Going Back to School: How to Implement Daily Routines with Ease.

Okay, we're going. Okay. Three, two, one. So it's back to school. It's back to making sure all of the I's get dotted and the T's get crossed and the kids get set up for school and you get set up and to deal with and accomplish whatever your day looks like. And it can be a real scene, especially in the mornings, if we're honest with ourselves. Right? So I don't know anyone who can't relate to the parenting question. How do I deal with daily routines better and with more ease and in a way that doesn't exhaust and drain me. So today on the Healing is Possible experience with me, your host, Rebecca Silence. That's exactly what we're tackling. How do we create and implement daily routines with ease and flow in a way that not just sets everyone up to win, but also sets everyone up to have a joy filled, great day, as cheesy as that might sound. So this show, the Healing is Possible experience, it's brought to you by my team@rebeccasilence.com and it is meant to take you on a journey of hope and healing so that you can be your best for yourself and for every life in front of you. When it comes to back to school and parenting our kids, I want us to really think about how often are we waking up in the morning thinking about how can I be my best so that my child can experience the best of me first thing in the morning on their way to school? Now, no judgment, if this isn't a question that has occurred to you before or if this isn't something that you've been conscious about, but I want us to not underestimate the power of how the day begins from a standpoint of who we are being as the parent, as the leader of not just our lives, but of basically the the standard of how our day begins. As parents, we are the leaders setting the standard of how our day begins, how our day ends, how you know the energy in the home is affected by our very own emotional state and sense of well being in the mornings and throughout the day. It's unmatched. The importance and significance of your state of mind, emotions, well being. Absolutely. It affects everything, especially our kids. So I've got four tips for you on how to create a more easeful experience of daily routines for your children as we head back to school. You don't want to miss it. The very last one is very game changing, if you will. So make sure to tune in for this entire episode and let's just start with paying attention to your emotional well being and your state of being in the morning as the first tip to creating a more ease and flow and joyful experience for yourself and for your children, especially now. Heading back to school, are you giving yourself a moment first thing in the morning to check in with yourself? How am I to look at what is my intention for how I want the morning to go for me? We talked in a previous episode on Parenting about the importance of not back burnering you to parent your kids. Today I want to just gently remind you that it's critical that you're not putting you out after the kids are taken care of and off to school and then I can deal with me. First thing, your eyes pop open, check in with you, honor you and ask yourself, how do I want this morning to go for me? Even if you just find one word, I want to feel accomplished. I want to feel connected to myself or my children or both. How do you want the morning to go? That is where as the leader, as the parent, right? We don't get to quit our job of being a parent and the importance of the leadership that we demonstrate isn't something that we ever get to take a break from. But that's not bad news. It's actually good news that gives you more freedom when you don't wish away the role and responsibility of leading your family into the possibility that you hope for and want for everyone. So what is it that you want for you in the morning? How do you want your morning to go? And then make a decision that you're absolutely going to have it versus I get to have this as long as my kids do xyz I'm set up. Well, everything goes my way. Just decide that you're going to have the experience that you want to have and then meet your children with fresh eyes from that place of knowing and certainty. The next thing is to honor and make sure your children hear how much you love them, how much you honor them, how happy you are to see them. My oldest told me years ago, you know, I wish you were, you know, as happy to see me as you are every time you get on a coaching call with a client. And I wasn't even realizing how she was impacted by my taskiness and it became game changing. She didn't want to be greeted with, hey, have you done this, this, this, I'm doing this, this, this, let's meet at this time, get out the door and have a great day. She wanted hi, so happy to see you. Good morning. How are you? Ready For a great day. That didn't occur to me for a while. Even with a master's degree in counseling and years and years coaching at this point, thousands of families, it took her looking at me going, hey, I would like a better greeting. Same with the end of the day. How are we being with our children in the beginning and the end of their day? Let's us focus on that. Not whether or not we think they deserve it, but just so we know we show up as beautifully and powerfully and loving as we can. Let's pay attention to how we're greeting our children. That is a daily routine practice. That's game changing. Ok, from there, let's think about not just our routine for getting the tasks done, but also our routine for if things are starting to go sideways or God forbid, there's a