How to teach mindfulness to children

Today we are talking about mindfulness and how to teach it to children.

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For me, I have four kids and my third kid has led me on this whole journey. That's how I know Mindy Green, who I'm going to be introducing a little bit more in a second. And it can be so hard to teach this to your children when maybe you're not regulated yourself, you're not working on your own mindfulness journey.

And you may end up being in shoes like I am in, where you have a child who needs it deeply, but you need to figure out how to regulate yourself first. So we're gonna be talking about some of that, but mostly mindfulness. And when I was looking into doing this myself, I kept putting it off, and I realized it's because I don't wanna do it alone.

And the first person who came to mind was Mindy, because she is so good at this. And I met Mindy two years ago, maybe three. It's hard to know anymore. She is a parenting coach. She has been on some of the same trainings as me for being a parenting coach, and she... I think the rest of you will love her personality.

She's a very calming presence, which is so great. She's been on her own journey to becoming a parenting coach, and her own reasons why, which she'll talk about a little bit. And before we hit record, the timing fits perfectly because she has a book that's written for... It's geared towards children and parents to work through together, and it's about the same topic.

Welcome, Mindy, and I'll let you... Let's start with, tell us about your book, and then tell us a little bit about your journey. I feel like when I start with the journey part, it helps people see they're a real person and have that kind of invested, investment in listening to the rest of the episode, because they understand where you're coming from.

Well, i'm so excited to be here. This is really my topic.

I do a lot of work around nervous system regulation, and so I had written a book, and it came out last October, and it's called Sammy's Super Stretchy Shoelaces, which is a little bit of a tongue twister.

That was a book that was, inspired by my grandson, my older grandson, who had these really super long shoelaces, and he was getting so frustrated because every day he was having to, even though he would double, triple, quadruple, and I don't know what goes from there, knot these darn shoelaces and he was just getting frustrated, and so we talked about that.

And so one of the ways that we, went about, trying to put some perspective around this is we created our own little book, and he illustrated it, and I wrote the copy for it. And then we decided to make it into our own book. And so my most recent book just came out two weeks ago, and I'm very proud of it, and it's called Sammy's Super Stretchy World.

And it's an activity book that has all kinds of things for kids to do to learn how to recognize when they have a feeling in their body, and where are they feeling it, and what they can do about it. You know, and sometimes we don't do anything with it. We just recognize it and go on. And then there are other times that maybe we need to move our bodies or whatever it is to help process those emotions, and then also, to regulate our nervous system.

There are also, and I was saying this to you, Autumn, earlier, that there are fun things in it, too, and not that those tools that they learn, but there's also mazes and, word searches and coloring pages. And it's a book where they can express themselves in whatever creative way feels good to them.

So that was the whole purpose of that book because I wanted kids to really be even more immersed and know Sammy and his sidekick, Winston, his little dog, even better and become more part of their world. And so this just adds on to that.

And so really I'm going to say that- I, this is something I used to say when I was younger, you know, and I was a new parent. And I would say to my husband because I would sometimes be so overwhelmed. I also have four kids and very close in age. You know, there's like between the oldest and the youngest, they're about a little less than six years.

And so, you know, they're back to back and, we were going through all the different stages it seems like at once. And in it for quite some time. And so I would often say to my husband, "I don't think that I'm cut out for this world," because what I was really seeing is that my nervous system was over-sensitized and I was overwhelmed by things.

And so, it was learning how, and this is part of the journey, is learning how to then take care of myself so that I could better show up for my kids. And so this is something that has been, most of my adult life raising kids, now having young adult kids and having grandkids in my life, and how I really want to show up.

And, you know, so it is that mindfulness. And when I think of mindfulness, I really think about presence of mind, you know, and, and being where, There's a l- In New Orleans they, I remember going one time and they have this, it's almost like a little scam that they have people do and they, and they'll, they'll bet you money that they can tell you where you, where you got your shoes.

And so they'll say, you know, "I know where you got your shoes." And so you'll say, "I don't think so." And they'll say, "Well, if I can guess, you give me $20," or whatever. And the whole premise behind this is that you got your shoes where you're standing. And so I often think about that with mindfulness and with, the tools that we teach ourselves to show up and really be present, is to be where our shoes are, to be where our feet are planted, and to be in the moment.

I love that.

I made some changes yesterday, and I love the timing for when this is going live, which is June 15th. So really quick turnaround, which is not normal. But I know so many parents who are in shoes like I am. We had all four in six years too.

The biggest gap is between the oldest two, and then it's bam, bam, bam. So yes, absolutely agree with what you were saying. And it can be so hard to feel regulated coming into summer. When the kids are home more, they're around each other more if they have siblings, or maybe they're more bored and needy if they don't have siblings.

And it can be really hard coming into the middle of summer and then the end, especially the end, to feel regulated, to feel like you still have sanity, like you still can dig deep when you need to think creatively through a problem or whatever. So I feel like this, when this is going live, is super needed, and this is something that you can come back to that is worth sharing with other people.

Even if you don't have children, you might work with them if you're in a school system or there's children in the community. There are still ways that you can support mindfulness, and the things that we're gonna be talking about you can still use for yourself. So keep listening even if you don't have children because I feel like if you look at the news and you look at the world around you and you see the awfulness of it, a lot of it really stems from people who are dysregulated, and it comes from that saying that I grew up hearing, I have no idea where it came from, but it's, hurt people."

Yes. And it makes sense.

Yes, I agree. And a lot of my messaging right now is really prepping parents and just the adults in our lives. You know, because we have friends who may not have children or, teachers who don't have children or they're really looking forward to having a summer off.

