In this episode, I share some in the trenches Mama tips with my Mastermind moms. The mom that I was coaching was frustrated with the afternoon environment in her home. The boys were overtired and there was a lot of fighting, crying and tension. I walked Mom through a realistic plan, some practical tips and helpful ways to shift her mindset and embrace her reality.
So often it’s more a mindset shift than anything else. It’s about learning to stop “resisting what is” that will allow you to create peaceful afternoons. Little kids are freaking exhausting AND the long days will become a memory sooner than you may realize, especially if you learn how to master your mind. I think you’ll learn some helpful tips in this coaching clip. Enjoy!
As always, thanks for listening, and be sure and head over to Facebook and you can join my free group Mastermind Parenting Community, where we post tips and tools and do pop up Live conversations where I do extra teaching and coaching to support you in helping your strong-willed children so that they can FEEL better and DO better. If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it!
About Randi Rubenstein
Randi Rubenstein helps parents with a strong-willed kiddo become a happier family and enjoy the simple things again like bike rides and beach vacays.
She’s the founder of Mastermind Parenting, host of the Mastermind Parenting podcast, and author of The Parent Gap. Randi works with parents across the U.S.
At Mastermind Parenting, we believe every human deserves to have a family that gets along.
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Transcription
0 (0s):
You’re listening to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast with Randi Rubenstein episode 82.
1 (7s):
My name is Randi Rubenstein and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast where we believe when your thoughts grow the conversations in your home flow.
0 (20s):
Hi guys, in this episode, I really, the main focus of this one is that quote, I heard it years ago, the days are long, but the years are short and man, have I experienced that? Like I was, I really feel like those preschool years of whew, they dragged on forever in a day, but then like when my kids hit middle and high school and now even college it’s like blank. I’m like, what, what is happening? Why has life sped up so much? So I had a specific situation with a mom in my mastermind, a newer mom in my mastermind who has two little kids.
0 (1m 2s):
And she was just kind of like, Oh, like these afternoons are killing me when they come back from preschool and the baby is not a baby anymore. And now he’s in school too. And at school they don’t quite rest quite as much as they, you know, the naps aren’t as productive as they are at home. And like, Oh my gosh, these afternoons, like they’re just long. And yesterday was such a doozy and you know, she was just kind of venting. And so I coached her on this and I’m not really share a lot of practical advice for kind of how to structure your afternoon and also how to shift your mindset about it.
0 (1m 45s):
Because the truth of the matter is the most exhausting part in most of us don’t even realize this is, is what we’re thinking about, how hard it is or what were thinking it should be like. And so that’s a mindset thing. So this is just a short clip where I coached this super frustrated, adorable mom about this situation. And I just thought, you know what? I think my podcast listeners would find this useful. So Enjoy when your kids are a little, the days are so freaking long. Like there’s this thing that I heard years ago that I love the days are long, but the years are short.
0 (2m 28s):
The days are so long and it’s really weird how it works, but its like the days are so long when you have preschool age kids. I remember it seems like those preschool years drag on and on and on. And then all of us in elementary, lower elementary kind of takes a long time. And then all of a sudden you were like, I blanked and were in the upper elementary and then middle and high school goes by in a freaking blur. Like, okay you started sixth grade, but now wait, you’re about go to high school and it’s just crazy. So it goes so much faster. The older they get, I think there’s a reason for it. It’s because there’s, you know, like every single need doesn’t need to be met by you anymore as they get older and they become more independent.
0 (3m 17s):
So the exhaustion I think really does come from it’s like I’m not used to laugh. One of my niece would stay with us. You stay with us. And I called it the game of moments until death. Like that’s what it felt like to me, it was exhausting because we don’t have a baby proofed house. We don’t have a gate around our pool. We don’t, you know, so I liked, I was just on high alert at all times. It’s like, if you turn your back for too long, it’s just moments until death. So your life is a game of moments until death when your kids are a little and, and that’s why it’s so freaking exhausting,
1 (3m 58s):
I’m super excited to dive into today’s topic. But before we do, here’s a quick word from our sponsor. Today’s episode is brought to you by the Mastermind Parenting membership, our exclusive private year-long mastermind in the mastermind. You’re going to find a tribe of smart, determined, and even sometimes slightly rebellious parents who all happened to have at least one strong-willed Kid. We dig in, we study our own brains and what’s coming up for us. When our kids are pushing our buttons, we also learn to see our kids differently and how to speak to them in a way that they can actually hear without the constant fighting and dictator type behavior. We change patterns that have often been in our families for generations, doors or officially opened. And we’re enrolling for the Mastermind Parenting membership fall cohort group.
