Harmony in the Home

By Kelly HutchesonEducation Self-Improvement Parenting Kids & Family

Harmony in the Home episodes

December 22, 2021132: Temper the Tantrums
I often get asked, how do I deal with temper tantrums?
Probably one of the hardest parts of parenting is working through your child’s temper tantrum. When I was a teacher and counselor, I dealt with a lot of tantrums, but the kids were generally able to keep it in during the day. I wasn’t privy to the post-school, in-car meltdowns, and I either had support, or I WAS the support. But as a parent, I was not prepared for the overwhelming amount of anger, screaming, hitting, and crying accompanying tantrums. Sometimes I felt like the house was going to flood from all the tears!
Now, I am very opposed to slapping negative labels on children’s developmental stages. Terrible twos, four-nados, no no no. Thing is, the high emotion in a tantrum is normal. Children are supposed to have human emotions. You, in your 20s, 30s, 40s, etc., have the same big internal emotions, with a key difference being that you have (consciously or not) developed coping strategies to avoid going nuclear. — Well, hopefully you have. If not, it’s time for some internal work. Luckily, you’re in the right place.
Tantrums at different ages may look different, but at the root they’re all the same. The tantrum-haver was stressed to begin with, and something pushed them over the edge. It doesn’t matter what age, kids will always have tantrums and so will you. So do I. Again, this is normal.
In this episode, I’ll dive into the four main steps of tempering a temper tantrum:
Detach
Label
Normalize
Support
I’ll define what I mean with these steps, because I know, they sound pretty nebulous. I’ll arm you with strategies that you can deploy to help your child get out of the “red zone” and back to yellow and then green.
Now, a caveat: by applying this process, you may feel like you’re giving in to the tantrum, but the goal is to change the behavior, not the emotion. You don’t want strong emotions to go away. Emotionless Stepford children and Stepford people are creepy. Your results will be better if you try out your own additional strategies as you feel inspired to do so. I am not an infallible source of knowledge. Yours is the opportunity to experiment and figure out what works for your kids (and what works for you, if you need to learn some coping strategies). Remember: you’ve got this!
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26 min
December 15, 2021 131: Improving Their Behavior with Kodak Moments
First off: no, I’m not announcing a sponsor partnership with Kodak! But I am going to wax a little nostalgic for a second. I promise this is building to a point.
Years ago, when we had to use film cameras, we’d take our film roll and get it developed at the store and then we’d be able to look at it and pick the shots we wanted printed. Kodak did a whole marketing campaign about the “Kodak moments,” those incomparable slivers of joy found in the little moments documented on film, it was a whole thing.
So what does this have to do with making your children behave?! Well … let me explain!
Our kids teach us just as much as we teach them. You will come to realize that your children mirror your own emotions and thoughts and actions back to you; fundamentally, it’s monkey see, monkey do. This means that our assumptions and projections about our children often ultimately come true (so be careful what you think and how you act!).
This week comes with a challenge: I want you to “collect” some mental “Kodak moments” of good things that happen with your kids. Be aware of those times when they do the things they’re “supposed” to do. Praise them for the effort they put in rather than the result. As you work on doing this consistently, you will see a change in their behavior, and likely a change in your behavior as well. You’ve got this!
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18 min
December 08, 2021 130: Banana Parenting
I assure you, though it may seem like I’ve gone crazy with these episode titles, I haven’t gone crazy! Let me explain how people are like bananas.
In my household, we (and by we I mean Lily and Grady) have a rapidly-changing palette for snack foods, and what they like comes in funny little waves. One phase was vegetable straws; I bought a massive pack of 50 bags of veggie straws, and then just a couple days later they said “nah, we’re good.” Another was bananas — and, getting wise to the cyclical nature of what tickles their fancy, I decided to research how to keep bananas fresh longer.
I was surprised to find that you can substantially prolong the life of your bananas by separating them and wrapping their stems (which secrete chemicals that hasten ripening) in plastic wrap. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized this is like the parenting policy David and I have adopted. We keep our “bananas” (our family) in one place, but they are all separate entities who grow at their own pace.
Relinquishing control is, ironically, the best way to feel more in control. By allowing our children to grow on their own and exercise free will as much as reasonably possible, we can undo generational patterns of codependency, enmeshment, emotional incest, narcissism, and so on. As you allow your “bananas” to “be separate together,” you will find greater emotional stability in your family unit. You’ve got this!
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20 min
December 01, 2021 129: Strainer Parenting
What is the most important part of parenting?
As an analogy, think of a geologist sifting sediment through a strainer looking for cool rocks. All the sand comes out the bottom, and the pebbles and rocks stay inside the strainer. People, and children especially, are the same way. Let me explain!
Before I was conscious — it’s kind of funny, I say it like I was asleep for years of my life — I was so concerned with the parts of parenting that I had no control over! I thought, my kids will be better if I discipline them better, or if I use XYZ parenting technique. But the Universe has a way of subverting our expectations.
You see, time and time again, I got little prods and promptings pushing me toward the path I needed to take: take the children’s feelings into account. Whether it was from Lily explaining how easygoing it was at her grandparents’ house, or from Mark in my classroom saying “I feel like she’s always mad at us!” — I’ve learned that kids pay attention to how they feel. And this is not a political statement, or it shouldn’t be. Children are small adults and they have never experienced anything before, so we should give them an edifying experience!