They've been overstimulated. They've been giving their all, and they need a break, too, and so this is a chance to reset. And so the question is, if you have kids, how do you do that? And if you don't have kids and you've struggled with this, how do you do it?

And I think that I often talk about this, about creating a summer by design And, part of that is, and I don't know if you wanna go ahead and get into this now or not, but- Sure.

So, is really thinking about what, how do you all best function? And, so it's giving a little bit of time to visualize what it is that you want from your summer. So if you're a parent and your kids are gonna be home all summer and you're in your home with them, and you'll do a little bit of tweaking if you're a parent who works as well.

For those of us who are at home with our kids, that's a lot of time together. It's a lot of time for us to be with our kids, it's a lot of time for our kids to be with one another. Or like you said, Autumn, for parents who maybe have one child, it's a lot of time for them to figure out what to do with themselves.

And so how do we do that? This is where giving some thought about the intention that you want with the summer. You know, what are the activities that you would like to do realistically? Because I know that I used to have this whole laundry list of things I wanted to do over the summer, and my kids would look at it, and they were tired.

Because it's also, they needed a break as well. And so it's looking at realistically what works. Now, I'm going to say with all of this is sometimes the desire is to just throw away our routine and our schedule, and just say, you know, it's going to be this wonderful break and we go into it with rose-colored glasses, and then we realize even, like, a couple days in, a week in, that that's not going to work.

So our kids manage best and we manage best navigating all of this, when we actually have a bit of a routine. And so that's the structure and the rhythm that helps our days feel more manageable. So you know I say this, the kids can sleep in a little bit if you're able to allow them to do that, you know, so they don't necessarily need to get up early or at the same time that they did during school.

That's one of the nice things about summer break, is for them to be able to rest a little bit more. But also, when they get up, what is it that they're going to do? So it's still, you know, they're going to eat breakfast, whatever it looks like in your family. Breakfast, you know, doing their things to care for thems- brushing their teeth, their hair, getting dressed for the day.

It can be tempting to wear your pajamas every day, all day, but I think that there's something to be said for, you know, getting up and getting ready. For the day, and that also is a mindset. It's that mindfulness piece that if you are going to go and do a task later or an activity later, that the kids are ready and you are too.

And you can designate certain days as pajama days or, lounge days. And look at this with some flexibility, but talk to your kids too about what it is that they want the summer to look like. They may not want to do all the activities. They may not want to go to the library every Tuesday or, do a summer camp or whatever it is.

But allowing them to have some say in what they might like to do, knowing that they probably do need to do something, because when they have too much time on their hands and the boredom sets in, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but, they're going... they could be end up being creative in ways that are not most helpful for the running of your household

So those are just some things to consider. And also, I think bedtime is another big area. I'm just thinking of those times of the day that can be big transition times. And so I'm going to say it may be really appealing to just say, "Okay, the kids can go to bed later.

You know, you're gonna let them stay up later and do different things." And if you are going to allow them to do that, recognize that some of that, especially when you have younger kids, you're eating into your personal time, your time for yourself, your time with your significant other.

So you may want to allow them to have maybe, again, one or two nights a week where they can stay up later, depending on what the next day looks like, because you wanna set yourself up and them up for success for what the rest of the week is going to look like. So if you let your kids stay up later in the beginning of the week and you know that you have a busy middle part of the week or end of the week, then they might go into that tired.

So just giving some consideration, and it's... This may sound like it's nitpicky, but it's really not. It's just giving some thought, and again, that's, it's that mindfulness piece about what it is that you can do to create a schedule that supports you and your family and what your individual needs are.

This is something that I've spent a lot of time on. And our oldest in particular will say, "Well, I noticed that my friends stay up later," and I say, "Okay. Are your friends' parents divorced?" I get crickets. And I'm like, "That's why." Because I come from a divorced family, and I have a half-brother, so he was around...

And he's four years older, so he's around for some of the time. So I'm mostly an only child. So I understand the boredom and parents coming home and, "Why'd you do this?" Well, honestly, I was bored out of my freaking mind, so that's why I made this poor decision and drew on the wall or, whatever. So yes, there's that.

And then there's also the, my parents were working so hard that they kept me up later than they should have because they wanted to spend time with me. And it also ate into their alone time, and it caused, me to have meltdowns and be crabby the next day. I realize that with my oldest. For some reason, this child needs more sleep than the other children.

And I think that deals with personalities, which we're totally gonna talk about personalities in a little bit, because that is our jam as parenting coaches. And it's something that if you're listening to this, it even works if you are a manager and you work with other people in the workplace.

Everybody has different personality types, and there's four major ones. And once you understand this, it makes it easier for you to connect, first of all, with yourself, and then connect with other people. And of course, as a manager, you can't manage people's sleep schedule. It'd be great, right? You know that crabby person in the office who always has to drink, like, a gallon of coffee, and you still kind of can't talk to them?

And how many times do we as parents, and I am totally holding up a mirror right now, manage our children's sleep schedule? And we're, we can be nitpicky about the sleep schedule, but we're not about our own. As I said, I'm holding the mirror up here.

And I've noticed as I've been focusing on it, I feel so much better and I have energy and I'm like, "Where did this energy come from? It's really nice. I'll take more." But so much of what Mindy's talking about, I can tell it's from her own personal experience. And anyone who was watching, I was shaking my head yes during all of it, because I've noticed that for myself parenting.

And I've noticed as I become a stickler of different things, it's really set things In motion, like, okay, yes, sleep is important. And for us, we make sure that we keep the morning routine the same. We're a lot more lax about what time it gets done. We allow maybe an hour extra time, so they can kind of be slow and goof off and just enjoy each other.

