Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm Darlin Childress. I'm the

host of this podcast as well as a life and parenting coach. And I'm

already laughing because today's episode is called

Parenting Pivots. And I'm going to talk about

attunement and response flexibility and how to be,

like, in the moment with your kids and be able to

pivot when things are going rough or when things

aren't going as planned or your kids aren't aligned with what you want to do.

And. And I'm laughing because as I sat down to record this,

I had this beautiful iced coffee that I just made myself.

And it was like, really, really tasty. And I was like, wow, this is

delicious. This is almost like a Starbucks. It's so

good. And I was like, getting ready for this podcast and I was in

a good headspace and then I literally dropped the

entire thing on my desk and it swooshed all over my

clothes, so stained my white top and got all over the

carpet. And I just had to pause and laugh at

the universe or whatever because here I am

going to talk about pivoting and being flexible

and staying calm when things aren't going as planned. And here I

am covered in coffee. So I, of

course, am going to pause and go change my clothes and

clean this up. But I wanted to record this intro just because

it was so fresh and so funny to me. So,

okay, this episode is going to be all about

parenting pivots and how to shift

moods, dealing with grumpy moods, dealing when your kids don't want to do what you

want to do when things don't go as planned, and give you some

strategies for how to pivot when those things

happen. So before we get into all of the

strategies, I kind of want to give you a few examples to

two involve cooking and one involves bike riding.

So the first one, this happened a long time ago. There used to be this

show on TV. I think it was on TV. I never watched it, but it

was called Nanny 911. And it was this woman who would come into your house

and like, help you parent your children. And, you know, I

don't know, I don't really have a lot of opinions about her. She was very

focused on timeout, which I don't really teach. I teach more of a time in

model or a compassionate self

regulation model where you kind of, you don't punish your kid, you don't say, go

to the corner so that you can calm down and then come back when you're

ready or because you're two, you have to sit in the corner for two minutes.

That's more of a punitive model. The model I teach is a little bit more

of a connected model where I can help you co

regulate by a time in or I can trust that you can self

regulate on your own. But I'm not sending you away

in order to get calm. I'm just giving you an opportunity to reset your nervous

system. Maybe a little kid needs to do that by themselves, play in their room,

cry, throw some stuffed animals around, things like that. Okay, so

I'm at this event and nanny911 is there and she's speaking

and I'm a fairly new mom. My kids are 4 and 2.

And one of my friends asked if I want to bake with

my kids and while I'm baking with them,

they make a big mess or they don't want to do

it, or they just keep eating the chocolate chips and. And I

find myself really, really frustrated. And the

nanny 911 answer was, well, don't bake with

your kids if you don't like it and they don't seem to like it

or you don't like who you are while you're doing it. You don't have to

do that. You could just bake on your own. And I

remember my friend, I looked over at her and she had like kind of a

light bulb moment, like, oh, I don't have to do this

thing that I like to do with my children and if

they don't like to do it or I don't like doing it with them. She

was like, it was very freeing for her. She was like, oh, wait, I have

permission to not do this thing with my kids. And I love that. I want

you to know that there's all sorts of things that you might think

you're supposed to do with your children that you don't have to.

And that might be the pivot itself is just letting yourself off the hook

of things you're supposed to do like play trains on

the ground or play dress up or you

know, teach your kid how to drive. I mean, I did have to teach my

kids how to drive, but it was very, very stressful for me. And I

did try to outsource that. I tried to pivot out of it and my husband

was like, well, I don't want to do it, let's just pay for

more lessons. And I was like, well, I don't want to pay for more lessons.

