116: Turn Work-Family Conflict Into Work-Family Balance

Work-family conflict can seem unavoidable - especially in the era of COVID when we're either working from home with children underfoot all day, or we're an essential worker who has to leave the house and can't find childcare.

In this conversation with licensed psychologist Dr. Yael Schonbrun, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Brown University, and co-host of the Psychologists Off The Clock podcast, we acknowledge that we must enact policies that provide more of a safety net for families.  But even in the absence of these policies, we can make choices that allow us to live in greater alignment with our values, and also find a sense of peace.

If you enjoyed episode 113 on Dr. Chris Niebauer's book No Self, No Problem, then you'll find that the tools we discuss in this episode flow directly from that one.

Here's a link to the Choice Point tool that we discuss

Here are some Psychologists Off The Clock episodes that discuss Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in greater depth:

https://www.offtheclockpsych.com/podcast/acceptance-commitment-therapy

https://www.offtheclockpsych.com/podcast/the-heart-of-act

https://www.offtheclockpsych.com/podcast/take-committed-action

[accordion]

[accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"]

Jen  00:02

Hi, I am Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast where I critically examine strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting. In this series of episodes called Sharing Your Parenting Mojo, we turn the tables and hear from listeners. What have they learned from the show that is helped their parenting? Where are they still struggling? And what tools can we find in the research that will help? If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released and get a FREE Guide To 7 Parenting Myths We Can Safely Leave Behind 7 Fewer Things To Worry About, subscribe to the show at yourparentingmojo.com. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you will join us.

Jen  00:59

Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Regular listeners might remember that a few months ago we talked with listener Kelly and Dr. Moira Mikolajczak on the topic of parental burnout. And we discussed how parental burnout is a constellation of symptoms that can include mental and physical exhaustion and emotional distancing from children, loss of feelings of being effective as a parent. And it can lead to an assortment of risks for both the parent and the child including shame and loneliness and the risk of neglect of the child or violence towards the child. And the feeling that the situation can only be escaped through divorce or abandonment or suicide. And we talked about how one of the big causes of parental burnout is the unrealistic expectations that we put on mothers to somehow sacrifice everything for their child, and also lead a fulfilling life for themselves. In the show notes, I gave a link to an assessment the Dr. Mikolajczak and her colleagues developed to help you figure out whether you might have burnout because it might not be as obvious as you think. And after the interview, I emailed with her and we discussed how powerful self-compassion can be as a tool to deal with burnout.

More recently, I was listening to a podcast that