But they're not allowed to have free play, do whatever, have a little bit of screen time, until they have finished their morning task list, which is the exact same task list as during the school year, except they don't need to pack a lunch for anything, unless we're going somewhere.

That's the only difference. And they're not getting their backpack and getting out the door, right? So it still makes it so it's not as hard of a transition when school happens or when they have summer camps.

And I've set into place with my own family is realizing I remember how painful the transition was.

It took, like, a month and a half of the school year before I finally felt like I wasn't a zombie as a child. Why was that? And spending that time in the why has really helped me to come up with these things. So if nothing is resonating for you quite yet, you have other needs that are coming up, go back to the why and put on that curious hat.

Stay out of the judgment, just the why right now, of figuring out why is this working or why isn't this working. And you can put this in anything that does not feel like it's working quite well in your life. And then I'm gonna kick it back to Mindy. Can we talk about personalities right now, and what you have found?

Because I know you have different personalities in your own family. And I always love starting with, in my family this, and then in coaching I bring this. Because I feel like the first guinea pig is always yourself, and then your own family. And then seeing, like, "Oh, this works. Maybe it'll work here, and then here," and bringing it out.

But I know from talking you have the different personalities in your family. So let's talk about that and how that relates to mindfulness and regulation.

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I was just thinking about what you were saying about making it easier transition back into the school year as well, and what seems like it could stretch endlessly, this endless summer, we know that it is going to come to an end.

And so whatever we do during the summer does impact the beginning of the school year. So I just wanted to reaffirm what you had said, Autumn, about that as well. And even if you decide to really be a little bit more relaxed in what you do over the summer and do something completely different than what you do during the school year, it would behoove you to think about, what you're gonna do, maybe a month before school starts to get them back into starting to ease them back into that routine.

So that's one of the things that came to mind as you were talking, that, if it's your goal that... and especially for those of you who have teenagers, we know that their sleep schedule and their sleep patterns are really off anyway. But giving some consideration on how you can support them once it gets a little bit closer to school.

It doesn't have to be all summer that they do this, but you can ease them back in even a couple of weeks before school, maybe having them back up their bedtime a little bit. Whatever it is, starting to really get back into the school year routine so that it makes for an easier transition.

So what you were saying too about personalities, that that is such a huge thing, and I was just thinking about my own kids. Like you said, they each have their own personalities. I have a very, very strong-willed oldest daughter, and so she's number one of four, and so she really... she set the tone a lot of times for the house because there were certain things that she wanted to do and her siblings kind of followed along.

They were like the little ducklings following their leader the older sister. And so one of the things as a strong-willed child she really needed is to be able to have a say in what her day looked like, what the summer looked like for her. And so that was one of the things that we... sometimes we butted heads over, but as I started to better understand where she was coming from, I understood that she really wanted to have a say.

She wanted to have some control over what she was doing, what her days were gonna look like, and also to be able to have time to explore her own interests. And so she was setting boundaries in- The way that she knew how to do them, which sometimes I have a very different personality. I would take that personally.

I was like, "Ooh," you know? And she would say it a little bit more strongly and abruptly than I would have. So it was for me being able to understand where she was coming from and not take things so personally. And then right behind her, her sister is a similar personality to me, so she really needed it to have that togetherness time.

And so for her, summer was like, "Ooh, you know, we get to spend more time together." At the same time, there would be these disruptions and intense moments with her siblings because, especially her oldest sister, who didn't always wanna go along and do the things and have all this together time that her sister wanted.

And then I have another child, my son, who is so cautious, and so he really needed everything to look a certain way. So for him, like we had talked about with routines, like maybe giving a little bit of flexibility in the morning routine but keeping it fairly similar was really important to him. And then, knowing what his week was going to look like.

I had a calendar that I would keep on the refrigerator, and I called it the motherboard. And so they would look at that, and it had everything that we were doing, and who was doing it, and I had it color-coded. It was a work of art. And, it's that way the kids could go and look and see.

And for him, that was especially important. And then for my youngest, he in the DiSC model of personalities, we have DiSC, which stands for dominant, which my oldest daughter was. We have I, which is my youngest son, and I's are that inspiring type and also can be impulsive. So for him, he...

I call him my pied piper of people because he's very outgoing. And for him, summer meant that he could have lots of people over, coming in and out of the house, that if they were off in the neighborhood I don't even know what all they were doing. They were riding their bikes, and they'd have a little pickup baseball game or, different things like that.

So for him, he still to this day, he's 22 now, and he really sees summer as an opportunity to really enjoy the freedom of, warm weather and all these different outdoor activities and being around people. And so you put that into your home, and what does that look like during summer?

So you have one child who really wants to dictate what everything looks like, and you have the other, another child who just wants to go with the flow and everybody to be happy and get along. And then you have another one who really needs to have a tight schedule. And so in coaching parents too, this is one of the things that we talk about, is like how do you do all of that, be true to yourself, feel like you're taking care of yourself, and meet the needs of your kids?

And so This is where those conversations come in really handy. And even if your kids are on the younger end, you know, they're early elementary, they still have thoughts and ideas of what they might like to do. And so if it's in your budget for the kids who really wanna be on the go and have, a little bit of a stricter schedule, maybe for them it is getting them into some things that they can look forward to each week.

It could be even something as simple... It doesn't have to be a summer camp, but, you know, the library has lots of different programs, and many of them have summer reading programs. So maybe it's, like, putting that into the schedule that the kids will go, and they'll check out books and maybe stay for one of the programs or something like that.

