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HOW TO BE LESS FOCUSED ON PERFORMANCE AND MORE FOCUSED ON CONNECTION WITH YOUR KIDS

 Modern Mommy Doc


PUBLICATION DATE:

Jul 07, 2020

HOW TO BE LESS FOCUSED ON PERFORMANCE AND MORE FOCUSED ON CONNECTION WITH YOUR KIDS

 Modern Mommy Doc

CATEGORY: KIDS

Of all the gifts I want to give my kids, there's one that stands out above the rest: I want them to know that their performance, that what they produce, matters infinitely less than their character and their effort along the way.


Carol Dewitt, PhD, talks about this in her groundbreaking book, Mindset. She layed the foundation for what it means to live life always learning and growing (a growth mindset) and what it means to live life always focused on proving or maintaining an idea that you're smart and accomplished (a fixed mindset).


Dr. Ken Ginsburg, author of Raising Kids to Thrive, takes it one step further. He incorporates mindset into a larger concept: focusing on 7 main core characteristics that help kids grow to be resilient adults.


Their books are must-reads but can be a bit overwhelming on the surface. It's daunting at first to think about how much it really does matter how we approach parenting.


I think about performance a lot with my kids. At this point, I understand enough about child development to know pushing them too hard in traditional ways (like focusing on the way they look or on if they're top of the class) will only backfire. It's in the smaller moments that I find resisting the urge to encourage perfectionism more difficult. It's especially true on Thursdays, my day off, when I spend the day with my youngest daughter.


Pre-COVID, we spent the majority of the days running errands or going to appointments together, having a special lunch, and getting in some special time together at the park or the local ceramics painting studio. I'm going to be honest here, though: sometimes we JUST spent the day running errands.


Now that there's hardly anywhere to go, I can reflect back on what I didn't like during those busier times together and the thing I realize is missing now compared with before is me saying over and over, "Please hurry up, We need to go now. We're going to be late. Let's go. We have a lot to get done."


Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's wrong to train my child to listen or to just be along for the ride. It's just part of life that my kids get dragged to a few boring meetings. But I've started to build awareness around how, if all the time I spend with them is about them sitting quietly and behaving or docily cooming along for the ride for a bajillion errands I need to accomplish, our entire relationship is about them keeping in line. If they don't perform, it messes Mommy's plans up.


When I push my little one to perform, she starts getting frustrated (and so do I). The more I push and prod her to get with the program, especially when it eats into our originally-planned easy-going itinerary, the more she resists.


"Come on, baby," I hear myself saying and regretting all at the same time,"I really need you to help me more. Come on!" My voice would get slightly more shrill as I watched the clock tick down to the next appointment we needed to get to.



Here's what I do really intentionally to lessen my day-to-day expectations of performance with my kids now that the initial coronavirus lockdown and then subsequent societal slow-down has forced me to reset:


I limit the number of errands I do with my kids and make sure I don't over-schedule to-dos when I'm with them.



I intentionally schedule time with my kids when we don't have anything planned. I want them to be with me even when I don't need them to sit down, shut up, and buckle up for the ride.


I plan yes-days and Special Time with my kids where they are completely in charge of our agenda and they have my full, undivided attention. That means I have to PUT MY CELL PHONE DOWN, even if it takes stuffing it in a drawer for an hour and turning it completely off so I'm not tempted to be distracted.


I watch the way I talk to my kids when I'm with them. I think about how I would feel if someone told me to hurry up, get in line, and move, move, move all day long (crappy). Then, I hold my tongue when I'm tempted to speak in an impatient tone with my kids anyway.


The last few months have been challenging in so many ways. They've also provided a unique opportunity for all of us moms to take a step back, looking more closely at how we live our lives and how we parent, including the ways we unintentionally ask our kids to perform (especially when we've got stuff to do). Slow it down, Mama. Less performance-based days with our kids = more opportunities for genuine joy and connection with them.


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Episode Takeaways: This is not an episode about “how to grow a multimillion dollar business” or how to double your following overnight. I really shy away from talking about business because it’s disheartening to see that most of the people making online are people who are trying to teach you how to make money online. This is an episode that comes from many conversations I’ve had recently with people who are wanting to start a side hustle or even a full blown business, but are curious how to do that with the rest of life that’s going on around them. I’ve recently made a hugely drastic shift in my career and have moved from private practice into a company called Blueberry Pediatrics . It is a shift that still allows me to practice medicine as well as still running Modern Mommy Doc full time. The thinking behind this shift really is born out of these 8 tips I have about running a business while you’re working full time or maybe still taking care of your family. 1) Know your why. We’ve heard it a thousand times, but if we don’t know the driving force behind why we want to do a certain thing, it’s infinitely easier to stop doing it when things get hard. Ask yourself why you’re so committed to this one particular area. In my business, my why is to help, support, and encourage women (specifically working moms) so they don’t feel alone in their journey. So when I’m pulled away from my family for a time period or I’m exhausted from traveling, I remember the greater mission behind what I do. 2) Expect that you’re going to fail. I just pulled the plug on a project we had been working on at Modern Mommy Doc for two years: the Modern Mamas Club app. I thought it was going to be so valuable for moms, when in reality it was just duplicating what we already had. I learned so much through that process and at the beginning, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Failure is a natural part of growth. 3) Prepare to invest in your business. With your time, with your money, with your emotions. People ask me how I grew and I told them it took a lot of time and a lot of my own money. There were times that that was discouraging, but because all of this was tied to my why, I was able to push forward. 4) Figure out what you can outsource and what has to be done by you. At the beginning you might not have any money to outsource with. But set yourself up for success and know what you’ll hand off when you get to that point. Don’t waste time trying to do it all. 5) Network based on what you love & pay for good PR. When you want to grow your business, network with the people that you genuinely connect with, not just because you might get a sale. Figure out who it would be mutually beneficial for you to get to know. And when it comes to PR, you’ve gotta pay to play the game. PR isn’t for instant leads, but is also a long game like networking. 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In fact, there are so many parallels between the way I run my business and the things I taught in my newest book, Doing It All: trying to build efficiency into how I do my tasks, batching my work, not spending extra time on stuff that doesn’t matter at all, swapping out for what others can do for me, pairing things that aren’t enjoyable with things that are, not letting things contaminate my time, and making sure my desk, home, and calendar are decluttered. More Blogs on this Topic: T he forgotten boundary: setting limits with yourself Thanks for the cookies in the breakroom, I’m still tired Wake up, working mama. Are you wasting your life? More Podcast Episodes on this Topic: T ranslating “mom skills” into “boss skills” How to be an ambitious, out of the box, career maker and an engaged mom How to claim your confidence as a working mom
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