That's expensive. So anyway, I Did teach them to drive, and it was

terrible. But I noticed that there were times, even this pivot

concept is that I would say, okay, let's go for a drive. Like, you

know, you can drive home from the grocery store or whatever it was. And then

maybe while I was at the grocery store with them or we were running an

errand, I could feel myself getting so super anxious,

and I would just say, you know what? I changed my mind. I don't want

to do this. Or they would be driving, and I would be too much like,

here's too close to the side, like, you know, tense. And I

realized that my nervous system was just on fire at that time. And I would

ask them to pull over, and I'd say, this isn't about you, it's about me,

and I don't want to do this anymore. So I could pivot even in that

moment. Wasn't planning on giving that example, but I think it's helpful for you

to understand all the different ages that you can just decide you don't

want to do something, or while you're doing it, if it's not working, you can

stop that. Nanny911 was the first time that

even I had heard, you know, you don't have to do these things.

And my experience was with baking with my kids. Is that Lincoln?

Pretty much because of adhd, he was always sugar seeking

and would constantly, like, eat, like, literally just take

scoops of sugar while I was baking or scoops of chocolate

chips. I couldn't even stop him. There was no impulse control for him.

This is like five, six, seven, even eight years old. And I found

it to be not pleasant for the two of us to

be in this encounter trying to bake together, when the

whole time I'm basically yelling at him to stop eating sugar. It was like, what

is the point? Why are we doing this? So if a moment

doesn't feel like it's aligned and you're struggling and you're trying

to stay calm and you're getting all this resistance, or you're just getting

resistance inside, or your kids are resisting, sometimes we just need to

pivot away. Either not do that activity right now, not do it

at all, or figure out a different way

to get that thing you're chasing. Either the chocolate chip

cookies done while still connecting with your kids, getting just being creative and figuring out

a different way to get the result that you're going after. The other

example I wanted to share was also about baking,

and it happened recently with a client of mine. We were talking about making Rice

Krispie treats. And she had. Her kids were at preschool or

school, and she kind of was like, okay, I want to do something fun with

them. I want to connect with them, and I want to bring. We're going to

make Rice Krispies treats, and then we'll get to eat them, and it's going to

be fun. And she had kind of thought about it in her head and was

excited about it. This is super normal. As a parent, we're

sitting at home thinking about amazing things we could do for our children,

things that we think will be fun, especially in the summer. You're like, oh, we'll

make lemonade, or, oh, we'll go to the pool, or, oh, we'll go

for this walk. Or you have ideas in your head of things that you want

to do, and it's great. You're fun, mom, right? It's good.

But then my client, her kids came home,

and they just were not into it. It was like they weren't paying

attention to her. They weren't listening. They were distract, distracted. They

didn't seem interested. And she was really frustrated. Like,

she's just, like, disappointed and. Yeah, disappointed mostly,

right? And quite in a little bit annoyed. That's totally normal feeling.

You have a plan, and then the people you want to do the plan with

don't really want to do the plan. You are entitled to feeling

disappointed. You are entitled to feeling frustrated. Do not

judge your feelings. Allow for them. Give yourself some

compassion. Pause. Use the pause. Break.

Reset. Go. Huh? What am I? What? Hmm. I feel a little bit

disappointed. Feel a bit sad. This isn't really working out.

Have some space and just pause the activity.

Pause the experience so that you can reflect a little bit

and give yourself some soothing. Once you have validated your

emotion, it's a lot easier to get creative and to pivot and to think

about a different solution. Now, what's cool is my client, she did

do that at first. She was a little bit annoyed. She was frustrated. She was

kind of, like, barking at the kids just for a second, which is normal. And

she caught herself, which is really. Most of the battle is

catching yourself when you're not calm. She said, you know what, guys? You go

outside, you go play. They have a nice yard where they can play,

and I'm gonna make these on my own. And they were not

bothered. Like, they went outside, and she stayed in, and she could see them. They

were safe. Everybody was safe. No problems here. And she kind of just made the

Rice Krispie treats. And then when they were Done. She came out,

she said, hey, guess what? They're ready. And then they all enjoyed them.