1 (4m 40s):
So if you’re ready to get the coaching support, training resources and accountability, you deserve to finally take your family from a state of surviving to thriving. I want you to go to Mastermind Parenting dot com forward slash Lindsey that’s Mastermind parenting.com forward slash Lindsay with an E Y and book a free call. So we can learn more about you and determine whether the mastermind would be a good fit.
0 (5m 4s):
Yeah. So I put that out there because I want you to have a realistic mindset and know that right now. It’s about how do we get it? How do we make the most of these years? And they are exhausting. Okay. So, you know, the goal in my mind is to get to bed time and to, for everyone to be able to lay their heads down, feeling connected, okay, whatever you need to do to get there. So right now they’re coming home. Your reality is is you got little kids and they’re coming home. They are not getting as much rest as they need at school.
0 (5m 44s):
So on school days, they need an earlier bedtime. And I would literally plan out the time between, you know, I don’t know if they go every day or not, but on these days where they come home, spent an exhausted, I would plan out how to make it through the rest of the day. I’m with the least amount of tears and, and fighting. And it might look like they come home, they need some downtime. Okay. And, and especially during the preschool years, like they don’t have homework and all those things, right?
0 (6m 31s):
So they come home and, and you give them a snack and you sit with them and then maybe it’s they get to watch a movie together. They get to watch two shows. They get to have that downtime that they meet it. And then after TV time, then it’s go outside and play time. And it’s like, literally you being like we’re going on a bike ride. I mean, I was, I was always a big bike rider. We’re going, because you can put the baby in the baby seat, you can get to a destination. So we’re either going on a bike ride. We’re going to the park. We are going out and playing Todd as hell here in Houston were doing some water splashing.
0 (7m 12s):
We are going to do some water or whatever it is. And like Eric and my mastermind, she’s got three very active little boys. Like she started a thing. They have a front area in their house where like their driveway, if you have a gait, you know, so it’s a kind of a, like a court yard and they don’t have to have a pool on the back. That’s pretty much the whole backyard. And in the front, it’s like all concrete. It’s like this gaited front area. She started on a wall in her garage. That’s like the graffiti wall. There’s a chalk markers would ask. So there’s chalk. They can truffle over to the ground. There is markers. They can go, they can draw all over the graffiti wall.
0 (7m 52s):
They, they do water balloons. They’ve got a little jumpy thing out there. They are constantly with the hose and wedding. And what are you doing? Whatever. So I’m saying like, have it structured where they come home, they have the downtime. Then you guys go outside and you have some kind of outside time, which I kind of feel like it’s like re if they’re already exhausted, like run them like puppies until they, until they collapsed. But, but if they like sitting and having a little tea time in there telling you, they want to do that, they are just, you know, you don’t want to do the fourth thing that turns into the tears. So just, yeah, let, ’em have a little to your time and then go outside, run them like puppies.
0 (8m 33s):
And then you come back inside and before, and it’s like time for you to get dinner together or whatever, which hopefully you’ve got a plan and things that are in place. It doesn’t, it’s not a ton of prep time for you. Like you’ve done stuff earlier while they were at school, but you put out a little, you know, place for them to nosh on it. Cause they are going to come home hungry from the park. And you put out a little plate with, I think this is really helpful to do with a little tiny kids. There’s got some carrots and ranch and some nuts if you guys do nuts and some cubes of cheese and maybe some Apple slices. And basically it’s like a little plate of nutrients that if they sit down at dinner and eat next to nothing, it’s totally fine because at least, you know, they just got a bunch of good stuff and for, for dinner.
0 (9m 18s):
So it’s almost like dinner is just the ritual of dinner. And Jesse, if you’re listening to this, I actually think that this could be helpful for you to have, Campbell’s not eating a dinner anyway, you might as well catch him when he’s hungry and put up a bunch of good stuff. Guide would literally, while I was making dinner and just put out a plate real quick and just throw some things on it. And they just knew they can come over and they can just notch. They didn’t have to sit down and they could walk. They could stay and they could eat. They can walk back and forth. They it. Wasn’t a big deal. So I would say, you know, you come home, you do dinner. They’re not showing. And then it’s bath and bedtime, like the day’s over, but at least you filled it. And it’s not just like, open-ended time in the house of what are we doing next?
0 (10m 3s):
What are we doing next? I think this kind of structural will set them up for more success.
1 (10m 10s):
Hey guys, if you want to close the gap between the parent that you currently our, when the kids were pushing your buttons at the end here and that you always attended to be that calm, cool and collected parent, no matter what’s going on around you. I have my rest of the few for you. I wrote about it and in my book, the parent gap, and I’d love to give you the free audio version. All you have to do is text the number four, four, two to two that’s four for two to two. And I put the message in Mastermind Parenting Podcast all one word, all caps. Mastermind Parenting Podcast for two to two, and we will send you over a free copy of my audio book, the parent gap ASAP.
