How to Prepare Your Kids for the Road, Rather than Preparing the Road for Them

Here’s something I absolutely know is true:  There is hardly a parent alive, myself included, who wouldn’t willingly take on the sadness, disappointment and suffering of their children, whether it comes from a playmate’s snub, a rejection from a hoped-for university or the death of a family pet.

Here’s another truism:  Not rushing in to smooth our children’s paths is one of the most difficult and loving acts a parent can do.

No matter the impulse behind it, doing everything we can to shelter our children from life’s travails is detrimental for several reasons:

1)    It’s exhausting for parents, especially when there are multiple kids.

2)    It causes unnecessary stress between and for parents.

3)    Most compellingly, shielding our children from adversity or over-indulging their wants and needs profoundly interferes with their cognitive and emotional development, denying them the full set of skills and competencies necessary for adulthood.

If our primary goal as parents is to raise adults capable of managing their lives and contributing to society, it’s up to us to ensure they develop age-appropriate core competencies and self-confidence in their ability to do so -- even if that means standing back and watching them fail over and over again!

Picture a toddler learning how to dress herself -- an enormously frustrating task for someone with subpar motor skills. They need lots of practice, day after day. In the process, they fail -- a lot! But if you give them opportunities to ‘do for themselves’ they get to experience mastery and pride in their accomplishment.

My eldest struggled mightily to learn how to tie his shoes. As a mom, it was excruciating to witness his exasperating attempts. At times I desperately wanted to step in, but I didn't want to deny him the opportunity to sit with the problem, figure it out and then have the joy of his success. Over those weeks, my son didn’t just master shoe tying; he built up both his frustration-tolerance and his belief that if he worked hard, he could do anything!

Learning the discrete and seemingly mundane tasks of early life are the fundamental steppingstones of childhood. Eventually, they enable your tween to tell the school psychologist they’re being bullied, for example, and they can give high schoolers the confidence to negotiate a fare wage for a summer job. For kids of all ages, the tremendous value of learning isn’t just acquiring new skills; it’s the self-efficacy and resilience that results from the process of moving through failure to mastery.

One of the best ways parents can support their kids along the path is to

model how to deal with the myriad problems, snags and plans undone by circumstance that litter every parent’s waking life! When the airline cancels a flight…when there’s a traffic jam and you’re late for an appointment…when the pipes burst. Do we scream and rail, throwing up our hands in defeat? Or do we problem-solve, investigating all the possible fixes and options available? Naturally, parents feel and express frustration, too, and handling our emotions appropriately is part of the lesson. Then, we model how to pivot to the solution.

Please know I’m not suggesting parents shouldn’t ever intervene. If your child’s frustration level is too high or they are really struggling, it’s a parent’s job to step in and offer support. It’s also up to us to decipher when our kids’ frustration is actually a real need for connection. Above all, we must be vigilant about differentiating between personal needs around being an uber-parent and the long-range desire for our kids’ maturation. That’s when parents need to acknowledge that it is hard to see your kid in pain and then get the support you need.

Standing by and watching our children fail can feel like the heaviest lift of parenthood. From the minute your child is first in your arms (and often before), parents fantasize about what we want the future to look like. The first thing that upsets our idealized picture for them can feel devastating. And watching them fail? That felt really hard to do.

When I’m working with parents who’d do anything to save their kids from failing and feeling bad, I like to share the viewpoint of one of my all-time favorite authors and researchers, Julie Lythcott-Haims. She says, “I call failure one of life’s beautiful f-words -- along with “flail,” fumble,” flounder” and “fall.” You have to encounter these things over the course of your life to learn how to bounce back. The more you experience them, the more resilient you’ll be when bigger challenges arise.”

That’s superb advice for parents too. You’ll find more gems like that in her groundbreaking book, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kids for Success. You’ll find it on the resource page of my website below the FAQs.

p.s. If you have 20 minutes now, watch Julie’s Ted Talk for a glimpse into her take on raising successful kids.

How Self-Compassion Can Ease the Burdens of Parenting

When I began blogging, one of very first topics I wrote about was self-care for parents. That’s how important I thought it was.