And so, that's something that can help for the ones who are cautious. It also helps for the kids who are really really involved and wanting to be around other people because it gives them that social opportunity. And for the kids who are like my daughter was, who just wants everybody to be happy, it's being able to go to those things, and they can also separate from one another a little bit, that they don't all have to stay together, that they can go and look for their individual books or whatever.

And other things that you could do. Swim. If you have a pool in your neighborhood or community being able to go to the pool. Some of the kids might wanna do lessons, or they also have other things that they can do there. It can meet all of those different needs of the kids and help you.

I kinda call that one-stop shopping. So if you can look for activities over the summer that help, with the different personalities in your family that might be there, then it helps you to not feel so overwhelmed and stressed, like you're having to pull yourself in multiple different directions trying to meet their needs.

And for us as parents, we can feel so overwhelmed and overstimulated so quickly, especially, if it's been... I mean, we're going through our own things, right? We have our own lives, and we have our own relationships with friends and family and our significant others in addition to our kids.

And so it's allowing, giving ourselves permission, and I think you talked about that, to get curious and not judgmental. And if something isn't working, it's okay to step back and say, "You know what? This isn't working," and to allow yourself to not do it anymore. You know, so if those weekly library sessions, feel like they're too much, it's okay to say, not gonna do that this week," or, "We're not gonna do that anymore," or to find maybe a friend who is also interested in that and then your child can go with a friend.

Or if maybe your other kids have friends and you wanna go to the library with your kids, I'm just using the library as an example, it could be anything, but then maybe you have that special time with that particular child to be able to do that.

And so then I'm thinking about the parents who are working and trying to juggle and manage all of this.

And so I just wanna, as a mindful moment here, I just want us to be able to just, slow down and just say to you all that your summer and your kids' summer may look a little different. They may end up having to go to a camp, you know, or, and you might be... They might be going to multiple camps over the summer so that you can have the coverage that you need.

And if that's the case, I really wanna say to you, please don't feel guilty about that. You know, there are still ways that you can meet your children's needs and even if you're working and their summer has to be more structured than it might be for someone who's going to be home, a parent who's might be home this, over the summer with their kids.

So if your kids are in summer camps or they're in daycare or whatever it is, there might be times that you are able to get off a little early, and that might be the time that you then do a special activity with them. You might go and get ice cream, or you might go to the park or, go to the library or wherever it is, and have those special moments with them too.

I just really, wanna encourage you that it doesn't have to look perfect. Summer can be a difficult time, and also because you feel like there's so much time to fill and to account for. But really, the quality of time that you're spending with them is many times more important than the quantity of time.

And if you look back at your own childhood, and especially if you talk to your parents about it or your caregiver that you had, it can be so enlightening to think that they were trying to make this memory for you, but your core memory is during this other random time. So if you think about it that way, and then you're taking that same lens into your own parenting, it can be very interesting.

You're trying to set up this opportunity for your children to make these memories, but what really stands out to them is when you seriously mess something up, and it's the repair that you're doing. And really, that's what matters is the repair moment because they're learning how to repair times when they mess up as a child and then as an adult.

But we're over here beating ourselves up for how we messed up, right? Like, we have all of this guilt, and then we continue making decisions based off of our guilt, and then it just makes this whole awful thing. And we can be working from this lens of just being completely dysregulated. So I love how Mindy said, "Let's just take a minute to back up and to just take a breath."

She didn't quite say it, the taking a breath, but I took a breath by what she was doing. And she... I was going to ask her, what about those who are working what about those that are single? It can be so hard. This is a time where you might feel like you're more strapped at the end of summer than you were over Christmas because summer camps are crazy expensive.

I'm not sure if I feel blessed by this or not, but our children have decided they only wanna do one summer camp, and the three of them are going to do it together. The youngest is too young to do it until next year, and it's at their elementary school. Super easy, and it's almost all day. Awesome. But- They're not in summer camp.

What am I gonna do with them, right? I work from home. I'm often, out coaching people, I'm doing things. I have my whole workout routine that I do, which is at the gym. But one of the days that has the class that I love the most is during when a friend set up playgroups.

Mm.

It can be so hard, and it's like, "This is my time for me that I have to give up."

Well, do you have to give it up, or is there a way that you can reorganize it so that you're still in there? Because, and this can sound narcissistic for a second, you are important, and your being regulated means that you are going to be functioning from that place. You're going to be parenting from that place.

If you're not regulated, that's when you explode yelling at everybody, and then you're having to repair it all over the place, right? And you're losing trust within yourself, let alone relationships with whoever you exploded on. Let's take that step of like, "Okay, my finances don't allow me to do all these things, and I'm working.

What can I do?" Well, let's think creatively. And I'll use myself as an example. I'm proud of this. It's taken me several years to figure this out. We have our favorite babysitter. She's home from college. I'm so excited. She is going to be babysitting for two mornings a week, and I'm going to use some of that time, I know it's not very much time, so I'm going to make the most of it.

But I'm going to be splitting up with her. Like, "Hey, I want you to focus on this child and spending time with them." For one thing, my daughter wants to learn how to crochet. I have no interest. Our babysitter has that interest, and they love doing hair together. I'm actually growing out my hair for her.

It's gonna take forever, so we'll see. But she's willing to crochet with her, so I'm going to let them have that girl time. My daughter has that easygoing personality like I do and like you do, Mindy, and she gets lost. She has three brothers. So they try to do craft time together, so that's gonna be their time together.