And I love that example of pivoting, of finding something that

you think is going to be really fun and then

finding out that it's not as much fun as you thought it was going to

be and switching gears. And that's what I think about as a

parenting pivot. Sometimes I think of this

parenting pivot as structure submits to

spirit. I'll say that again. Structure

submits to spirit. Now, I got this phrase from

a church that I went to for a long time. It was one of their

core principles. And the idea is that we

have a basis of routine or where we're

going, or a structure to an event,

an activity, an afternoon, a morning, or whatever. The thing is that you're

structuring my work week, right? I have a structure to

how I take care of my body. I have a structure to how I

relate to in my relationships, how I relate to my husband or

whatever it is. And I have a plan, right? I have an

idea, I have a sort of routine, and

then something happens, something,

maybe an illness or maybe an opportunity or

maybe a struggle or somebody else's

big feeling cycle, something happens, and I need

to submit to that thing, to

the spirit of the moment, to the spirit of the week. So the structure

is there, it's very important. And the plan and

the idea, you can't have a family without an adult,

without a grown up who has a general idea of how things

are going to go, what time it is and when people are going to eat,

and kind of a basic structure. That's also true for

activities. If you have open ended every single day

of the week, all summer long, and your kids are

kind of out of bounds, they might need some structure, right? So sometimes

we have structure, sometimes we have the spirit. But in general,

most families work well when there is a basic flow or

rhythm that you can always connect back to. A routine

or rhythm or flow for the day, for the week, for

how your kind of activities go, how dinner

goes, how bedtime goes, how cleanup goes.

There's this idea that there's some sort of routine, there's some

sort of structure, there's some sort of plan,

and we need to be able to submit to the spirit. And I think of

that in parenting as attunement, connecting with the kids

that are in front of us, parenting the children that

we have, the ones that are in front of us, not the ones we wish

we had or the ones we're afraid they'll become so in the

moment when you present, we're gonna play, play doh. Or

you present, we're gonna go to the pool, or you present, we're going to go

to the grocery store, or you present some sort of structure,

activity or plan. It doesn't have to be super final, like

in super serious structure. It's just kind of like an idea, right?

And you are in your head kind of planning to do that. That's

how grown ups kind of work. But it can be

hard if your kids are overly tired,

haven't had snack, haven't moved their body.

Maybe you want to plan an indoor activity that's quiet and

requires a lot of concentration, like making Rice Krispie

treats. But you pick up two kids that have a

bunch of big, big body movement energy or they need

to, you know, play loudly or bang something together. Like they may have

a different energy that isn't aligned to the

activity you plan. Sometimes we plan big pool day,

beach day, you know, hanging out outside. And maybe your

kids are overly stimulated and they might need a

quieter activity. They may need to be brought in and

be at home and kind of, you know,

play quietly just on the carpet with nice music or

whatever it is. Sometimes you might have a social activity planned.

Three birthday parties in a row on a Saturday afternoon and you start

to realize this isn't going to work. I cannot bring

this child, this human, into this environment or

this experience. This event is not working. Now

what happens is parents often judge themselves

as being a failure or thinking their kid is wrong because the

kid can't do the thing. So it's either something's wrong with me as a mom

because I can't get my kids to be willing to, you know, do Rice

Krispie treats or whatever, or something's wrong with my kid because

they can't seem to settle down or calm down or whatever. And you're

judging that moment and you're making it mean a

bunch of stuff about the future, about the past, about you, about your

character, about your skills, about your children. And it's really

unfair. Being present, being in the moment

is about kind of perpetual creative

response to whatever is happening. That's what my life coach,

Martha Beck, the coach I trained under, she always says,

you know, we want to be in perpetual creative response to

whatever is happening. And we cannot be in a

creative response if we are judging ourselves,

if we are in a big feeling cycle ourselves, if we're angry, if we're hurt,

if we're disappointed. It's hard to get creative. So we have to, you know,

settle ourselves, connect, be like, wow, I really thought this was going to go a

different way. Feeling a little disappointed, feeling a little bit sad.

That's okay. I'm entitled to my feelings, but I am the leader. I

do need to figure out what is best for everybody. And I

might need to pivot. And that might look like

not going to an event that you thought you were going to go to.