I believe self-care is even more important today, and over the years it has become prominent in my work with parents. In fact, it’s become a central tenet of my coaching practice. As I often tell my clients, “You cannot take care of your children at the expense of yourself.” Not only will parents who ignore their own needs pay the price physically, mentally and emotionally -- it’s not good modeling for your kids, either.

I define parental self-care as any activity that takes the focus off your children’s needs and puts it squarely on your own. Most of you are familiar with the basic repertoire of self-care habits: healthy eating, exercise, good sleep, journaling, date night, time with friends, therapy, hobbies and meditation, to name a few.

Yet there’s another element of self-care I’ve become convinced is most essential, and that’s self-compassion. Easily overlooked, self-compassion is an exceptionally simple and profound way to reframe your parenting struggles and, perhaps, your very humanity.

It’s not that parents lack compassion - not by a long shot. Since the early days of the pandemic, I’ve heard parents express and demonstrate an abundance of compassion for their children, particularly for the losses, big and small, they’ve had to endure.

Yet I’ve not heard parents express a comparable amount of compassion for themselves about their unavoidable parenting missteps in a world turned upside down by a global pandemic. Just the opposite, in fact. There’s far too much “comparison parenting” going on, as well as over-worry about our choices and what others might think about them. Too often I hear parents being uber-critical of themselves (“I’m a terrible mom!” or “I should never have done / said that to my child.”).

In situations like these, it’s important to remember it’s not the parenting mistakes you make -- it’s how you repair them. When you apologize to your child after a blowup, you’re actually letting them see you as an imperfect human willing to be vulnerable, which gives them a shot at seeing themselves that way, too. Besides, when we beat ourselves up for parenting mistakes, we simply compound the original problem. Best to put our energy into what we can learn about our kids and ourselves.

One definition of self-compassion that’s popular is “learning to treat yourself with the same kindness and consideration that you would a good friend.” For parents, though, I think a more potent definition is to treat yourself with the same kindness and consideration that you would your child. Imagine how it might feel if you started talking to yourself with that same soft-spoken understanding, care, acceptance and love. That’s self-compassion.

According to self-compassion’s foremost researcher, Kristin Neff, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, self-compassion involves three main components: self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness.

From a parenting perspective, here’s what that looks like:

Self-kindness. This is simply being as kind to ourselves about our parenting mishaps as we are to the friends who call us looking for support about theirs. Self-kindness is taking a soft view of our efforts, knowing that being a loving, supportive presence for our kids (and ourselves) is what matters most of all. It’s accepting that there is no way to be a perfect parent; some days, being a “good enough” parent is good enough.

Common humanity. There’s genuine relief in knowing that being a parent is difficult for everyone -- even parenting coaches! Every parent makes mistakes or feels they mishandled an important event in a kid’s life. Embracing those difficulties and our inadequacies, rather than avoiding them, is essential to rebuilding our resilience and restoring our hope. Recognizing our common humanity helps us turn “The way I handled that proves I’m the worst parent ever” into “Next time that situation arise, instead of doing X, I’ll try Y.”

Mindfulness. When we’re mindful, we make a decided effort to catch ourselves in negative self-talk about our parenting, and then consciously bring our attention back to our breath so we can think and act more in alignment with our parenting values. Plus, mindfulness offers a chance to gain perspective about what we can control -- and what we need to let go of.

Self-compassion isn’t usually a struggling parent’s go-to, but it’s an essential skill we can learn if we practice it. The best part about it is that we’ll always have a wise and empathetic friend at the ready and at our side -- ourselves!

I like to think of self-compassion as a deep breath for the soul. My advice? Take them as often as you can.

COVID ’21: A Whole New ‘Back to School’ Experience

“The more things change…the more they stay the same.”  This feels incredibly apt right now as families face yet another back-to-school season in the time of Covid.

 What’s really striking is that the collectively relieved parental vibe that clients, family and friends emitted even just a short six weeks ago has in recent days morphed into a lamentable chorus of here-we-go-agains.

Just when it had seemed children might have a quasi-normal, much-needed and highly recommended return to academic life (endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics), parents are once more fretting about sending kids into classrooms and feverishly scanning the headlines for sound medical guidance to allay their fears about the Delta coronavirus variant.

