Clients, family, friends and fellow pickleballers alike have been bemoaning the state of the world. Somehow folks feel less resilient in all aspects of life, including parenting. You are not alone.

The struggle is real. Cliché or not, it is important to normalize this experience. Parents today are navigating ever growing social media influence, economic pressures, and increasing global unrest. I have written a lot about the mental load of parenting and within that is the emotional demands of shouldering your own feelings even as you try to model affect regulation for your kids. Resilience is in part the ability to stay connected to your core values even in difficult moments. It is about recovering more quickly and being able to bend without breaking.

I have been thinking a lot about how we persevere in the face of challenges and am sharing my top 5 tips here:

· Acknowledge your feelings. I have been known to mutter ‘well this sucks’ which keeps me from spiraling.

· Give yourself a time out. It is okay to walk away, so long as your kids are safe, and take a micro-break to reset.

· Commit to your self-care practice and honor those commitments. You cannot take care of your children at the expense of yourself.

· Recognize that you are modeling behavior for your kids. Often what you do will matter more than what you say. Being able to be calm with them is gift.

· Use your community. You know who your people are. Sometimes a quick text to a friend to vent, commiserate, share a meme, or set up a walk or tea makes things feel better.

There is no such thing as perfect parenting. The goal is to be compassionate with ourselves and our children, showing them how to feel, fall, get up and keep going with grace.