Of course, this is all distilled down to that most famous of axioms: “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And it’s true! The big rocks that stay in your child’s “strainer” are all related to how they feel. If they feel safe from belittling words or hitting or abuse, if they feel encouraged to be their best self, if they feel able to live and learn (and yes, even and ESPECIALLY make mistakes), then your parental mission is a success.
So do your best to provide a safe environment where your kids can grow, because they won’t remember if you always had the house clean, or if you forgot to sign a permission slip, or if you burned dinner one time or a hundred. But they will remember the feeling if you made home a safe place for children to grow. As you practice building that home, you will get better at doing it. Remember — you’ve got this!
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23 min
November 24, 2021 128: Have More Time with Pomodoro Parenting
What would you do if you had more time every day? What wonderful goals would you accomplish? What feats of parenthood would you achieve?
Well, what’re you waiting for? Stop imagining it and start doing it!
You may have seen Pomodoro timers (the little tomato-shaped kitchen timers) in many people’s houses. This is the hallmark of Pomodoro technique, a time management system developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. Pomodoro technique is applied by breaking up a block of “work time” into small chunks, usually around 25 minutes each.
Now: children are very quick to pick up on the behaviors we model (whether intentionally or unintentionally). If your child seems to have bad time management skills, you may also have a problem that needs addressing. In this episode, I’ll discuss the Pomodoro technique and the ways I have used it to help myself, my students in the classroom, and my children at home.
As you subdivide and account for your time, you will become more conscious of how you spend your time. You will be able to make better decisions about your own time management, and you will be able to help your children get better at managing time as well. You’ve got this!
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27 min
November 17, 2021 127: Have More Time to Relax
Have you ever felt guilty relaxing? I know I have!
When my kids were little, guilt about not being busy ruled my life. I scheduled us up to our ears in activities and plans. It was way too much for David and my kids! In time, I came to realize the value in taking things slow and relaxing now and again.
Relaxation, or “downtime” as I often call it, is an important tool to help you recharge and recalibrate between periods of work during the day. It can be spent alone, with friends, with your spouse, with your kids — there isn’t one formula that works for everybody.
In general, people have a hard time relaxing; they feel guilty that they’re not “being productive.” That’s an unfortunate side effect of our work-focused society. It saps the joy out of taking time for yourself and your loved ones — time you need in order to retain some sanity in this crazy world. My suggestion, which I describe in detail in this episode, is this:
You should be scheduling your time insofar as you are able to do so. Plan to take breaks, and plan when those breaks are. Then, after a block of “work time,” take that break and don’t feel guilty when you do! If you don’t finish everything you planned to do during a work block, you can adjust your break time accordingly.
Take a look at this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BKuSlstIBM) from Jordan Page to learn more about the “block schedule system” I discuss in this episode!
You’ve got this!
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Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me:
Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com.
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18 min
November 10, 2021 126: Grit Versus Grace
What do we do when we put too much pressure on ourselves? What if we don’t push ourselves enough? There’s a delicate balance between grit and grace — insatiable, relentless opposing forces that both have a vital place in your personal development.
For some of you, grace is the special of the day, and it’s always on tap. Perhaps you had plans in order — meal prep, a workout, learning a new recipe for family dinner, tackling a side project, cleaning a room. And, even though you had no reason not to do it, you simply didn’t do it. Nah, you think, it’s not essential. I can do it later!
Now, if it’s an isolated event, it’s not necessarily a problem! We all have those days. But if it’s a pattern, perhaps you’d feel more accomplished if you exercised some grit and motivated yourself to do the things. Set timers. Write in planners. Set up a way to reward your brain with a little shot of serotonin when you finish a task that needs doing, such as checking a box on a checklist or putting a marble in a jar. It’s FREE (natural) DRUGS.
Meanwhile, perhaps grit is the banner you wave. If you go hard on yourself, your spouse, and your kids, you may be best served in your parenting journey as you learn to balance that relentless push to improve with a healthy dose of compassion. As you learn how to be a conscious parent and cultivate harmony in the home, you are making big changes — often for the first time.
Your children are also learning how to do things for the first time, and chances are they’re even more scared of change than you are. Make it your prerogative to learn to forgive yourself when you make mistakes, and extend that same grace to the people around you as well. As you do this, the burden on your shoulders will feel lighter and people around you will feel their weight lifted as well.
In either case, whether you need more grit or more grace, know your limits. Don’t overdose on either; you will be happier and healthier when you learn to balance the two. As always, remember: you’ve got this!
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Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com.
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24 min
November 03, 2021 125: Stack the Strats
I thought this week would be wonderful to do a follow-up on teaching kids emotional literacy and self-regulation after last week’s episode. My title is, once again, alliteration. You know how I love it! Engaging with Grady as he plays sports and video games has been an exciting trip into the realm of new youth slang! He talks about using “strats” (strategies) to be a competent sportsman or gamer, and the need to stack or combine multiple “strats” for success.
