. I have so many. You talk about helping kids resolve their own conflicts. Can you give us just one tip about that.

I really like that. Probably the simplest thing, and this sort of relates to anything that your kids come to you with, whether it's a conflict or any kind of problem, you know, with school or anything else, is to do your very best to refrain from what comes automatically to us, which is, "I know exactly what to do. Here's what to do." You know, because you've— we have a lot more experience than our kids, so we do already know oftentimes kind of a great response or a great way to deal with something. But if we can say to our kids, wow, that sounds really, really hard, or gosh, that really is a bummer, I'm so sorry that you're going through that. And then follow with, what are you thinking about doing? You know, it's very powerful and it does a lot of things. First of all, it causes you to pause and refrain from, if you're the kind of person who, you know, loves to counsel and advise your children, and it gives you that pause It also tells your kids an important message in that you have confidence in them and you think they can figure this out. So you're not ignoring them, you're not, not paying attention, but you're really just giving them this vote of confidence and you're serving as sort of a, um, like a sounding board so they can, can do this. I feel like, and especially as a camp director, one of the things that, you know, I'm— I have a front row seat to is how parents differ in their reaction to when their kids are under any kind of strain, right? So it varies widely. Some parents just, you know, immediately jump in and want to talk to everyone, want to find out what's going on and want to solve, right? Like the superhero, I'm going to jump in, I'm going to solve this for my child. It makes me feel so good to like be having something to do that helps my child. And then there's, you know, there's people that just ignore completely, which is also not— and then there's this like great middle, great middle ground, which is like, okay, I'm here for you. I, I really care about you. I want to help you with this. Um, I think you can do a lot of this on your own. What are you thinking about doing? And it takes a little more time than jumping in, but it's far more effective in the long term. So, um, yeah, with conflicts, we, you know, we spend a lot of time with kids. One of the beautiful things that happens at camp, which people would be surprised, is, you know, there's 8 to 10 kids living together We know that the conflicts and the issues that arise between the kids is actually one of the best parts of camp because it gives them the opportunity to learn how to work through differences. So, you know, so interesting. Yeah, so it's, it's actually, it's really good for them because it teaches them really important things that they need for life, right? Because, you know, you may feel like really— like some kids really don't like anyone sitting on their bunk, you know, it's like their space. Yeah, they have a space thing, so they need to be able to verbalize that to other kids. Other kids have other things. Other kids will make an annoying noise next to them, you know, it's just like all these little kind of things that they can figure out when given the opportunity. So, you know, you can have a campfire meeting and say, okay, so what's going really well in our group? What are things that, you know, let's all go around and say one thing that we can do to make our group get along better? And then each of the kids says, oh, well, you know, maybe I could try not to make so many annoying noises, or maybe I could be a little less sensitive about people sitting on my bed, or maybe I could be— so it's like, really, we can empower kids to solve so much more, and they do better because often, especially if it's a conflict between two kids and you did not see the whole thing, which you never do— adults never see never see all the different things along the way. And often what we see is a reaction or a response, and that's the kid who quote, gets in trouble all the time, right? The one who—

Absolutely.

Reacts perhaps the most exuberantly, but often there's preliminary, you know, stuff that led up to that. And so when you get kids together, they will come out with what they contributed to the conflict, you know? So, so two kids will do that. Adults talking about it, hardly know what— often do not get it right and often make the problem worse. Wow.

Well, and it's funny because if you think about my daughter's fighting, I'm trying to understand that there are so many things that occurred before I walked in and saw Lily hit Ella. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, what actually was happening before I saw the reaction?