It might look like having put all the play DOH out and

all the fun stuff out and then having to put it all away

or planning to do something that then you can't do. This

happens a lot because of illness, because of

weather. Right. We're always pivoting. We're always trying

to figure out how to deal with what's in front of us as people

because life is kind of, you know, uncertain.

We have a plan, we have a structure, and then we might have

to pivot. We might have to submit to whatever is happening.

And it can be hard to go back to someone and say, you know

what? I love you to pieces, but I'm not going to be able to do

that. Play date. I know we said we were going to meet at the pool,

but we can't, something like that. I know I said I was going

to make something for the baked goods sale and that just

did not happen in my family yesterday. And have a lot of

acceptance and compassion for yourself. If you own

your story, other people will own it. And if they judge you, that's on

them. One of my foundational principles in life, my

guiding principles, is I choose peace and harmony over stress

and perfection. And I came up with that when my kids were

3 and 5 because I just decided I wanted to have a peaceful home.

I did not want to fight my children, especially about fun stuff.

I didn't want to create an environment where we were

where I was angry with them and I was frustrated all the time and I

felt overwhelmed. And this is an old,

old pattern for me, and maybe you can relate, is that I have always

had a bit of struggle with response

flexibility, with being flexible, with being

creative, with pivoting. My hyper

vigilance and my anxiety from some of my

traumas as a child have set me up in a way where I

am overproductive and over planning. I have grown a lot

in this. I feel this is much less true for me. But as a mom,

I was really scared that if I wasn't over overly

planned that my kids would then act out, I would not

stay calm, and then I would lose my Crap on them, and I would be

a bad mom. And so the way I had coped with that

thought is that I was just really highly

organized, highly planned, highly rigid. I was

not that flexible. And I thought that that would keep me very

safe and that it would keep my kids safe. And in many ways, it does.

Like I said, structure's really helpful. Having a plan is a really good idea.

But what I needed to grow in, and what I'm offering to you is to

grow in that response. Flexibility, to be less

rigid and more like a reed that

blows a little bit in the wind. It's not like a tumbleweed

scattered all around the city. It's just

a willow tree or whatever, or a reed in a

swamp. I don't know where reeds are. And they just sway, right? They don't

move. They're not leaving. They're just

swaying. They're moving with the flow of what is happening

in their environment. And it's not something that

you are going to do immediately, right? It's something you can practice. Just like that

mom. At first, she got upset, and she was like,

you know, this isn't working. And she kind of sent the kids outside,

and then she reset herself. She realized that that's what the kids needed to do.

She kind of putzed around in the kitchen, finished her project

and pivoted, and then they came back together. She

could have ditched the whole Rice Krispie treat thing and went outside and

played with the kids. She did it, which is great because she kind of got

the thing that she wanted done, and they all enjoyed it together.

So that's the other thing, is that sometimes we think, like I said in the

beginning, you think you have to do things together. You think you need to do

things with your kids in order to be a good mom, and you don't.

There are also times where you think, I'm going to do this fun thing. It's

going to be great. I remember Sawyer and I wanting to learn how to make

candy. I think we were making hard candy. What are

they called? Like, Jolly Ranchers. And it was a really involved

process. We had to get molds. We had to, like, get this certain type of

salt and a temperature thermometer thing. It was a lot of work.

And there were days where, you know, he's like, let's make that.

And I was like, nope, I can't. I'm not into making Jolly Ranchers

right now. Like, I just. Sorry, buddy. I was, like, pivoting

in advance. I just knew that wasn't. I Didn't have capacity for that.

Now, if I would have said yes and I needed to stop, I just

want you to know it's okay. It's okay for your kids to be

disappointed. It's okay for you to be disappointed. Those

feelings are temporary. You will move through them. The last story I wanted to share

with you, and I've shared it before on the podcast in the episode called

Grumpy Moods. And I realized that that episode was over three

years ago, which is crazy that this podcast has been on for three years.