In a similar fashion, as parents we have (for the 940 weeks, give or take, that the typical child lives at home) a golden opportunity to teach our children their own “strats,” especially when it comes to recognizing and regulating their emotions. As I repeat often, little kids feel all the big emotions for the first time, and they don’t have any of the coping mechanisms that older kids or grown adults have to manage that stress. We can set our children up for success by giving them “strats” to remain in control when a tricky emotion begins to overwhelm them.
In this episode I’ll talk about a few “strat” suggestions for you to model and embody in such a way that both you and your children will feel more empowered and calm when emotions are running high. Remember, you’re the flight attendant on their turbulent flight. Kids look to their parents to be the calming influence in their storm! As you consistently practice these “strats” with your kids (both with role-playing, and in live “tricky emotion” situations), you will find the power to be exactly the model of emotional literacy and self-regulation your kids need. You’ve got this!
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Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com.
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21 min
October 27, 2021 124: Pepsi Parenting
How do we respond when our emotions feel like they’re going to explode out, just like a shaken soda can?
As adults, we have rough days all the time. Emotions run high; we feel out-of-control. We want to scream or cry or throw things, and we have decades of experience being human! That means that we (usually) have tools to monitor and regulate our own emotions. Small children have no such safeguards! When kids have big or tricky emotions, it is their first time experiencing them! As adults, in parenting or teaching capacities, our responsibility is to help our children navigate their new and frightening experience of feeling very big emotions.
I’ve learned, from my years as a counselor and teacher, that role-playing and other interactive demonstrations serve well for teaching. Role-plays are best suited for times when your child is at their normal calm state rather than when they’re in the “red” zone (see episode 89, Red Light Green Light). You can help your child visualize buildup of tricky emotions with this demonstration, then remind them about it in a fun way to help them diffuse when the pressure builds later on.
Shake a soda bottle up as you explain to your child that big emotions can build until they explode, then open that soda right up and let the pressurized soda explode out. It’s fun, it’s kooky, they’ll probably laugh at it if they’re small. I’ve titled this episode Pepsi Parenting because as you know I love alliteration — but any kind of soda or carbonated beverage will do. Coke, La Croix, you name it.
Later on, if you notice your child approaching the “red” zone, you can avoid demanding that they “calm down” or “grow up.” If either of those worked, I would do them on my own kids, but they don’t! Instead, try mentioning, “hey, are you feeling like a shaken-up Pepsi can there?” to keep the atmosphere at a quality I like to call “light and fluffy.” Note that this doesn’t mean we steer away from the serious. We can have honest communication about hard things like tricky emotions, but the dialogue doesn’t have to be serious. Humans, like other mammals, naturally learn by play.
As you practice modeling healthy responses to big emotions, your children will continue to learn and grow. Don’t give up; consistency is the key to their learning experience, and yours as well. You’ve got this!
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Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com.
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15 min
October 20, 2021 123: Paper Towel Parenting
The theme for this week is centered around taking one small step toward recognizing and honoring your child as a unique spirit — a gift from God, the Universe, whatever you want to call the great cosmic power — with an appropriately unique set of skills, abilities, and needs.
I remember a conversation with my daughter Lily when she was very small, in elementary school, wherein she told me unprompted that she was like a sponge. When I asked her what she meant by that, she explained that she felt like she absorbed many emotions until she couldn’t absorb anymore, and just like water leaking out of the sponge, the tears leaked out of her eyes.
This was an eye-opening epiphany for me. Children feel the exact same emotions we feel. They are incredibly perceptive of nonverbal communication; it’s all they know until their brains develop language skills. They can sense when their parents are having a confrontation. They can tell when people are pretending to have one emotion while really feeling another. In addition, children are just like sponges — or perhaps it would be better to say they’re like paper towels. Just like all the competing paper towel brands, each child has their own emotional capacity before they hit their limit, and each is different from the rest!
Until children develop a basic set of tools to name a tricky emotion, understand why they’re feeling it, and execute appropriate strategies to deal with it, they are going to be sponges and towels, soaking wet with emotion. This is NORMAL for their age and stage. Even after they have those tools, they’ll get weepy often enough. I know I do — though much less now that I am practicing mind management and conscious parenting!
Make it your business to get curious, not furious, when your kids act out, so you can help them develop the tools they need to navigate tricky emotions successfully. You’ve got this!
Subscribe on Apple!
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Join my FREE parenting bootcamp!
Let’s Connect! Here’s where you can find me:
Learn more at https://www.coachingkelly.com.
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17 min

About Harmony in the Home

From the publisher's feed

Kelly is a life coach, counselor, teacher and parent who loves to teach other parents how to yell less and love more in your home to reduce tension and increase happiness within your 4 walls. She…

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Harmony in the Home

Harmony in the Home episodes

About Harmony in the Home