Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlyn Childress.

I'm a life and parenting coach. And today, I'm going to help you

navigate winter break. I'm gonna give you a few tips. I'm gonna

give you 4 tips for you and 4 tips for your kids. So

we're going to kinda walk you I'm gonna walk you through some strategies

and some ways to, like, prepare your brain and

also some practical Cool tools so that you don't feel so

overwhelmed during winter break because it is it can be a long

haul, especially if you're like my kids where,

You know, all of the holiday festivities, Christmas and New Year's,

happen in the beginning, and then there's a whole week where there's

nothing to anticipate. So that can be, You know, really,

like, boring for kids and also hard for us.

Okay. So how Can you take care of

yourself during this winter break, and what are some strategies?

So in the holiday guide, I don't know if you have got a copy of

that yet. You can still get that on my Website. But I

have, you know, 4 strategies in the calm

for the holiday guide called make your life work for

you. And, essentially, these are little tips that you just need to

keep in mind as the holidays go forward and as the winter break, you

know, gets underway of what are you supposed to do

to take care of yourself? Because what happens to moms a lot of times

is that we sort of Just start going.

Like, it's like a runaway train. Like, it just like, and the next thing

you know, you are just catapulted or burst out of a

cannon. Look at me just, you know, creating so many different

analogies. But anything that, like, projects forward

without control, That is a little bit what it can feel like

this holiday season. So I wanna help you feel like you are

empowered to put the brakes on. Because when

you are overwhelmed and you have no time and you have no energy

to take care of yourself, it's gonna take away from being present and

enjoying the season with your kids. So that's my

hope for you is that you actually enjoy this time with your kids and

that you're able to, you know, be creative and

play and come up with ideas to do with them and, you know, all those

fun little Pinterest and Instagram videos of, like, Things to do with your

kids that you you wanna do, I want you to have energy to do

that. So how do you do that? The

first is Just not overscheduling

yourself. Not over to do listing

yourself. Right? Really analyzing and

thinking about, hey. Where am I right now? What can I actually handle?

What are where are my kids? What's been going on for them?

What, You know? Is it a disaster to go to restaurants? Then

don't go to restaurants. Is going to, you know, different

people's Houses, is that really difficult for you? Maybe you wanna

make that really minimized how much how often you go

to playdates or you go to, you know, little gingerbread

parties, and things like that. So check-in with yourself,

check-in with your kids, and Think about how much time

and energy and mental capacity do I have. And

if you're really depleted and you're really low, and I want you to

just opt out. I want you to stop and say no.

Change of plans. We're not gonna do that. Do

not push yourself. Because what I see happen to moms a

lot is that they kind of push themselves and they get through.

Like, maybe you make it all the way to New Year's or maybe you just

make it to mama day holiday, which is the day after Christmas.

It's the official mama day break

day, and that is on December 26th. Maybe you

make it that far, but what I see is that because you're Been

running yourself ragged, you end up being sick or your kids end up

being sick, and you spend the break

ill, which is actually not a problem in in many ways because then

you're, you know, connecting and, you know, watching movies and

snuggling and all of those things. But what if you just planned

to snuggle and watch movies and eat popcorn

and you took care of yourself so that when you were doing those things, you

enjoyed them. Wouldn't that be nice?

So, actually, moving in

this winter break in this holiday season with the energy that you

have, with the mental capacity that you have, not pushing So so that's

tip number 1. Don't push yourself.

The next one is similar. Right? It's not It's not

people pleasing. It's not doing things that are outside of what

you want to do or can handle, and It's

okay for you to disappoint people. It's okay for you to,

you know, change your plans to say yes and then say no,

or Someone invites you to something and just be like, no. It's not gonna work

for us. I have some people in my life that do this. They

have really strong boundaries, and they take really good care of themselves. And

sometimes I feel a little sting when they say no or they say, oh,

we can't go after all because so and so has a cold or we're not

feeling up for it or today's, You know, been difficult, and

then they'll take care of themselves by setting boundaries. And I

always feel a bit like, Well, that hurts. Like, come on.