As one mother of a rising 4th grader shared: “While I’m not going to second-guess my city’s decision to return children to the classroom, I have much more anxiety about my unvaccinated child going to school this Fall than I did even a month ago. Naturally, I trust that school administrators have considered all the variables and will instate all the appropriate safety measures so that everyone — kids, teachers and staff — can stay safe. But the situation is far from ideal.”

Far, indeed. It’s hard to predict whether the CDC guidance for Covid prevention in K-12 schools, originally issued on July 9, will get a facelift given the alarming uptick in Covid infections. And it’s not farfetched to suppose that things could completely derail in September because with the pandemic, you just never know.

But one thing is certain: While there are still plenty of unknowns, there is still much parents can do to prepare their K-12 and college students for the coming academic year.  

Manage your negative feelings. There’s a lot at stake this back-to-school season, so parents are facing a mixture of anxious, fearful and even contradictory (e.g., I’m afraid for my kid, but can’t wait for school to start) feelings. No matter what they are, be sure you have a safe place to discharge your anxiety and vent your frustration, either with other parents, a parenting coach, a therapist and/or friends. Address and validate your own experience so that the face your kids see is one they can rely on to help them manage their fears and keep them safe.

Acknowledge the greater good.  Parents the world over are thrilled that the social isolation their have children faced the last 16 months is behind them. Moreover, in-person learning will address the inequities of distance learning exacerbated during the pandemic. These include mitigating the negative impact on academic achievement for students of color and non-English-speaking students; re-bridging the digital divide; and addressing the increase in mental health issues children and adolescents suffered during the pandemic.

Don’t sugarcoat it. Transitions are hard on everyone -- especially kids. So let yours know that it’s okay if they feel a little anxious about going back to school during Covid. If you emphasize how much fun they’ll have and how great it will be, you set your children up with the expectation that everything is going to be rosy. Which means you run the risk that they’ll lock up their fears inside for fear of disappointing you.  

Do make sure you emphasize your confidence that the school will do everything possible to keep them safe. And reassure them that they’ll be able to debrief about their experience every day at home.

Gather as much information from your school district as you can. Now is the time to be a proactive parent. While many school districts will have similar safety measures in place (masking; regular testing; improved ventilation; social distancing; regular hand washing, keeping sick kids home), there will be local variations.

Remember -- the more you know about what the school year will look like, the sooner you can prepare your kids for what’s to come.

·      For early-childhood learners, find out if there will be a pre-visit school day or a Zoom Open House to familiarize your child with their teacher and classroom. Also, try to get a class list and arrange a pre-school play date so that your child will see at least one familiar face on Day 1.

·      For grade-schoolers, be sure to confirm what the drop-off/pick-up protocols will be and share them; consider a practice drill since it’s been such a long time since school was last in session.

·      For teens, continue to be your kids’ frontal lobes. Ask “what if” questions, such as “What are you planning on doing after school? How do you plan to stay safe if you’re around kids that aren’t vaccinated? Role-play with them so they can practice how to deal with uncomfortable situations. Keep a watchful eye on any signs of anxiety.

·      With college students, especially incoming freshmen, ensure they have all the supplies they’ll need (masks, hand sanitizer, etc). Encourage them to research school safety and testing protocols and familiarize themselves with the location and capacities of on-campus medical and mental health resources. Most important, ensure your family has a plan for what to do if they get Covid.

Reorient your kids to the realities of school life. Remote learning has had a profound impact on kids of all ages and grades, and many children may have forgotten about the rigors and challenges of school life. It may surprise them that the transition won’t be as smooth as they expect it to be.

While many children thrived academically during Covid, it could partly be because they had a lot of educational and psychic support at home from parents (or paid teachers/tutors) during the pandemic that they won’t have come Fall.

Engage your kids in conversation about the reality of an all-day scholastic program, the demands of independent learning and self-monitoring, and dealing with social distractions. Stay vigilant, especially in those first couple months. Keep a close watch on their homework and other performance metrics so you can be fully prepared for that first parent-teacher conference.

Many students experienced a loss of academic progress during the pandemic. If this is true for your child, be sure to arrange a meeting with teachers before the school year to set up tutoring or other educational scaffolding your children may need.