Yeah. And then that also comes down to the one, you know, child like Tina would say, Tina Payne Bryson, who I always— she wrote the foreword of my book and I just love all her work, but that when you see a child do something like hit another child, you know, our first reaction is like, oh my gosh, go to your room, da da da. But that child needs comforting and needs— they obviously, they weren't able to self-regulate. They weren't able to come up with appropriate response. So we need to look at that as, wow, they don't have the skill to respond in an appropriate way to this stressor. And that's just a whole reframe of how we look at kids and their behavior is not, they didn't set out to hit someone. They didn't wake up saying, I'm going to go hit someone, or I'm going to upset my teacher. They didn't have another strategy that they knew or a coping mechanism to deal with big feelings.

So true. We're working on that so much with her. And she even can tell us that she needs help with it. So couldn't agree with you more. So I took two main things away— no, I took a million things away from your book, but two of my favorite lines, OK? So my first line, you already said, that I want you to know you you have impacted me so much in my parenting when you said, what are you going to do? Because I realized reading this, you know, I was really down on myself and I was like, stop it, stop it. You're just learning. We're learning every day because I, you know, you're not going to be shocked because so many parents are like me. I tend to rescue. And I saw myself when you were describing the rescuing parent and I saw what how that was impacting them negatively. So I want you to know that I have learned that question, what are you going to do, is going to help me so much empower them to solve their problems instead of me jumping in and saying, okay, let's fix it. So that's—

I'm so glad.

So that's line number 1 that I'm taking away. Line number 2 that I really want to talk more to my kids about, we've touched a little bit on this, my next question about how you talk about pro-kindness instead of anti-bullying. And you talk about how when someone's being unkind, we need to relate to them with compassion and curiosity. What is going on with them? And that second thing that was so, so powerful to me to teach my kids about the unkind behaviors that we see and to not jump to I'm being bullied. That's another thing you talked about. We throw around that word way too much. So you talked a lot about pro-kindness versus anti-bullying. Can you tell us more about that? Because you're spot on.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, I, um, well, I think like you, you know, I believe the whole, um, kind of anti-bullying movement came from a really good place in that obviously we don't want children to ever be harmed, and true bullying of any kind is horrible. But as I— my frustration with it, and again, working with a lot of kids and a lot of parents, is that now kind of everything that someone doesn't like is referred to as bullying. And that actually waters down and undermines when there actually is a true bullying situation. But in general, all of us— and again, going back to the life in the world— is it is much more effective to tell people what we do want than what we don't want. And I often, like when I'm training counselors about trying to use more like the positive wording of everything, one of the examples I love to give is this. When someone says to you, don't dive off the dock, what image comes to your mind?

Diving.

Yeah. And that's, that's how our brains work. Also, when you think about how, you know, our listening and attention isn't great, right? So oftentimes when we're telling kids something like, whatever you do, don't fill in the blank, it's likely that that could be the only thing that sticks in their head is whatever's after the don't. And it's also whenever you say no or don't, we tend to kind of shut down a little bit because we're like, oh gosh, someone's telling us another rule, right? When you— but when you say to kids, okay, we're so excited, we're gonna have so much fun swimming today, we're gonna make sure that we're wearing our life jackets and make sure it's always feet feet first as you jump in, you know, jump in feet first. I love it. So you word things in a positive way. So same with when we're talking about how we treat others. When you say, you know, here at camp or here in our family, we always want to be building each other up. So we're going to be saying, you know, when someone is doing something or trying, we're going to be cheering them on. We're going to be encouraging each other. We're going to be using really kind words because we want to make sure that everyone's here is having fun and feeling encouraged, and we want to make sure everyone's feeling good. When you say things like that to a group of kids, they're like, oh yeah, I want to feel good. Yeah, yeah, okay, I want to. And then when they, you know, when they misstep, which they will, the counselor say, remember, here at camp we build each other up. You know, we're going to use—

I feel like I'm getting a pep talk. I love this. I'm going to go be an awesome parent after this. Well, good.