crisis. How are we meeting those moments as parents? Let's start to think about that. So what I mean by that is, say you find out your child lied to you. What's your routine? What's your practice? Another word for routine is practice. And I'd really like to be thinking about today's episode as a practice so that things run smoother. Right? But say there's an issue, you're lied to by your child. How do you handle that? What I want is for us to get out of reactivity mode and powerlessness to our children's behavior and scrambling and reinventing the wheel every day over and over and over again. That's what's exhausting. Not the job of parenting and not trying to figure out how to have a routine with our children that gets the jobs done, whatever they might be. But. But let's stay in our power and in positive leadership and making sure our children know how loved, valued, honored and respected and wanted they are in the face of anything. So for example, if I'm lied to, I don't pretend that things are better than they are. But I'm also not punishing children, shaming, punitive. I'm very much addressing the issue. So hey, this is what I was told. This is what the truth is. What's up with this fall back in their court? It's easy to reactively just randomly assign punishments or let things fester and not address along the way. And then there's this volcanic eruption that doesn't do anybody's heart any good and doesn't take care of you as the parent or your child or children if multiple children are involved. So I want us to be inquisitive, I want us to be curious And I want us to stay connected to our children no matter what. And then as much as possible, have consequences in place before the choices are made. So what I mean by that is if I'm, you know, experiencing my child is disrespectful, if I'm lied to, if chores aren't done, no problem. You just chose this consequence that we already talked about before. You chose this behavior. And yes, it's a choice and I don't want to enforce consequences as much as you don't want to experience consequences. But if you make these choices, this is the consequence you choose. No problem. No skin off my back. Let's see if you want to try and make the same choice again or try something new in the future. So we have bare bones expectations and agreements with our kids. In my house, I try to have it to 5. So my 7 year old has letting out the dogs and feeding the dogs and making sure her room's clean and making sure that she, she is dressed and ready to go. And she picks up dog poop once a week. And those are her main jobs. Right now she's seven. And if she does them, great, she gets screen time, she gets playtime in the morning before school, once the dogs are taken care of, she's dressed and she's had breakfast. And if she doesn't do these things, she loses privileges like being able to spend time with friends after school or screen time or whatever other privileges she's asking for. And then I'm just neutral as the parent. I'm not going to fight her or again, punish with my tone, with my energy. It's just you made this choice. So the answer is yes or the answer is no. You made the choice to get yourself dressed, have breakfast, take care of the dogs. Now you get to play with the rest of the time we have before we're headed to school. You didn't do those things. Playtime's off the table. Let's get them done and we'll try again tomorrow morning. But everything is really neutral and set up clear ahead of time. So that moves me into my third tip, which is to make sure you're in agreement with your children, not you dictating. Here's the list. Here's how it's going to go. Get their buy in. Here's my proposal for what I think makes the most sense to set you up, to set the family up before school at the end of the day every single week. What are your ideas? You've got to get their agreement, meaning buy in, or it's just a dictatorship and they're going to fight you. And it's not that what you need from your children or what you're asking is unreasonable or too much or inappropriate. No way. It's just that you getting their buy in now we have a more solid foundation to work with. So with my oldest, if you're parenting older children, you know she has a driver's license, she wants to borrow the car, she has her own moped, she has her own keys, she has her own wheels, she's got a social life, she's got things that are important to her. And if I'm not taking all of that into consideration, then she's going to not feel seen and she's not going to feel heard and she's going to feel alone on an island. So I let her know what's important to me and then I have to find out what's important to her as well. Same with the seven year old. It's just a level of different parenting. Once you're dealing with a teenager, it's not the same once they're a preteen teen where you get to say do this, do that and they just do it. They have to feel like they're bought in, like they understand why they're being asked to do this thing or they don't want to do it and screw it. Right. So with my oldest, she does some different things. She helps with laundry and she helps with dishes. And she's again responsible for keeping her room in reasonable order. And the way we have decided to agree on the room being clean is as long as it's clean by Friday before the weekend. Great. I'm not going to win the battle of a room being clean every day. So again we find common ground, we find what works. Right. And then she helps with groceries sometimes, she sometimes takes our big labradoodle to his dog training. But it's all in agreement and it's not random. And