My third kid gets dysregulated easily, so I'm gonna make sure that he gets one-on-one time with me specifically. And it does not have to be a lot of time. And I have realized over the years, that having her come is cheaper than summer camps, and it's easier. I'm not having to drive all over the place.

She's also old enough, and she was the lifeguard for several years at our pool. She's willing to take them to the pool, and she's already driven my car once, so I'm totally confident with that, and she's a really great driver. She comes from a divorced family, and if you are a child of divorced family, you grow up fast.

So she's had to do that. Mm. So she's way more mature than other people her age. She's had to train her friends who have babysat for us how to use our dishwasher. One of the babysitters put dish soap in the dishwasher, so we came home to bubbles exploding out of it. My husband had to use the shop vac, and when we told our regular babysitter about it, she totally made fun of her friend that she recommended.

It was fine, but it was also like a y- "What? W- what made you not look at the container and put the wrong thing in?" We all do stupid things that we laugh at, at ourselves and at each other. But the thing is, you can do this with maybe a mother's helper. You can have a 12-year-old coming over who's just learning how to babysit, and you can train them on how to do it.

You need to be in the house with them still, but they can come and be that playmate, that older sibling to your children and help out. There are ways that you can do things.

One thing that also helped me is realizing, how is the classroom structured? Mindy, aren't you a schoolteacher?

I was a school social worker for many years. Yeah, so I worked in the school system, but not as in the classroom.

So you understand emotions super well from that. But there are times where you have quiet time. You can have quiet time at home for your own freaking sanity, and you can use all the cuss words with how stressed you get during that time.

Y- you can set time, and you should set time for, like, everyone's gonna do quiet activities, and I'm gonna get a break, and I can get work done, especially if I work from home. You can set these things up. And even if your children are at summer camps or grandma and grandpa's or whatever while you're working full time, then you pick them up, you can set up some of the same schedule so that they can decompress, so that they can have a routine.

And I found, because I also have the different personalities in my house, that one likes some things one way, one likes it a different way.

So I have interviewed each of my children to find out what they want for their summer, and I do that every year. I even have a worksheet that I created that my kids love so much that I then shared last year, and it will be in the show description again.

But it goes through what do you want your summer to look like? What are your interests right now? Because my husband and I, we are very intentional people. We have very similar personalities, which works out super great.

My son likes to say, "Mommy and Daddy are fighting," and it's when we're having, a really fun banter going on. He does not know what fighting is. One day I'm gonna have to explain to him what it really is. We try to do everything super intentionally. So when we went through the are we going to home school or are we going to private school or public school, what do we wanna do and why, we decided we were gonna move to an area with really good schools and public school.

We really liked the way my husband was raised, where his dad and his mom supplemented a lot. We do the same thing. And this is summertime, we have extra time. The kids have extra time, in particular. What are you interested in? What can we deep dive for you in?

And for my son, the oldest, most of the time it's robotics.

And because of his personality too, he kind of sets the tone. But my daughter, it's animals. She wants to be a vet. For the third kid, he's really into construction right now. It keeps changing for him. He's the one that I'm most unsure about what he's gonna do with his life, and I'm very curious to see how it changes over time.

And with our youngest, he thinks he's gonna be a Lamborghini driver. He has not changed for years. My husband and I are still like, "What is that?" And we joke about it all the time. We're like, "You could be a race car driver. You could be a mechanic. You could design the cars. You could work as on the line for building cars," whatever that's called.

And he's like, "No, it's Lamborghini driver." Like, "Don't you know what this is?" And we're like, "No. Who knows?" But we spend the summer, in particular, deep diving on those things, and we spend a lot of time at the library too. Beauty and the Beast, my favorite scene, and I wanna live her life, I want that library.

That's always been my life goal. But now I have the Kindle app, which is so much easier than trying to climb a ladder. You can just get it on there. But the thing is, you can have the summer the way you set it up for your children, set it up for you too. What is something that you're super interested in?

You don't have to do these things with your kids, but you can do them alongside them. Share interests back and forth. You can have that time where, like, you're working on your hobby, your interest, or whatever it is, during COVID, when everything shut down, I was going to school and I had babies at home.

And my school, thankfully, was online so it was, there was no transition. But there was for my oldest. During that time, he was in preschool. And then summer happened. We had at-home preschool, which was awesome. We learned a lot. And then he had kindergarten. It was online. And so many parents had talked about how hard it was for their children.

For us, it was easy. He was set up on his computer for kindergarten while I was set up on my computer for college, and we were right next to each other. And we were able to see each other's screens and help each other out. And my husband was home. He works about an hour away. But he was able to help out with the other kids during that time, and we would just tag team helping out our little guy, now he's not so little, but on the computer.

So think about things creatively, and think about what things are my children interested in? How can I interview them and get to know them better? Where have I felt disconnected from different things that now I can spend time on during the summer on myself, on relationships with my significant other maybe, with my children, with my career?

Is it not where I want it to be... You can think of this as your new year's goals, with it being your new summer goal instead

Autumn, you just gave so much value there. I wanna be present but I also at the same time wanted to take notes because what you said was so powerful.

And I think that one of The misunderstandings that we have sometimes about parenting and when we talk about mindfulness, being present, that doesn't also always mean too that we have to be actively involved either. It's that we're there and doing things next to them, you know.

So like you had said with your son when he was doing his kindergarten work, you were right next to him. And so it's almost like, when kids are very young, they do parallel play. They're not necessarily playing with each other, but they're both playing at the same time.

I think that's also something to give consideration to with the summer is that you don't always have to be playing games with them or keeping them really busy or active. It's okay, like you had said, because that's the normal rhythm of a school day too and also probably on the weekends even that, you have times where there's activity, there are times that it's quieter, and that fits our own patterns of energy.

