Simple Families

Organization can feel like a false promise of more. If only you could be more organized, you could manage MORE stuff. You could handle MORE on your calendar.

But the truth is, the sheer quantity of…everything…is inundating us. 

My efforts at organization mostly lead me to feel like a total failure. I can’t organize my dresser drawers, they end up a heap of mess. I can’t organize my purse, it ends up all thrown in the middle. I can’t organize multiple playdates and activities for my kids on a weekend, because I forget things.

You don’t need more bins. More planners. You don’t need ombre’d markers. And you certainly don’t need more self-loathing about being unable to maintain complex systems. What you need is more practice saying no. 

Organization isn’t the answer. Minimalism or better yet, essentialism is the answer. 

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We all want our kids to eat well. We will try anything and everything to make it happen. But what if sometimes we try too hard and end up mucking it up in the process? There is plenty to be said about simplicity and feeding children–today we are exploring this topic more.

Feeding a family can feel anything but simple. When you try to juggle health and nutrition with preferences and moods, not to mention cost and time feeding a family can quickly feel overwhelming. This is a topic that I've long been interested in and not because I'm any kind of connoisseur in the kitchen, but because I'm a recovering picky eater, I don't think I ate a single vegetable until I was about 19. That coupled with my interest in child behavior and parenting. This is where I chose to focus my doctoral research. In particular, my dissertation looked at the parents' approach to feeding in the early years and the impact it had later in life. So, today I'm going to be sharing a combination of research and my personal experience. And the good news is there is a lot that we can do as parents to get our kids to eat well. And no surprise simplicity plays a huge role, and I'll be sharing more about that today.

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Today we are talking about upsetting our kids. Sometimes as parents, we have to make hard decisions for our kids. Decisions they don’t like. Decisions that upset them. We are talking about feeling that tension between what your child wants you to do versus what you actually need to do. 

This tension can quickly turn into fear. Fear that they will whine. Fear they will be disappointed. Fear that they will cry. Maybe even fear that they will be traumatized (I hear this one a lot from you all!). 

Here’s where I feel like it gets confusing. We are all striving to be responsive, respectful parents. We want to honor our children’s individuality. We want to honor their choices. We want to empower them to make important decisions in their own lives. 

BUT…our kids don’t have fully developed reasoning skills. They can’t fully see through the implications of their decisions. They can’t always understand our rationale. They often live in the moment. 

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In today’s episode, Part III, we’re going to talk about how we can work to improve and better understand the challenging relationships that we have in our lives. We will cover setting boundaries, empathic listening, building connection, and communication patterns.

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In last week’s episode, we started talking about challenging adult relationships. I asked you to think about who that person(s) is for you. Now, this week we will talk about setting goals for those relationships and the impact of idealizing these relationships. In the previous episode, we discussed that some of the people who challenge us the most are those who have different beliefs, world views, and levels of emotional intelligence than we do. 

Having a world full of people who are a carbon copy of ourselves and our beliefs just isn’t realistic. And frankly, may even be a little boring. But just because we are different, doesn’t mean we can’t have a positive relationship. 

The post Challenging Relationships (Part II) appeared first on Simple Families.

We all have challenging people in our lives. Maybe it’s your brother or your mother or a best friend from childhood. Our goal is to try to start viewing this person through a new lens—so you can reframe your mindset and your attitude.

This topic of relationships is incredibly broad and I want to narrow it down to focus better. So we’re talking, specifically, about finding peace in challenging adult relationships.

TUNE INTO PART II.

The post Challenging Relationships (Part I) appeared first on Simple Families.

Stress can lead to anger and irritability. In today’s episode, we are talking about how anger can spill over onto the people we love the most, including our partners and children. I’m sharing how we talk about this concept with our kids.

In this wild and crazy year of 2020, there's no denying that every family across the world is facing stress and overwhelm. And this stress and overwhelm is going to invariably impact our mood. When we're feeling pushed to our limits, we're going to get angry, we're going to get irritable, and it's going to spill out onto the people that we love, including our kids, including our partners. One question that I get a lot, especially from women from mothers is how do I stop yelling? Now I don't think there's any easy answer to this. So today I'm going to share just one thing. One thing that's working in our house. When we talk about anger and frustration and irritability, as with most things, I don't think we should strive for perfection. I don't think we should strive to have a happy, bubbly mood all the time. Our kids need to know that we're real humans and they need to know that it's okay to experience all these emotions. And despite your best efforts, you will absolutely experience all the emotions with your kids at different points in time.

So in this episode, we'll talk about processing those feelings and talking with kids about how we manage them ourselves.

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For the first 30 years of my life, I struggled with messiness. No organizational system worked for me. In this episode, I’m sharing about my natural tendency towards mess and chaos along with how simple living has changed that for me.

Let's talk about messiness. I am a messy person by nature, and I do think that's a thing. I think there are many of us who are prone towards messiness based on the way that our brains function. And I'm going to talk more about that in this episode today, but I know pre simplicity life felt even more than messy. It felt chaotic. And that chaos and messiness very much felt like a character flaw for me, no matter how hard I tried the physical stuff, the mental stuff, the parenting stuff, it all felt overwhelming. It felt like too much. So today I'm sharing a little bit about my story of my messiness. And if you're feeling hopeless, I want to reassure you that you aren't, or if you feel like your kids or your partner Hopeless, they aren't. If I can find my way on this path toward simplicity, I promise you can too.

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One of the greatest, if not THE greatest, obstacle to simplicity with kids is FOMO. The fear of missing out. We worry about our children missing out on toys, experiences, and opportunities that they desire. We worry our children will be negatively impacted as a result. We fear they are going to miss opportunities. We also worry they are going to be mad at us. Or that they won’t fit in if they don’t have the same things as their friends.

As the adults, we have to serve as the brain managers for our children until their brains are fully developed (so…like 25-years-old? Kidding, not kidding.) That means we have to make hard decisions based on reason, logic, and family values. Often these are decisions that our children just aren’t equipped to make.

The post Comparison, Envy, and FOMO appeared first on Simple Families.

Today I’m sharing my best relationship tool. It’s called expansion and contraction. Expansion and contraction is a simple way to find the rhythm in your family. In fact, it’s probably something you do all the time without even noticing. However, once you bring it to your awareness you will be able to use it with more intention. You’ll find your days flow more smoothly and you view your relationships more positively. In this episode, I’m going to show you how to use it as a mindset switch and as a tool to manage behavior. 

As many of our kids head back into the school year in some way, shape or form, there's a lot of discussion around finding a rhythm for your family. Personally, I think that this idea of finding a rhythm in your home sounds kind of abstract. What does it even mean? So today I'm going to be sharing my favorite tool that does actually help you find a rhythm. It helps you manage the energy and the behavior of your children, but it's also a general tool that I find helps me in relationships across the board, with my partner, with myself, with extended family, it's called expansion and contraction. And I've talked about this in previous episodes have kind of touched on it lightly, but I've had so many requests to go deeper on this topic.

So that's what I'm going to do today. I'll be sharing more about this mindset switch that so many people have told me has transformed their parenting and relationships. And the best part is it's easy. You're probably already doing it, but once it's brought to your awareness you're going to do it with even more intention, and you're going to see even more success. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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