then she gets paid for meeting her end of things and or the privilege of driving my car. Right. So. So there's a positive consequence to keeping and meeting agreements and being a part of the team. That's the family that is in flow. And then if that's not happening, you know, I don't owe her her cell phone so I can limit screen time if I'm paying the bill or the phone being available to her or. In the past we've changed WI fi until the classes and assignments and basics around the house were done. But you're coming from the perspective Of I'm not here to punish you. I. I'm not wanting to punish you. I'm wanting us on the same page. I'm wanting a solid foundation and I'm wanting a system that keeps our family in flow and our relationship in flow. All right, finally, this is really important. What if part of your daily and weekly and monthly routine was just enjoying your child? My oldest is about to leave for a gap semester in South America in literally two days. I am going to miss her. We do a weekly date that is part of our routine. A one on one date. I'm going to dinner with her tonight at one of our favorite restaurants. We do a weekly date. She has her end of things that she needs to meet, and then she gets extras. But that weekly date, it isn't a privilege, it's an essential. We don't change our weekly date based on whether or not she did her part. She kept her agreements. We keep it for connection. And then depending on how things are going, if agreements weren't met, it probably wouldn't be a very extravagant date. But we're still connecting. She's still loved. I still want to spend time with her no matter how she shows up. There's something so beneficial for your child when you're just there. A mountain of love that can't be moved. And you don't take shit either. So the final, most important tip I can offer all of you as parents to incorporate, incorporate and to include in your daily routines is to enjoy your child. So you're starting the day paying attention to how you want the day to go, how you want the morning to go, the experience that you want to have. And you're deciding that no matter what, you're going to have that. And then you've also got to be consistent. You've got to be consistent around how you show up and how you keep your word with your kids because they'll eat you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if you're not your word and if you're wishy washy. And then we've got to have agreements that make sense to everyone involved and a proactive plan for what's going to happen if the agreements aren't met and what's going to happen if they are. I'm all about positive reinforcement and rewarding the behavior we want. And so often, so often we're caught up in tasks and we're focused on what we don't want and the kids are experiencing us talking about and putting energy towards what we don't want versus rewarding what they're doing that's so great. And there's a lot, even when their pains in the ass, they are doing things that are beautiful and sweet and precious. I just, it's funny, I have my Pretty Woman mug right now. And just when my 17 year old watched this movie a couple of weeks ago for the first time with her, it's my favorite movie. And she was like, mom, this is Tinkerbell's backstory. All she could see was Tinkerbell from the movie Hook. Watching Julia Roberts as Pretty Woman, I about died. I mean, what are the moments with your children that you've enjoyed the most? And are you letting yourself enjoy being a parent, being the leader of the family and your child? They're not here for us to turn them into the versions of them that we think they should be. They're here to be who they are. Their authentic, unique expression. And my kids are a blast. I have a blast with them. And then they don't always do things the way I want them to or in the timeline that I want them to. And they push boundaries and all of that is age appropriate and normal. And I just am committed to enjoying being a parent and to enjoying my children as much as possible after, you know, being a cancer survivor. Time has a whole. A whole new meaning for me. And it is never worth it to give my kids the cold shoulder or to punish them or to shame them. I enjoy them even through the moments where I am leading. And we are in learning opportunities together. We get to grow and we get to enjoy and we get to stay connected. That is the most important thing. We have to get out of the house and we have to get the assignments in and we have to get the dishes done and we have to get the animals taken care of. But let's not make it this stressful, daunting, terrible experience that chores need to happen and the expectations need to be met. Let's make it a team effort where our kids know we care about them. We are so happy to see them in the morning. We're so happy to tell them I love you at the end of the day. We're so curious about who they are and what's important to them and how things are going and what they're feeling and what they're needing and what they're wanting and. And we're there for them. Not to fix anything, but to lead in possibility and love and no matter what, for them to know that they're loved and there's possibility and not to just get caught up in the tasks. And let's remember to keep it really, really simple. There's this handful of things that need to be accomplished. When they're accomplished, we get this reward. If they're not, no problem. But here's what happens if they don't get accomplished. Nothing has to be the end of the world. It's all just learning and growing and how did we do? And let's not have