So if we're asking our kids to have a quiet time, and we can set that for them. After lunch, we're gonna have a quiet time from 1:00 to 2:00 or 1:00 to 2:30. And if they're not into naps, my kids stopped naps very early, and so I would have this, set up for them too.

What are the things that they can do? They can color, they can draw, they can read a book. They had things that they could do that allow them to have that quiet time because whether they wanna admit it or not, and they could be the most outgoing social kid, they do need to have some quiet time as well to help their brain reset because when we're constantly inputting information and stimulating them, that's when they can have issues too.

And I was just thinking about when we are wanting to have these wonderful memories with our kids, and so a lot of times we attach that to an activity. You know, like, oh, we had this wonderful vacation, and we did this and we did that, and sometimes there's value in the quiet moments too. It could be when you're all sitting on the couch together and you're just really enjoying looking out the window or, reading a book or telling jokes or whatever it is that your family enjoys.

It doesn't have to be high energy to be high impact.

That's true, and I think you and I probably have a similar love language with quality time.

Yes.

We don't need all the vacations and all the loud stuff. Spend time with me, showing me that you really know me, that there's trust there and there's that safety.

And my daughter's the same way.

And I was showing you that your book was kind of similar to something that I'm doing with my children. This is not something that I have a link to or anything, but I bought this journal for my daughter and I to do together, and we pass it back and forth, and there's questions in there, and there's a place for us to draw.

And she's super creative, and she and I are having so much fun doing this. And it's important to her in particular because she's the only girl besides me in the family. We have one girl dog. I don't think that counts. But this has been helpful because she gets this time with me, and she decided to up level it last week, and she wanted us snuggled up together.

And I had to even ask her, I'm like, "Can you move a little or move to my other side so I could actually use my right hand to write?" So but we had a lot of fun doing it, and it only took 15 minutes, and then she's like, "Okay, I'm good now." She was totally topped off. Her friend happened to knock on the door, and they went and they, I think they did some beading stuff together.

And the nice thing about our neighborhood, we have tons of kids nearby. This is the reason why we moved here. And half the time I turn around and there's two extra children in our house. And sometimes my husband comes home from work and I'm like, "Guess what? We have more kids than we started with, and I didn't give birth to any, which is awesome."

Of course, the four I did. But I'll joke to him about that, like, "Hey, we have extra kids, just so you know." And he's like, "Well, that was easy." And sometimes we'll say we're leaving and we're like, "We don't even care if it's four of our kids, just four kids show up," and our kids will be like, "We're coming.

They won't take our joke yet. But the nice thing is you can set things up that work for your rhythms, like you were just saying.

And it reminded me, like I just mentioned, the love languages. There's a reason why when we- have our parenting coaching program and we're working with our clients, one of the last things that we do is we go through the love languages.

We're not just understanding personality type, but we're understanding love languages. Mm-hmm. And for me, I take it one step further. I heard about it in a podcast and it made so much sense to me that I didn't even research it because it was just one of those duh," moments, that sometimes the way that we receive love, our love language, is not the way that we naturally show love.

Mm-hmm.

And there's times where that can get like, the crossed wires and it gets messy because the way that we're showing people love naturally, they try to reciprocate that and we're like, "No, that doesn't resonate for us." So in particular, I'll use my aunt for an example. She loves to give gifts, but she is picky as all get out.

So good luck getting her a good gift without her wanting to re-give it to somebody else. You know somebody like this.

Yes, yes. That's my sister.

And for me, that's what I thought of. So see? You don't even need to research it. See? You already know of somebody who the way that they naturally give love and wanna share it with the world is not the way that they want to receive it.

And it's has made such a difference understanding my kids' love languages and that they change over time. Noticing that within myself and within my husband, they change over time. For instance, when I first took the love language test in my married life, not when I was single, I took it when I was breastfeeding my oldest, and I had to think about timing. There's a big enough gap. I was not pregnant with my daughter yet, but I was nursing, and my physical touch, that's one of the love languages, was, like, zero.

Beyond touched out. And that is one of my husband's love languages, and he was just like, "And I'm gonna go be depressed over here for a bit." Whereas now, retaking this test, it's much higher for me, because my kids no longer want to really snuggle with me. They'll do it for, like, a second when they're hurt or not feeling well, and then they're too wiggly and they're like, "Okay, Mom, I'm done with you."

So I have to tell my husband, I need snuggles," which he totally lights up when I say that. It changes over time. We forget that.

Yes.

And Anna, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I had a parent reach out to me recently, I have a monthly newsletter that I send out to parents, and she told me how much she had enjoyed that particular newsletter. And one of the things I had asked her, I said, "Is there something that you would like me to cover?" And she said exactly that. She said, "What do you do when you are so touched out that the thought of your child, your spouse, anyone else touching you, even if it's just a brief pat on the hand or on the shoulder, just sends you wanting to run?"

You're running in the other direction. And so I put that in my June newsletter because I think that that's a very real issue that we have, and I remember feeling like that too when my kids were young and I had my number four who, he didn't want to wean from breastfeeding. And so we breastfed for much longer than I would've wanted to, and I had, my other son who just, he would want to come and snuggle or, put his arms around my legs.

And then my husband would come home and he'd want to give me a hug and kiss me because he hadn't seen me all day. Lovely, right? And what a sign of affection. But at that point I was like, you know, trying to push him away because it's like I just couldn't handle any more because my body was overstimulated because I was over-touched.

My husband, when we had that conversation, he started taking over. When our kids wanted me and wanted to snuggle me, he would insert himself right away

yes.