Be mindful of the pressures on teachers, school administrators and staff. Families aren’t the only ones feeling frazzled. Returning to the classroom will also be extraordinarily stressful for teachers, administrators and staff who want to keep kids safe while staying healthy themselves. Remember, these professionals went into education because of their passion for helping students learn. On the whole, their efforts during the pandemic have been Herculean, albeit imperfect. Be sure to express your appreciation for everything they do.

Be prepared to pivot. Change is inevitable during normal times, and more so during a global pandemic. So plan vigorously -- but be ready to change when the need arises.

#Mother's DAY is Not Enough

“....And Moms are still not OK.”

That’s the line that got me. It appeared in an article about moms and the pandemic that hit my in-box late March.

Fourteen months in, and I’m still hearing from clients and friends that moms bear the brunt of the increased work- and stress-loads brought about by the pandemic. And that’s not even accounting for the lost wages and forfeited gains in the labor force that mothers, especially those of color, have endured due to both the lack of childcare and the persistence of remote K-12 learning. Not to mention centuries of the unpaid, undervalued and unacknowledged labor of women.

For Mother’s ‘Day’ 2021, I say we aim much, much higher when it comes to supporting mothers…because one day out of 365 is not enough respite for anyone.

In fact, let’s tag it: #MothersDAYisnotenough.

I know this defies Rule #1 of successful hashtag creation (“don’tputamillionwordsinonehashtag”), but if ever there was a time for rule-breaking, it’s now…when women are collapsing from the strain of all that’s been put on and taken from them during this past year. 

Moms -- working, single and stay-at-home alike -- have shouldered the primary responsibility for the roles of teacher/tutor, chef, housekeeper, babysitter, therapist and coach imposed by the pandemic. Of course, that’s in addition to any paying work they may have.

This isn’t just anecdotal. Study after study after study provide evidence of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on mothers’ workload and well-being.

I’m not saying there aren’t some dads and partners out there who hold up 50% of the parenting, caregiving and household burden; nor am I denying that some fathers have stepped up to take on more of the responsibilities of family life during COVID. And there are increasing numbers of fathers who are the primary parent, caregiver and home-keeper. But a study from the Pew Research Center last year noted that despite those efforts, “many of the dynamics between couples haven’t changed much during this turbulent time.”

So now what?

If you’re a mother or the primary parent…

·       I’m like a broken record on this topic, but moms must prioritize self-care -- full stop

o   For starters, on your next walk (sans kids), listen to one of the free webinars on Gemmawomen.com on topics including “Mom Guilt: When Does it End” and “Setting Boundaries with Families”

·       Practice saying “No” (it’s actually a full sentence); you simply cannot do everything -- and everything simply does not need to be done

·       If parenting and other family responsibilities aren’t being fairly distributed between you and your partner, talk honestly with them about what you need

·       Involve your partner and your children in the problem-solving and in the doing, even little kids can (and want to) contribute in the home

·       Share your experience with other moms and enjoy the mutual benefits of support and empathy, as well as the reminder that you’re not alone

·       Refuse to participate in or accept mom-shaming -- on the job, on social media or in conversation; there is no shame in not being able to meet wildly unrealistic expectations -- either your own or society’s

If you’re a dad or the non-primary parent…

·       Transform your approach to Mother’s Day by frankly talking with your co-parent about the caregiving or housekeeping areas where she is feeling particularly stressed…and devise ways you can lighten her load in those arenas going forward

·       Ask the mom in your life how she would like to spend Mother’s Day

·       Acknowledge your partner’s Herculean efforts on behalf of the family during the pandemic…apologize if you’ve not done your share…and demonstrate what you plan to do differently

·       This one is crucial: Initiate a discussion with your wife, partner or co-parent about the “mental load” they carry regarding both parenting and household upkeep. This includes the often-invisible load of anxiety, anticipating, planning and follow-up that moms typically shoulder. For example, some dads may be surprised to know that moms start researching summer camps right after they’ve cleaned up the New Year’s noisemakers. Make a plan to relieve your co-parent of some of this “worry work”

If you’re a friend or family member of a single parent…

·       Check in with single moms regularly to offer emotional support -- and let them know they can call on you in an emergency or just to chat

·       Offer to take the kids for an afternoon to give her a much needed break

·       Call before you go to the grocery store to see what you can pick up for her; or consider giving a gift card for grocery delivery

·       Gently encourage her to not neglect self-care, even if she only has a few minutes a day for it

These are just a few suggestions.  I’m sure if you open up the conversation with the mother you co-parent with or other primary caregivers in your circle, you’ll no doubt hear additional suggestions for how you can make a positive impact on their workload and well-being.