Suck it up. Come do my come play with me. And but I

also can look at what they're doing and look at that as permission

that it's okay for me to change my mind. It's okay for me to say

no. So when I Go

outside of what I have capacity for, and I people

please, I end up,

Feeling like crap, to be honest. You know? I end up not enjoying the thing

or being resentful or going and doing the thing I don't wanna do and getting

home and dumping it on the kids. So you

can just say no. Right? Try

it out. Just say, Hey, friend. I

changed my mind. It's not gonna work, and and and just see what

happens. Most of the time, The person has their

negative feeling and then it passes just like all feelings.

Doesn't usually, you know, create long term damage

if you just take care of yourself. So

being don't push yourself. Be honest about what you can handle.

Ask for help. Now this is a difficult one a lot of

times for for moms, especially, because we kinda feel like it's our

job to do all the holiday stuff and to

handle all the parts, and I have learned

this the hard way that my partner, my husband, and he

really does wanna participate in our life. He wants

to, you know, be part of it. Like, he

wants to know what we're giving everybody for Christmas, or he wants to, you

know, be in on in on it. But I

have kind of over been over productive

over the years and forgot to ask. Just invite him

in. I even forgot to invite my

family members in when I host events or you know, and say, hey. Can you

bring this or that? I just end up doing it all. And

and then I get really, really tired and sometimes resentful.

So it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to Take your

neighbor up on something that they said, hey. You know, we'd love to watch

your kids, or we'd love to take your walk your dog or whatever they've said.

And it's like, oh, no. I could never. I could never. It's like, no.

Let let your people help you. They want to. Right? If

your best friend says, oh my gosh. You know, you just seem so overwhelmed. Let

me take the kids. Let me I I've I've got it. Let

her take them. Let your people love

you. Let them, you know, show up for you. It

actually feels really good to help somebody.

You love it. Right? You're probably a helper, so you can take advantage

of it when someone offers to you.

The 4th tip so we've got remember, don't push yourself.

Say no to some things. It's okay to say no. Ask for

help and then decreasing the noise.

So I've been really trying to practice this in my life,

by not having so many inputs on

my phone or even in my life in general.

So just kinda keeping things simple, keeping Clutter

down, you know, not having a lot of stuff around, but

mostly, like, cleaning up the noise in my social media world,

cleaning up the noise from my phone, essentially.

And, like, over the winter break, I've decided I'm

gonna take social Media off my phone completely. I'm gonna really check

out and not not be on it. I don't even know what I'm doing on

there half the time. I'm just looking for like, just scrolling

or or checking, checking, checking. And so I'm just gonna take

that week off and not check, and I'm really excited about

it. Another thing is I don't have a lot of notifications on my

phone. I've been with other friends, and their phone is ding donging the whole time.

And that is Actually upsets your nervous system. It

activates your cortisol. It can activate your dopamine

too, but too much dopamine without any Production,

like, if you have dopamine and then you do something with it, that feels really

good. But if you just pump yourself with dopamine and it doesn't go anywhere, that

feels not good. So you can

read less news. You can leave toxic Facebook groups. You

can end friendships that hurt you. You can

don't reply to text messages that bug you. You can turn off

notifications on your phone. You can decrease the noise in

your life. So those are my tips.

Now what are you gonna do with this extra time?

What are you gonna do with this extra space? What are you gonna do?

You're gonna connect with your kids? You're gonna connect with yourself?

You're gonna spend time Laughing, hopefully, playing games with

them, spending time in nature,

breathing, exhaling, actually going

Right? Connecting with your body in

the holiday guide, there are all those different Pathetic nervous

system resets. If you don't have a copy of this, you need to get it

because we did these in the holiday party, and everybody

said they walked away feeling so much better.