the same fights on repeat with our kids. Let's be consistent. Let's make sure they know they're loved. Let's be our word with our kids. And let's make sure quality time and enjoying our children is the number one priority. From a place of knowing we don't have to back burn our own self care or our own needs and wants and desires and dreams because we're a parent, we get to have it all. And let's get into a routine that demands that, that our standard is we have it all individually, as a team, as a family, and everyone's in this together. Covid taught us we're all in this together and we are. But does your child feel like they're an equal? They're, you know, a contribution to the family? And does your child understand that when they show up at their best, they get even more freedom and fun with you? Let's be the parent that experiences parenting versus just has parenting as a verb, an action word that's task oriented. Let's include in our routine how we're being as the parent and how our kids are experiencing us. Let's factor in, let's be conscious of before we take an action, before we are enforcing a limit or a consequence, pay attention to how they're experiencing you and care about how they experience the world and how they want to experience the world and enjoy. Let your children be a part of the conversation. Ask them what they think is reasonable around what their contributions every week and every day for the family should be. And then my last bonus tip. This has worked wonders. For about six years, I've been doing a daily, you know, just check in, how are you with my children? But also a weekly check in where we go over the next week's calendar. So on Sundays, I do this with my husband and I do this with my kids. Here's what's coming up on the calendar. Your stuff, my stuff, family stuff. Here's when and where and how we're fitting in our date, our quality time, and what am I missing? So one of the biggest things that can get in the way of, you know, your Children being set up to win is as parents, we know what the week's going to bring. We're all over it. But our kids aren't necessarily kept in the loop. So having that weekly conversation to go over the calendar, you know, what's needed, what's next, how are the bases getting covered? It's great to do with your spouse, but it's really important to do with your children, especially if there's multiple households involved, if they're going back and forth between one parent's home and another parent's home. Let's just set the week up. Let's calm their nervous system down, let's calm their brain down. Let's help them know what they can expect to, you know, be happening over the course of the week. We have dinner with grandma this day. We have karate practice this day. You've got this big assignment due this day. I've got dinner with friends this day. And we have our family day together on this day or whatever it is. But every single week, I invite you to start that weekly check in, going over the logistics. And then I also very much invite you to schedule in a minimum of two hours of a quality time date experience with each of your children. And you might say to me, rebecca, how on earth am I going to have time for that or money for that? It doesn't even have to cost anything. We did a date and we watched Pretty Woman. It was epic. It was hysterical. She was commenting on the fashion, Tinkerbell's backstory. It was so much fun. Have fun with your kids. Have fun with the experience and honor of being a parent. Why not make that part of your routine? Make that part of your practice. Enjoy. It goes so fast. My 7 year old is going to be 17 in 2.5 seconds. My oldest is on her way to South America, ready to spread her wings and fly. And don't worry about them reacting, quote, unquote, negatively to the consequence enforcement. That's not your problem. They don't need to like you in that moment. They need a parent that's consistent and has a structure in place that sets them up to win and is holding them capable of being able to be a team player in the family so that they can just succeed beyond measure in the real world. And they'll respect you and they'll love you for showing up consistently and for including them and being a part of the structure and the routines and in enjoying the process of being a parent. I always tell my kids of all my accomplishments, they're my favorite. They're my best one and it's true. And I enjoy being a mom and I want to empower and encourage you to enjoy being a parent again even in the face of the mundane, the day to day the routines. Enjoy being a parent and you as your most healed version of yourself is the greatest gift you can give to your children. If you want more on how to heal with your children, how to heal yourself so that you can be even better for your children, be sure to go to rebeccasilence.com and check out my course, the Emotional Survival Kit. It will change your life and I can't wait for you to take some of what you learned today and put it into practice with your children right away. Write down here's your assignment. Write down your biggest takeaway from this episode and your number one next step that you will take after watching. Remember the darkness is real, but so is the light even in parenting and healing is possible for me, for you and for all of us. I am here to support you with family, intensive work and or coaching as well. If you need it, reach out again@rebeccasilence.com See you soon. Thank you for being here and for watching and for caring about being the best type of parent and best parent that you can be. Love you.