Harmony in the Home

The theme for this week is centered around taking one small step toward recognizing and honoring your child as a unique spirit — a gift from God, the Universe, whatever you want to call the great cosmic power — with an appropriately unique set of skills, abilities, and needs. I remember a conversation with my daughter Lily when she was very small, in elementary school, wherein she told me unprompted that she was like a sponge. When I asked her what she meant by that, she explained that she felt like she absorbed many emotions until she couldn’t absorb anymore, and just like water leaking out of the sponge, the tears leaked out of her eyes. This was an eye-opening epiphany for me. Children feel the exact same emotions we feel. They are incredibly perceptive of nonverbal communication; it’s all they know until their brains develop language skills. They can sense when their parents are having a confrontation. They can tell when people are pretending to have one emotion while really feeling another. In addition, children are just like sponges — or perhaps it would be better to say they’re like paper towels. Just like all the competing paper towel brands, each child has their own emotional capacity before they hit their limit, and each is different from the rest! Until children develop a basic set of tools to name a tricky emotion, understand why they’re feeling it, and execute appropriate strategies to deal with it, they are going to be sponges and towels, soaking wet with emotion. This is NORMAL for their age and stage. Even after they have those tools, they’ll get weepy often enough. I know I do — though much less now that I am practicing mind management and conscious parenting! Make it your business to get curious, not furious, when your kids act out, so you can help them develop the tools they need to navigate tricky emotions successfully. You’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Today we are going to piggy back the episode from last week. Last week we learned how we have an all or nothing in our habits to a degree in different areas of our lives. Today we are going to unpack how that can show up in our relationships where our mindset can go to all or nothing about people that they are all good or all bad. Once we can find the teeter totter balance within ourselves then it is easier to project that on to our kids, spouse, loved ones, acquaintances and people from our past too. Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

In this episode, we’ll be continuing the dialogue I started In episode 61. I’ll be responding to more questions from you, my listeners, and expounding on the ease with which we “lose ourselves” and our identities outside of parenthood. I’ll also speak even more regarding our pressing need to reclaim and nurture our non-parent identities in order to be the best parents we can be. We owe it to our children to make time for ourselves, to have a Self from which to draw an abundance of love and compassion! The Miracle Morning regimen I described in detail in episode 59, three weeks ago, was a godsend in my life. I have found enormous peace in taking time to express gratitude, to meditate, to exercise, to put my mind in order, and to speak to myself with love and compassion before my family wakes up. Rachel Marie Martin, author of The Brave Art of Motherhood, has an original work called “Breathe, Sweet Mom,” on her blog Finding Joy. I adore this brief and tender free verse for its powerful reminder that your children don’t need perfect, they need you. Don’t put yourself on the back burner. Don’t think that you have to choose whether to prioritize yourself or your family. You can do both! You’ve got this! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

I have received hundreds of emails from listeners — parents who feel overwhelmed by parenthood, frazzled moms (and dads too) who are trying to give their children the world, but feel like their own needs are not being met. These people struggle to feel a sense of Self outside of the identity of parent, and they suffer considerably as a result. Attachment to your children to the point of codependency or projecting your idealized version of them onto them can have deep negative consequences. Children are very attentive to the distress of their parents. If they become conditioned to act or be a certain way to appease Mom and Dad, they will have difficulty developing their own individuated sense of Self and obtaining the skills they need to be independent and have healthy relationships as adults. The dual burden and blessing of motherhood (and fatherhood) may become corrupted into “martyr-hood” in the mind of a parent who lives, breathes, and makes unreasonable sacrifices for the children. This can result in resentment for children and spouses alike, and nobody wants that! On airplanes, the flight attendants instruct that in case of emergency, parents and guardians of children should don their own oxygen masks first in order to assist the young ones. By the same token, parenting needs to come from a place of abundance. In this and the following episode, I will be addressing parental concerns and suggesting ways in which you can care for yourself so that you can parent from an abundance of love, practice self-care, and not feel lost in motherhood or fatherhood. There is no need to play either/or with meeting the needs of your family. You can be prioritized, and your children can be prioritized too! Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!

Happy Valentine’s Day! Love is my favorite word in the dictionary and so I think it’s ironic that this episode is releasing on the most loving day of the year! Listen in and how you can make the people within your four wall feel the love in the air on this special day and all other days of the year.Reply to this email with what you think about this episode and/or if you want to sign up for pocket coaching to have harmony in the home. Check out our sponsor Herbal Face Food and support the show by clicking the link https://tinyurl.com/KellysFavoriteAntiAgingSerum and using the code Harmony20 at checkout for 20% off. Subscribe on Apple! Subscribe on Android! Join my FREE parenting bootcamp! Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me: Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com. Find me on Instagram! Find me on Facebook!