They came to the holiday party feeling stressed, and I only did, like,

2 or 3 of these Reset strategies. And

everyone was like, oh, I feel so much better. And so

get doing 1 or 2 of these a day is going to help

you reset your nervous system. The goal

for you, I'm sure, is that you feel calm this

holiday season that you don't feel frantic, that you don't feel

rushed, that you don't feel like you're just going from 1 activity to

another. As if you are in that space and it's

busy and overwhelming, you aren't going to enjoy

it. You're not gonna remember the feelings.

Sometimes I talk about, like, chasing sparkles. Like, we're gonna

chase these little moments of time like vignettes. My

friend has this, Instagram site

called everyday vignettes of of joy. I think it's what it's

called. And she just kind of Pauses in her day

and notices things. She just goes, like, you know, like a little snapshot

in her mind when she takes a photo, and then she captures

these little tiny moments, and she stores them up.

And I think of those as sparkles. Like, where do I find the

sparkle in my life? And how can I be

present in my Holiday experiences in

my winter break and take take notice and

take take almost like a little snapshot in my heart? I go, oh, I

wanna remember this. I remember the way this feels. I don't remember the way that

it smelled in this room. I wanna remember if my smile the cut the smile

on my kid's face. You can actually take an actual photo

too. That works. But you I want you to be

chasing sort of these Very, very special sweet

moments, and you will you will only experience

those if you are present and calm. That's the

bummer. It's when we rush around, we end up getting sick, we end up

getting burned out, and we end up missing our own life.

So you get to pick how you want your season to go. You have

power. Power to say no. Power to,

not push yourself, power to ask for help,

and power to decrease the noise in your life, which is really cool. I love

it. Okay. Let's move on to your children.

This is a parenting podcast in case we forgot. It's

not just a life coaching podcast. It's not just about self

care. It's also about parenting. Right? So let's let me

give you some tips for understanding or, like, you

know, being attuned to where your kids

are during winter break and how to support them and how to

create, you know, better scenarios like decrease misbehavior,

decrease meltdowns, All of that. So the first thing

I want you to understand is that for your

kids, the holiday season And then

particularly winter break, it's pretty stressful

for them too. We don't think of it this way. We

think, oh my god. They're children, And they're just like, you know, living their best

life and having, you know, magic all the time or whatever.

But it's actually Stressful when

routines are disrupted. That's just true for kids.

It doesn't mean you have to be consistent all the time and, like, be perfect

about Your routine, I just want you to be aware that

if you have a big day of, like, a big exhale day and a lot

going on, The next day, you might want an inhale day.

You might wanna have a day where you set right back to your routines

because your kids, their nervous system is more sensitive than

yours, believe it or not. And so they're dysregulated

easier than you. And one of the things that causes dysregulation

is when the routine changes, especially when they're little or

but even older kids, like, You know, they need downtime.

They need to have a pace of life that fits with their,

their nervous system. So okay. So kids your kids are actually feeling a little

bit stressed. Their routines are changing. And then also, there's

like a letdown for kids.

There's this anticipation disappointment cycle that kinda happens

over winter break, and you've might have seen this with birthday parties in the past

or holidays in the past. There's almost like I

remember this when I was a kid. I would have the

idea that I was go I don't know why I thought this because It

didn't ever happen, but I thought I was going to get everything on my wish

list. You know, like like, All

the cabbage patch dolls and, you know, an Etch A

Sketch and a Lite Brite and, you know, a Cabbage Patch I mean,

a Rainbow Brite, whatever. I had, like, In my head, all those

things that I was gonna get a bike and also, like, you know,

whatever. And then I remember feeling this way. Like, I

would open up all the presents, and I would always feel a little bit like,

and I realized because my mind Sat was like, I'm gonna get everything, and then

I would feel disappointed. So kids do this all the

time. They build it up in their head of what The holiday's gonna be

like, what winter break is gonna be like, how it's gonna be amazing.