In the meantime, I’m going to give #Mother’sDAYisnotenough a shot. It may not go viral on social or bring about the policy and institutional changes the world needs to make mothering more equitable and primary caregivers less stressed, but if it makes a difference in your home, I’m good.

What's Love Got to do With It? (Parenting, That Is)

Every year as Valentine’s Day nears, the consumerist clamor escalates. Advertisers try, yet again, to sell us on the notion that flowers, candy and jewelry is what love is all about. If you’ve been in a relationship that’s lasted beyond the falling-in-love stage, you know that’s not the case.

Thinking about Valentine’s Day brings to my mind another essential kind of love: the unconditional love parents have for our children.

The phrase, unconditional love is self-defining. It is, simply, love without conditions.

As important as it is for parents to love unconditionally, it’s probably more essential that our kids feel and have the lived experience of our unconditional love and regard for them. For healthy development, kids need to believe that no matter what they do, their parents love them just as they are -- foibles, irritating habits, differences of opinion, special needs and all.

That doesn’t mean we ought to accept everything our children do -- and it certainly doesn’t imply that we love their inappropriate behavior. Unconditional love isn’t constraint-free love. It’s loving without expecting anything in return. Even when out children behave badly. Even when they scream, “I hate you!” Even when they’re struggling with the limits you’ve set for them. One can hate the behavior but still love the kid.

Not surprisingly, children often experience the setting of boundaries, such as consequences for disrespectful behavior and accountability for their actions (or inaction when action was called for), as proof that we don’t love them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Calling out and setting limits on unacceptable behavior is part and parcel of being a parent. Actually, it’s a considerable part of the job.

How we do that job is key.

As parents, we need to constantly reassure our kids that we love them no matter what. I remember many challenging moments when my kids were teenagers. But even when I was sharing my displeasure at a behavior, or stating consequences for some infraction, I always made a point of articulating and affirming my love.

I’d spell it out quite clearly, actually. I’d say something like, “I know you’re angry at me and don’t like the rules, but the reason they exist is because they’re in keeping with our family values. As your parent, it’s my job to issue consequences when you ignore them. But know this: I love you regardless of how you feel about me right now. In fact, no one loves you more than your dad and I. No one is a bigger fan of yours than we are. No one.”

As parents, let’s constantly express our love for our kids, even in the face of their anger -- or ours. Remember, children learn how to regulate their emotions by watching how we regulate ours. So when your kid says, “I hate you” the worse thing a parent can do is to react in kind.

In fact, when kids say, “You don’t love me” or “I hate you” when we’ve set a limit or enforced a rule, they’re actually trying to make sure we do love them! So let them know that their behavior isn’t going to change the love you have for them, but that there are certain things -- that they well know -- that you're not going to tolerate.

Yes, as parents, we will lose our cool. It’s inevitable because effective parenting can be extremely taxing. When you do lose your temper, approach it as an opportunity not just to amend your behavior, but to rearticulate your love for your kids. Here’s an example: A mom, pressed for time, was making lunch for her 6-year-old, the very same lunch the girl had claimed as her “favorite” several days earlier. As the mom was finishing up, the girl started complaining about the menu. In response, her mother yelled, “Fine!” and threw everything in the garbage.

Immediately the daughter was apologetic, as was Mom, who swept in to repair the rift. But she made sure her daughter understood that she was not apologizing for “being” angry…but for how she expressed it. In their exchange, Mom reinforced the message that there’s nothing wrong with having feelings; we just need to learn healthy ways to express them.

During this year of elevated stress and forced togetherness, pandemic family life has probably gone off the rails once or twice (or a hundred times!) in many of our homes. Unfortunately, I’ve heard too many parents casting themselves as “bad parents” because they’ve lost their temper or been angry with their kids. Actually, being angry with one’s kids without withdrawing your love is what helps kids internalize that they are, indeed, loved without conditions.

That’s the best gift we can give our kids. It’s also the answer to the question, “what’s love got to do with it?”

Here’s to a Happy Valentine’s Day -- every day of the year!