Yeah And it's hard when you don't know the language to be able to share it without having it be such a big feeling that it becomes this volcano, and it's messy, and you're like, "I don't mean it to seem so awful for you, but it feels awful within me."

It, and when you don't have the right words, which helps with going through the course that we teach and having the coaching where you have the space to really gain the language and understand the whys behind everything for you and understand if you have triggers, what is it from? Is it from something from your childhood?

Or is it something that's coming up within parenthood that's separate from anything in your past?

And I also, I just wanna point out to the audience too what you just said, that it changes over time as well. So if you're feeling like you're touched out right now, that doesn't mean that you will be later on.

And you may be, you know, because that might just not be something that, is your love language, and that's okay. Then I think when we have those moments to be able to pause and really to be able to reflect and like you said earlier, be curious about what's coming up for you, then you can put some reflection or time into thinking, "Okay, well, is it something from childhood or is this, you know, what is this?"

And then being able to, you can journal about it. You know, I'm a big fan of journaling and sometimes journaling, we talk about that and I have some of my clients roll their eyes and I- I'm not talking about writing a book. It could even just be words. It could be pictures. It can be whatever.

Sometimes I have them write words down and then they crumple it up and throw it away. Journaling means many different things, and I, I know that could be a whole nother topic, but it's just being able to get it down and to really think about what it is. And a lot of times being able to name what it is makes all the difference because then you're like, "Oh, okay.

When the next time it comes up okay, I get it. This is from when I was feeling, just like I needed some bodily autonomy," knowing that you're your own person. And when we have babies, it's like our bodies belong to them, especially when we're nursing and we're recovering from giving birth and all of those things, and we can lose touch with ourselves.

And so this gives hope to those people who maybe are in that stage that as it grows, you know, your kids, like you said, your kids don't really want to snuggle anymore and my kids are all adults now and I have to chase them down for hugs. You know, I'm like, "Come to your mama," you know, just wanting to just squeeze on them a little bit and just love them.

So there's a time and place for all things.

My oldest, he is the most fun to pick on. The other morning, "I just want to love you." Running and chasing him down the house. But I'm also doing the tickle finger, so of course he's running away. And it just reminded me of that.

The other thing that comes to mind that really helps me the most over the summer, schedule your dates My husband is my best friend, and I make sure that dates fall by the wayside during the school year.

I hate that they do, but they just do. It's life. I make sure that we have consistent dates every week during the summer because I need them, and I also make sure that I have girls' night. And my husband will also give me space where I can go lock myself in the bedroom. He can tell when I'm having it.

When the kids are having meltdowns, and he's threatening them if they do this one more time, and I'll make a comment like, "I'm doing it. I don't even care. You can spank me," "whatever. Just let me go to my room. I'll go to bed early." And he's like, "Go." I'm like, "Yes." Do those things for yourself. And most importantly, have that conversation with your significant other if you have one or with your village.

Set up a village. Set up play dates. That is the best thing. I have a mom friend and I, we joke about how our kids will go to each other's house, and even though we have more kids in our house, it feels like we have less because suddenly our kids are not underfoot. They just disappear. Unless it's feeding time,

yes.

But in our house, they'll tell me they're hungry and I'm like, "You know where the pantry is. You know where the fridge is. You know where the fruit is." We sit down for... I don't think we even sit down for lunch together. Last summer we did not because our kids are used to having different lunch schedules, and I took off the lunch alarm because they would just naturally eat when they were hungry.

I'm like, that's actually really good for them. We forget that in the routine- Mm-hmm ... that we need to be allowing them to feel when they're hungry, because then they aren't going to have disordered eating when they're older. They're going to know when they're hungry and know what to do. We sit down for, dinner together.

We kind of have breakfast together. So those stay pretty much the same, but lunch, it's just if we're out and about, we'll have lunch together. But if we're home, they have it at their own times that they're used to during the school year. You can keep a lot of the same school schedule. You don't have to come up with something different.

But you do need to make sure that you have more time for you. Even if you're a working parent and they're in summer camp, it's going to be a different enough schedule for them that they're going to be a little more dysregulated. You're gonna need to have more things for you to set yourself up. To be the best parent that you can be, if you have a really deep well of your own wellness and you're taking care of yourself deeply, parenting comes easier. If you c- are coming from a dysregulated place, good luck regulating your children. I know from personal experience Whereas if you're getting enough sleep, it's easier to respond the way that you want to as a perfect parent, with using air quotes and all the eye rolls here, when the time comes.

Because you're not coming from a place where you're tired and cranky. It's just easier.

And also not feeling guilty too, I think, for having that routine and that structure. Because if you're, let's say you're a single parent and you know, maybe you don't have a village. It's you, you're working full time, you may not have a lot of time off.

And so if you're allowing your kids... they go to camp, and then they come home, and then they're staying up later, and then they're grumpy in the mornings. And so it sets up this whole chain effect. And so what I was thinking is, when you were saying about sleep, it's like a lot of times if we're letting our kids stay up later, then we're staying up later so that we have our personal time.

We're having time, you know, for our spouse or, being able to get together if we have, you know, girlfriends and we wanna get together and do those things. And so this is where I think it's really important to say that it's okay for your kids to, you know, not ha- not stay up until 10:00 or 11:00 at night.

Depending on their age, obviously, but if your kids are younger and you wanna have a consistent bedtime between the school year and the summertime, that's okay. You know, maybe change it by a half an hour if that's really a big issue. But it's recognizing that you have your needs too, and it's okay to, to meet those because you're not going to be able to go through the next day being calm and regulated.