And then they're just like, oh, wait. No. I'm just my regular self living my

regular life, and it can feel a little bit disappointing.

So your kids are going through a lot of emotion throughout

the holiday season, especially if they think

they're going to have a lot of fun or they're gonna go on a play

date or they're gonna go you guys are planning to go to Disneyland or something

like that, and then everyone people Sick and you have to change plans. Like, those

are feelings that come up for kids. Kids get bored. Kids get,

frustrated. There's a lot of sibling time. So

all that is all that to say is that you might want to grow a

little bit of like, in your compassion towards your kids, but the

tendency During this period of time is to view your

children's complaining or, you know, their

dysregulation and see it as if they're selfish

or spoiled. So I wanna offer to

you that it's not that your kids are, like, big Big brats

that they're entitled and, like, indulgent. You know? You you know, whatever.

You don't have to think of it that way. You can just think, okay. They're

having emotion. They had something in mind. It's not working out. Or,

wow. This is a really different kind of day. They're not used

to staying up this late. The other reason why

the winter break and holiday season is stressful is because

the adults Are often very distracted

because maybe we have guests or we're packing

or we're, you know, prepping prepping for extra

baking or even, like, gingerbread deck or house decorating,

whatever, or cookie decorating or, You know, you're hosting

some some sort of event. You're busy while you're getting ready for

it, then you have people over. And All that

time, you're doing it for your kid, but they're not experiencing

you. They're not getting eyeballs. They're not getting

connection. They're not feeling a part of it at all.

And so they're over there getting dysregulated while you're trying to get it

together. And then you come to do the thing and your kid

freaks out or has, like, a meltdown, and you're just like, what is wrong with

you? I'm doing all this for you. That they don't want

the they don't want the things. They

want connection. They want to feel joy and peace and fun

and play and and run around.

Right? And so they don't care about, like, getting the

photo of them this year with the cookie. That's

not on their agenda. And it's on ours, so

we have competing agendas at the time. So the more

compassion you can bring, the more kind of awareness like, okay. This

isn't where they're at. This is hard, or they're feeling disappointed.

Bringing some Some awareness will go a

long way. It's not like you're gonna, like, not set boundaries or not

set limits. You are. But at the same time, having

compassion helps when you set those limits. Your kid is much more

likely to comply. Okay.

So that's your tip for number 1 for kids is that your kids are feeling

stressed too. The number 2

and number 3 are similar. The the second

one is letting your kids know what's going on.

So, you know, we talked about, like, the routines being disrupted.

For your kids, it can be really confusing. Like, when are we going on that

trip? When do we see grandma? What's happening? So one tip

if they're younger is you can, like, create a little calendar or on like, a

not a little one. Like, a big piece of paper, you know, construction paper,

and you can write write if they can read or draw little pictures

of, like, today is this day. Today is this day, and you kind of put

what The activities are if it's an airplane day, you put an airplane.

If it's a, you know, long travel day, put a car.

If it's, you know, a day they're gonna open presents, you know, you put a

present. And so that way, they can kinda see visually

what's happening, and they know what's hap they know what's going

on. When we don't know what's happening or, like, we don't it

makes us not feel safe. That's how come you love having a

calendar and you like getting data and you like getting information because it's like, okay.

I know what's going on. I can handle it. That's a mindset,

and so you wanna help your kids. Let them know what's going on.

Now I know that sometimes people don't like to tell their kids what's going on

because in case plans change, they don't wanna deal with the meltdown.

I actually disagree with that philosophy. I think it's I mean, of course, you

need to be able to handle that meltdown. But in general,

it's better for your children to learn how to handle

disappointment than to avoid feeling disappointed.

And so letting them experience all the

emotions is very healthy, especially when

they're in childhood and they have an adult, a loving adult who can help coach

them through their feelings. You said we were

going to so and so's What happened? He

said, I know. It's really hard to feel disappointed.