Super cool. So you can go back and listen to that one, because I talk

about how to deal with grumpy moods, either yours or your kids or whatever. But

this parenting pivot, it reminded me of this story where one of

my sons, we were all going bike riding, and we were in

Yosemite, and it was getting really, really hot, and we

stopped along the trail so that we could go into the river and cool

off. And he did not want to go in the river. He was like,

there was too many bugs. He was overstimulated. It was, you know, too hot,

and he just wanted to stay out. And I felt very

attached to this idea that we were all going to cool down in

the river. I don't know if I wanted, like, a family experience or what, or

I just didn't want to worry about him being hot. I just had an agenda.

I was attached to a certain result. And we were, like,

cajoling him and, like, come on, get in the water. It's nice and cool.

What's wrong? We did all this behavior that isn't very loving,

and we were like, come on, hurry up. Come on. Come in. Da, da, da.

And then finally there was this point when I realized that I could pivot

from my expectation or my need for him to go in. And

I just let it go. And I decided to enjoy

myself in the water and let him enjoy

whatever he was doing. And what happened in that moment in

that pivot is that the whole energy shifted

between the four of us because I settled down as the

emotional leader in my family. Then my other family

members settled down, my husband and my older son.

And we all were, like, at peace. And we weren't attached to our

need for it to be everybody in the water. And then

we started to include him in a way that he felt like he could

participate. So instead of putting him on the outside, as if he was not part

of the group, we were like, oh, great, you can bring us stuff from our

backpacks. And he loved it. And he had little job and he

was going to the backpack to get us some water or get us chips or

whatever it was, take this towel back to their bikes. And

it ended up really a fun experience because. Because

I was able to detach and pivot and shift

into an acceptance and allow for people to

be people, allow for people to have big feelings or whatever they had

going on, allow for my feelings and my desires

to be met and trusted that that was going to be okay.

And it was. And that's what I've learned over and

over and over again with my family and with the hundreds of families that I've

coached, is that as we allow

for emotion and we accept it and we validate it

and we trust that that person is going to figure out how

to deal with the circumstance, then things work

themselves out, that you can have

more peace. If a moment is

frustrating or a struggle, you can

trust that whatever your instinct is to shift it, to

quit, to do it later, to

disengage, have you do it separate from the kids,

whatever that looks like, you can trust your intuition and trust

that things are going to settle down. Sometimes what's

interesting is when the parent becomes detached from

any particular need from the child to participate

in a certain way. The child and the parent kind of

emotionally separate, not in an abandonment

or neglectful way, just as in a differentiated way.

And the parent starts to do their own thing and allows the child to

do their own thing. A lot of times the child will seek back in to

play with the parent again and participate in whatever the parent wanted

to do. That did not happen in the river in Yosemite,

but I was okay either way. And that's what truly

detached indifferences like. It's like, I'm good with

whatever goes on here. I'm good with making Rice Krispie treats. I'm good

with not. I'm good with making them. With making those cookies with my kids.

I'm good with not making those cookies with my kids. It's

funny, as I'm sharing this, I'm remembering this story of

me being around 12 years old and somebody

gave me a game of pickup sticks.

I don't know if you know this game, but essentially it's a bunch of sticks

that are really thin, like long toothpicks almost.

And you hold them in a stack and you let them go. And then they

are kind of all fall on top of each other. And then the idea is

to take another stick and you pick up one stick at a time without

taking two sticks. I think that's the whole point of it.

So I'm like 12 years old and I received this gift

and I was like, this is the dumbest present. This is my

attitude at 12, by the way. So if you have a 12 year old, just

know that they could become quite lovely. But I was like, this is the

dumbest game ever. Who would ever want to play this? This is so stupid.