And when I say calm, it's not that you have to be, speaking monotone and, practicing yoga or anything like that to be calm. It's just feeling like you can manage the demands of the day in a way that isn't, impacting you negatively, your wellbeing. Whether that's mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual.

So, know that you are important, that you have needs. And really what you're doing is you're modeling that for your kids how to take care of themselves too because you're showing that you can take care of yourself, that you are important. And then it doesn't take... We don't have to...

There's another saying, that you don't have to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. You know, you don't have to sacrifice everything for other people. And it starts with you and- And again, like you had said with the wellness, that's one of the things I really focus on is, yes, I do the parent coaching, but I really do more parent education, and this is the piece of it, of taking care of yourself.

Because, you know, when you're well-regulated, then your kids are gonna respond differently, and they're going to be... then you're teaching them how to be resilient and regulated, and to be able to handle their emotions.

Will it be perfect? No. Are they going to melt down? Absolutely. Will you melt down?

Absolutely. You know, but it's, again, like you had said, it's that after part. It's the repair.

Yeah.

And you have to have awareness. You have to have the capacity to be able to do that.

And it's the reminder that as much as your children are still growing and learning, so are you.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay.

You've never been the age you are.

You've never had kids the ages that they are.

Absolutely.

You know, it's like this is all new for you, too.

And we forget that, 'cause we're too busy trying to be the perfect parents and show that we're perfect, when our children just want us, and we forget that. Do you remember what you wanted when you were a child?

Sometimes we are so busy being adults that we forget what it was like to be children.

100%.

So what is your last thought you wanna leave us with? And then where do we find your book? Where do we find you? Where do we get on your newsletter? How do we get in your world? Tell us all the things.

So my last thought is, that you don't have to be a perfect parent. Being present has so much more impact.

It has the lasting impact rather than trying to be perfect because you're not going to be and then you set yourself up for failure. So do the things that you need to do and to be intentional about setting up the summer so that you can thrive and your kids can thrive And with that, we didn't even get to talk about, some of the tools that you can use in regulation, and there's so much more we could talk about, Autumn, and this has been such a wonderful, rich conversation.

So if you are looking for some things to help you and your kids with, learning different tools that help with regulation and resilience and all of that, I do have my new book that came out, Sammy's Super Stretchy Activity Book, It has all kinds of fun things in it for the kids to learn, and there's a section in the back for you as parents, how you can implement this at home.

You could even share it with, when they're going back to school, with their teacher, because there are things in there for the teacher. The books, that I have are on Amazon. You're welcome to look up Mindi Green. There is a Mindi Green who's an herbalist, which is not me, but there's, if you look up Sammy's Super Stretchy World Activity Book or the Sammy's Super Stretchy Shoelaces, you'll find me, this Mindi Green, child author.

And, you can also go to my website, which I know will be in the show notes, and that's just, it's simple, super simple, Mindi Green Coaching. You're welcome to email me there. You can find there's a short little personality quiz, and also there is a way to sign up for my newsletter.

And I think really there are so many tricks. It'd be, like, a huge long list of ways that you could regulate yourself. But really taking breaks to check in with yourself, making sure you're getting enough sleep. That is the first thing that goes out the window for me during the summer, getting enough sleep.

My morning routine is gone during the summer 'cause I'm so tired, because I need more time to myself. So I put it in the evening, so I'm staying up later, so I'm not getting out of bed early enough to do my optimal morning routine that makes me feel good, and it can be so frustrating. Know that I'm human, and I do the exact same thing.

And when you are doing the things that you know feel good, you're ke- trying to keep those in place as much as possible. Maybe your exercise needs to move to a different time of day. Know that having your kids know that you're doing these things for yourself and why will remind them of, oh, there are things that I can do.

Maybe I can do the workouts right alongside my mom, or maybe that's when I'm having quiet time, so my mom can work out without me asking a bajillion questions. Know that there are simple things and there are harder things.

Check in with yourself and ask yourself, "What do I need right now?" is the biggest trick right there.

One last thought with that is you mentioned sleep and exercise and checking in with yourself. I would say the other thing is to make sure that you're eating, because, you may think a cup of coffee in the morning is enough.

Your body really needs fuel to be able to function best. And there is such a thing, we kind of make fun of it about being hangry, but it really does, it impact your mood. So make sure that you eat along with sleeping and checking in with yourself.

I get that way, so that's the first thing I ask my kids if they're crabby, "Are you actually hungry?"

And then I have that wait. Is that the same thing for me? And if you struggle with that, you might wanna invest in a glucose monitor, 'cause then you'll- be able to see, "Oh, actually I'm not taking care of myself. I'm sugar loading," and then there's the spike and everything else going on. It was very interesting for me to witness that for myself.

Yes, amazing. And it goes back to the simple things of parenting, make sure you're doing them for yourself.

Mm-hmm.

Well, thank you. Thank you for this, and thank you for being the first person that popped into my mind just from having the personality that you do and the work that you do, and for saying yes.

I know that this will impact a lot of people, and that this is something that we can go back to, even if it's during winter break, even if it's during the middle of the school year, whatever. There are so many things that fall off our plate that shouldn't, regulation wise, being mindfulness wise, checking in with ourselves, and we wonder why things feel like they're falling apart when it's these simple things have fallen off because I have lost sight of what should matter for my own wellness, and then for the wellness of my family.

So thank you for this conversation.

Thank you, Autumn, for thinking of me.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for.

As part of the legal language, I am a certified life coach with a bachelor's in applied health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice, take it as such. See you in the next episode.