Your feeling makes total sense. Of course, you're upset.

Now some kids don't like it when we say that stuff aloud. No problem. You

can just think it. Hold hold hold their feelings

in your own Heart, right, in your own mind,

knowing they're struggling. So don't avoid telling

them the truth. Don't avoid telling them to to in order

to protect them from disappointment. It's like

disappointment happens. I'd rather, Instead of protect my

kids, I'd rather prepare them, you know, teach

them how to handle all the feelings. That's the whole point

of My work is to, you know, calm you and help you deal with your

feelings so that you can emotionally coach your kids through

theirs. That's the root of emotional health.

Right? Okay. So along the same

lines, this is actually a really good tip, and I want you

to think about this concept of previewing.

So we often will tell kids like, okay. We're gonna

leave in 5 minutes, or don't Forget. Like, today, we're going to someone's

house, and we tell them what's going to happen, like,

what the event is, which is good. Right? Just said to do that.

But what we don't do is we don't preview with,

how those those situations might be challenging

or Pre problem solve. What might

come up? So I'd love for you to start thinking

about, You know? Okay. We're they're going to open presents.

We're going to someone's house. They're not gonna you know?

They might get stuff they don't like. They might open up socks or whatever. They

you know? Or they might get a duplicate. So let's talk to them about

it in advance of how they could Handle that.

So you can say, ask them. Like, before

before you get somewhere, you can be like, hey. What are you gonna say

When, you know, auntie Tammy gives you a present, what do you say when

someone gives you a gift? They're, oh, I don't know. You say, well,

you say thank you. Thank you. You

look them in the eye and you say thank you. I appreciate this.

What happens if you don't like your present?

And you can tell your kids, you might wanna say, I already got

this. I have 2 of them. I don't like this. This is the

wrong color. You might wanna say that. You can

think that. You can talk to me about that. But in the moment, I

want you to say, Thank you. I appreciate

your present. Thank you. Right? So

we're gonna preview with them. We're gonna problem solve. Like, What what

do you do when you wanna leave the table? How do you ask? May I

be excused? Right. So you're Giving

them the language, and you're giving them the sentences in advance

so that when the situation comes up well, are they gonna be perfect?

No. But when you correct them, you say,

uh-uh. Uh-uh. Remember? I go, oh, yes. Thank you for the present.

Or uh-uh. Nope. Come back. Come back. Sit down. How do you

ask? Can I be excused? Yes. So

we're just training and helping them learn how to be polite.

Right? If if they don't wanna hug a family member, if

they don't wanna, like, give Their aunt a kiss or whatever. And they could

say, I don't wanna hug right now, but I'm

happy to wave at you so you can teach them how to set boundaries

with other adults. What if they don't like what's being served at the

table? I don't like this. This looks Ugly. This is

terrible. Why is it purple? Why is it green? Whatever.

Instead of saying that, then you say, okay. What can you say

instead? Just you can just not eat. You can take a role. You don't need

to give your opinion about the food. You're not you're not a a

guest at, you know, on a on a cooking show. Okay?

This isn't the Great British Baking Show where you're the guest and the host and

the, you know, the the with the judge. Right?

Okay. So that that tip

is really helpful in all of life. Right? Like,

before we go to this birthday party, There is going to be a lot of

sweets, and I'm sure you're gonna want to eat many of them. But

remember, you can have 1 piece of cake or you can have whatever your boundary

is. So if someone offers you another one, what do

you say? No. Thank you. Right?

That It's a really helpful tool.

Just, you know, previewing challenging situations.

Alright. So the first tip, compassion with your kids,

Understanding holidays are hard, so they're just having that compassionate

lens. Second thing, letting kids know what's going on.

3rd, previewing challenging situations. And then the 4th

tip, and this is the one I'm gonna leave you with, is Keeping

it simple. I kind of already alluded to this is

that when we have our,

Like, big, big exhale days, right, that take a lot of energy.