Yeah, so, um, So anyway, so that's the thing. And then, and then like you said, no one's going to— like, we're not going to build empathy or resilience in our kids by telling them that, you know, like reinforcing the victim mentality. And so if we, you know, want to like always make it about, you know, this other kid who did this, or this other person, or this teacher, or this, you know, we can, we can kind of make the whole world all about like, oh, all these other people need to change to to make your life okay, or we can help our kids develop what they really need in life because life is going to be hard, is the ability to look at situations and say, wow, gosh, that person was really rude to me at the store. I wonder what the heck is going on with them that would make them act that way. They must be really having a rough time instead of, oh my gosh, I, I feel so bad cuz this person was so mean to me. And you know what I mean? It's like, it's just this different way. Like you can take the same situation and you can have a different attitude. And for our kids' well-being, it's going to be more helpful for them if we help them develop a more resilient approach to dealing with hard things, which is, you know what, that sounds really tough and I'm really sorry that that person was rude to you. What do you think is going on with them that they would say that? You know, have you seen them doing that to other kids too? You know, 'cause it's like, it's sort of that whole thing too that you oftentimes people who do behaviors that make us feel bad, you were not the only one they're doing it to.

Well, and there was a child at school who was really upsetting Lily, and I realized that they really don't think about what is going on for the child. And she was like, she did this and she did that, and then she did this to someone else. And I know that the child is having issues at home, and I said to Lily, you know, everyone doesn't have the same family life, everyone doesn't have the same things going on. She probably has so much going on in her life and at home that that's what you're seeing the result of. You're seeing her be upset at school and maybe take it out on other people. And she looked at me like, oh, I never in a million years would have thought of that. She just looked at the fact that this girl wasn't nice to her. So our kids don't realize that at all unless we continuously teach them. So, so I—

Well, and even, yeah, yeah, that's a great example. And I think too, just the kindness thing, when you have your kids, like, you know, there's families who their like question of the day or they're sharing is like, what is something kind you did today? If you're telling, if you're being really proactive and talking about, you know, we want to be known as a family who's kind and helps others.

Yes.

You know, we want, how can we do that? You know, what's up for you?

Well, and you said something else. I haven't asked my kids yet. I'm actually a little bit afraid of the answer. You said, do your kids think you value their grades more? Or their kindness more? And I went, uh-oh, uh-oh. I hope that they know that I value their kindness more, but I'm actually, I'm gonna ask them, and I'm honestly afraid of their answer. And that's a great question to pose in the family. What do you think I value most? You know, Max is always like, I got a 99, I got a 97, and I'm like, okay, I'm so I'm so proud of you and I love that you're getting good grades. And I said to him, what I want even more is for you to enjoy the learning experience. And he was like, but I got a 99. And I'm like, I know, and I think that's great, but I want you to learn and I want you to discover and I want you to enjoy it. And he's like, well, the class is really boring. And I was like, oh God.