This is dumb. And I was just like, I was just really, really

snarky and rude about it. And then

a few minutes later, my mom and her friend and her. All of

the other kids started playing it. They were like, okay, don't play it. No one

was being mean to me. I was just in my own grumpy mood. No one

was rude. No one was like, you don't get to play with us because you're

being a, you know, bad attitude. No one said that. My mom was never

really like that. She's just like, okay, we're gonna play. You don't have to play.

And they start playing and everyone's, like, laughing and they're trying to, you

know, figure it out. It's a little bit like Jenga, but with sticks. And everyone's

like, laughing. And I kind of sulk over a little bit, kind of

slowly, kind of curious, watch for a

second, realized it wasn't as stupid as I thought it was.

And then I pivoted and I was able to say, like, oh,

can I play? That's the beauty of being

neutral and letting kids go through their big feelings is

that then when they are through them, there is an opening

for them to join back. When we don't use

our anger to shame our kids or guilt them or put pressure

on them. No one said to me, aren't you grateful that you're, you know,

this, my friend gave you this present. You should have a nice attitude. Like,

no one said anything. My mom was just like, it's okay, you don't have to

play it. And I went through my grumpy

mood, and then I pivoted. That is the beauty of

allowing yourself to pivot, allowing your children to

switch from one emotion to another without getting too attached

to a specific agenda or a specific behavior that you want to see

in your kids. This is a practice for sure. It's not something you

need to perfect. It's not something you need to do well every time.

Just be aware of it. And the way you become aware of it is

that didn't go so well. And I got super grumpy about that. Where could I

have pivoted or when you're noticing you're grumpy, just be like, this

isn't working. I don't want to do this anymore. And then give yourself permission to

change. Give yourself permission to separate. Now,

of course, when I talk about separating from your kids, I don't mean like, you

leave and you leave small children home alone. Of course we

always. Safety is like a fundamental need

in any parenting model. You're not like, oh,

I want to go to the pool and you kids don't, so I'm gonna leave

you here at home. And they're five and eight. Like, no, no, no, no, no,

no. We just pivot in a way that feels

safe and respectful and where everybody can get their needs

met. Oh, one last thing I want to say about this. Most of the time,

the thing that we want isn't the experience itself.

It's the feelings that come with that experience. So

if you want to have fun and connection with your kids and you think you're

going to get fun and connection with your kids by doing this

activity and then they are not having fun and you

don't feel connected, pivot towards something else

where you can still chase fun and connection. Sometimes. We

are not looking for fun and connection with our kids. We're actually feeling guilty

and we want to feel better and we're using our kids emotions

to help us soothe and feel better. I don't want you to do that.

I want you to be able to meet your own emotional needs. If you're

chasing fun, if you're chasing connection, then go do something

that's fun for you. Invite your kids along and if they don't

want to do it, let them do their own thing. If they're really resistant

and they can't shift on their own and they can't play alone, then

figure out how you can get that feeling that you want in the moment

with your kids. Again, not

something simple to do. This requires some emotional awareness,

some self compassion, some creativity,

and you get better and better and better at it. So this episode is really

to give you awareness and hopefully some strategies so that you feel more

confident when you do need to pivot and and some ideas of how

to do that. All right, mamas, I hope you're having a good summer so far.

Don't forget about the summer toolkit that's available on

my website and that has a bunch of different strategies. We also have

a summer playlist for all the podcasts that have to deal with summer. So go

to the website calmammacoaching.com, go to free

Resources and you'll see the Summer Toolkit. The

other thing I wanna remind you of is that I'm doing a talk with Front

Row Moms about the Calm Mama Process, where I'm going to teach how

to move from chaos to calm within yourself and within your family. That

is June 19th. Thursday, June 19th at 1030 Pacific.

It's $45, but if you're on my newsletter, you get a

coupon code so that you can participate in that event for free.

So be sure you're on the newsletter. If you need the coupon code, let me

know. You can respond to any email you receive from Calm

Mama Coaching and we will get that code to you. So I hope to

see you there. That's next Thursday, June 19, 10:30.

Tons of good resources for you. I hope to talk to you next

week. Have a good one.