We're out. We're not home for a long period of time, or there's just a

lot going on, a lot of people, something like that,

then you want to maybe have a day after

as a buffer day or a a rest

day, a breathe in day. So if you can

think of this concept of, like, some days are breathe out days and some days

are breathe in days. And if you've noticed that you guys have had a lot

of breathe out days in a row, Lot of activity, a lot of events,

and you start seeing your kids misbehave, that's a really good clue.

Like, they might need a breathing day.

Almost like a sick day, but you're not sick. Right? Those are the

best those are the best kind of sick days. When you act like you're sick

and you stay home and you just, You know, eat soup and stay in your

pajamas all day. Those are the best days, especially if you don't feel

bad. So avoiding this is also a strategy to not

get sick, Is to balance, play, and

rest. Balance x you know, outside

days and, like, outward, you know, Exhale days, like, a lot of energy

days with low energy days. And then

keeping your routines to

Your, like, rhythm as much as possible, I do not want you to be

strict about this. It is okay for kids to stay up late.

My, my brothers married a family whose

tradition is to stay up. They used they don't do this anymore, but

they would stay up until Christmas Eve at midnight, and they

would open all of the presents. And they did with my niece. They kept

her up. You know? She's like 2 years old Staying up till midnight, it you

know, I could never. Even as a little kid, I went to bed early. But,

you know, she would stay awake. And then funny enough, she'd show up at the

Christmas Day, the next day with our family, and she'd be super

sleepy and, like, wouldn't really be participating, which

was fine. So you you can do it.

You can change up the schedule. Your kids will adjust.

But there might be a couple little Meltdowns and things like that, no

problem. You can handle that. But then you

don't wanna have too many days like that in a row

because then your kid's nervous system and what you know, their

physiological being starts to really struggle because their

brain is like, I guess we have to keep up on all this cortisol because

I don't know. Things are really different around here. We gotta stay vigilant. So their

nervous system is gonna be on hyper alert, hypervigilant,

and hard to regulate itself. So that's why we

keep our routines as close to close to normal as

possible. You know, eating the food that they normally eat,

sleeping when they normally sleep, you know, having,

Your nap time, if you have a nap time, keeping to it as much as

you can on days that it works. So that way,

You can have some flexibility, and your kids can reset pretty quick.

So those are the tips for you and the tips for your

kids. And, You know, just for

for you, just realizing that you don't have to do it all. You don't have

to be perfect. You don't have to say yes to everything. You can say no.

You can say no to extra noise. You can say no to extra activities.

You can say no to, You can say no to

stress and overwhelm, really, and take really good care

of yourself. And then for your kids, Just the

more that you are calm and present, the easier it will be for

them to manage their emotions during the break.

Alright. If you are struggling during this winter

break and you are like, oh my god. That was a Terrible,

like, situation. I need help. I am here for you. You

can book a complimentary consultation with me. You can go

to my website, call mama coaching.com,

and get a link to the consultation, and we can

talk it out. I can help you decide if you wanna join

my, my coaching program, the 6 week emotionally healthy

kids or emotionally healthy teens class, or maybe work

privately with me. That's also possible. So I'm here for

you. You don't have to Struggle alone. I know so many of you are getting

a lot out of the podcast, and I love that. And I am

so thrilled. But if you want more, if you just or you just

wanna meet me and talk to me, book a session, and I'd love to chat

with you. Hopefully, there'll be an opening whenever You

get on there. Alright, mamas. I am wishing

you just the absolute best winter break. We still

have 1 more episode before the holidays.

So that will be episode 100. So I'm

planning A fun episode for that. So this

is episode 99. Can you believe it? And we're gonna have

episode 100 next week. But in the meantime,

really, you know, slow your pace,

take really good care of yourself, Connect with your kids.

It will be worth it. I promise. Alright, mama. I

will talk to you next