Oh gosh, I know. Yeah, it's hard. The whole school thing. I mean, because really, you know, there shouldn't be grades. Because grades, that's sort of like makes it an extrinsic thing. It's just a really difficult thing to navigate in that because you do want to be intrinsically motivated and love to read and love to do the science project for the fun of it, but it's hard in the current setup. You know, I just think, I don't think you need to worry about your kid's answer. I would just say instead, think about if like, to start doing some things like even just starting with that question, like, you know, the world is, you know, so crazy right now. What's something kind that we can do? You know, maybe you're going through the drive-through and you say, guys, let's, we have some extra money. Let's pay for the family behind us for dinner. Or if you have grandparents still living, you know what? You're, it's hard. Kids, people hardly ever get handwritten notes anymore. Why don't you draw a picture or write a note to a grandparent today? So it's more, I think that's the way the kids see our value, right? Of kindness. Like, and, and yes, the study that I referred to in the book did show that parents think they're communicating something that they're not. And it really is borne out in the fact that, like, it's also like with integrity. Like, so I also think as your kids get older, when things come out, like, you know, the Varsity Blues scandal or cheating things, to really have conversations with your kids and say, just so you know, I want to clarify with you that I would far rather you fail a class or not get into a particular college than to cheat. Yeah, you know, and we're not gonna cheat, you know. So I think you can use, you know, both the positive and the negative. Or if you see some— an example of someone who's done something really kind, you know, or started something that in a neighborhood or a community that was kind. Like, I mean, I saw that— I keep seeing that news of the UPS driver who gets to his neighborhood and everyone's there to celebrate him and thank him for continuing to drive during the pandemic. And, you know, things like that, you see those things that are really uplifting. There's so many of those great stories, but they're just not in the news. Right? So even just finding those fun YouTube and Upworthy videos and watching those as a family and saying, isn't that so great? You know that? So I think it's just kind of more getting into your family ethos of doing that. So like at camp, when we, you know, we spend a lot of time, um, the kids know every single day that we're looking for good things in others. So giving compliments and what we call wows to each other is part of the culture. So kids then are more apt to like kind of want to get wows. So then, you know, someone drops a towel, they pick it up. Oh, here you go. You know, it's like, it's like when you're thinking, yeah, when you're thinking about that, oh, people are looking for me to be being kind and doing good things, it brings out more of them. So I think it's more just pointing out, and you could be excited about good grades too. It's not that you, because those are important. I mean, education's important too, but I think just, yeah, it's just like keeping it more if you want kindness and empathy to be part of your values, it's just being more, you know, having to be more of a focus in day-to-day life.

100%. Yes. I think about that. I even think about that when they say things like, well, why do you drive so-and-so home? And I said to them, you know, I am available and so-and-so's parents are at work and so-and-so's parents are at work. And isn't it wonderful that I'm here to drive people home? So I'm trying, I'm trying to point stuff out like that, but I will do it more. And I do have work to do around the grade situation because Max did say to me, well, all that matters is what I get. It's like, oh God, sometimes your kids say something and you're like, oh boy, do I have work to do.

Well, that's kind of a world— the whole world thinks that. Everyone thinks that it's all about the, you know, the grade, the college, the job, the salary. I mean, it's like, that's a societal, cultural thing that is hard to combat. So don't blame yourself, but just, you know, you can start promoting other things too or whatever. But also a lot of kids are just internally like, they want— like, I have one.

Oh yes, I was like that.

Yeah, by the grade. And, you know, if that eventually gets them to study something or discover something, and hopefully it will lead to at some point down the road they find a subject they're like, oh my gosh, I actually really, really like this, you know.

Yes, I remember finding the world of psychology and sociology and social work and going, finally, like, I can't get enough of this.

Yeah, it took me till my 40s, honestly. Like, when I was in college, I really— I, I mean, I did my work and everything, but I really didn't end up studying in college what I'm most interested in now. So I went back for my master's in psychology, and that was when I was I was so fired up by school because I was getting to read all the stuff that I was reading for fun anyway.

That is awesome. That's a great story. What was your original degree in?

International relations, like poli sci, econ.

Isn't that interesting? Well, we, we discover ourselves along the way. Hopefully, hopefully. There's another concept that I don't— I have to throw this out there. Evaluating. What do I want more of? Less of, same of. I love that so much. Can you please talk about that? That was a great way to evaluate your days. Sure.

Yeah. It's, it's a super easy thing to remember and I've used it in a lot of different settings with our leadership staff at camp, for myself personally, and for families. It's great. So basically instead of making a big list of goals or, oh gosh, this is going wrong, you just brainstorm together. Or if it's just something you're doing on your own, you could even do it with your co-parent. You know, about your family. If your kids are younger or you want to first start together or then as a whole family, but basically you just brainstorm. What do we want more of in our family, fill in the blank, life, whatever? What do I want the same of? What's going really well? And what do I want less of? And often there's like overlap. Like, you know, you might want to say, like, you might say, gosh, I want more of sleep. So that might end up being, you know, less of something else, but you might say, gosh, same of, I've really enjoyed that, you know, our family dinners. I want the same of like having dinner together. So this is actually a good thing, especially as when the world transitions back to more like of a quote, normal schedule, maybe before that being intentional as a family of saying, what do we like, what do we want the same of during this time? What do we want less of and more of, of what was kind of the old, old way and really just be more intentional. I think we so often just kind of hop in the stream and go with the flow of what everyone's doing and sign our kids up for every sport and every club and everything. You know, just like you kind of just, I mean, I felt that way a lot when my kids were younger. It was just like, oh, now Brownies is starting. Okay, we're doing that. Now this is going and oh, soccer. Well, of course you do soccer. You know, you just kind of, and it snowballs to the point where even if you're a person who said, oh yeah, my kids are only gonna do one activity, but then it ends up, oh, well they have their sport, but then they have their thing at school and then they have this, you know, church thing and it just, you know, it's too much. And then like you have 3 kids and then you start as a family you know, you can end up with that thing where, oh well, practice is only twice a week, but one kid's is on Tuesday, Thursday, and one's is on Monday, Wednesday. And so anyway, so yeah, the more of, less of, same of is a really simple thing to remember, a simple activity. I do it a lot. I have, you know, a blank sheet that I just print out, and I just— we do it on a flip chart at camp. We'll do that with our, our staff and get ideas for how's camp going this summer, what do we want more of, So then gives us like direction. What do we want less of? If there's something that's not going well, how can we fix that? Who's going to work on that? And then what's going really well? And that's the best list because then that's celebrating, hey, there's already a lot of things going really well. And when you really look at it, you'll find, oh my gosh, you know what? I like this already. This, this is going really well in our family. And that's kind of affirming too.

Yes. It's a great evaluation tool. And I always say there's too much activities. I always say too much. So yeah, that's a whole nother story with 3 children wanting to do everything. Yes, yes, it's a good tool. It's a good tool. I have so many questions, but we're not going to have— we're not going to have time for all of my questions. I want to tell everyone that one of the tools that I'm going to use is in the back of the book is an adult checklist, which is brilliant. You know, we're raising these kids, we want them to thrive as adults, and we want them to be able to do all of these things on the checklist before we send them out into the world. So I'm gonna use your checklist and I'm gonna start working on it because I'm like, you know what, it's time for Max to start making me dinner. It's time to start using this 14-year-old to do more and learn more. And I know the an 8-year-old could learn a lot too. But it just hit me, he turned 14 on Sunday and I'm like, you know what, he's going to high school. There is so much that he could be doing. So I'm going to use your checklist and I encourage everyone to get your book and read your book and use the checklist. And it's going to help me raise thriving adults for sure. You've definitely achieved your goal. This book is amazing. You inspired me in so many ways. So many ways. I also love your podcast. I mean, there's so much I could— like I said, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to share?

I don't think so. I'm just— I appreciate your, your support, and I would love to, you know, if there's people that want to listen. I think one thing is people sometimes think that my book and my podcast are only for people who send their kids to camp, and like you that's not who the audience is. It's really just anybody, teachers, parents, who— anyone who works with kids who wants some really simple tools. That's kind of my theme because I need to train camp counselors. So I try to make things a positive, to present them in a positive way. I don't want anyone feeling bad, like, I— because I don't think we don't— we get enough, like, you're not doing this right. I— my whole approach is, hey, you're doing the best you can, here's some ideas, why don't you try this? So I think that's kind of what maybe is different about some of my stuff than maybe some of the other things out there. So So yeah, I would love for people to check out my website, has kind of, is kind of the hub, sunshine-parenting.com, where you can look at my book, podcast, everything.

Okay. So they can find everything on your website and the podcast is Sunshine Parenting. The book is Happy Campers. I just have loved talking to you and getting to know you and get so many tips. I just, I love, I told you, I love this topic and I could talk about it for days. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

This is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

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