Key Takeaways:

• You have to be strategic about the time you spend at school. Allow it to just be for activities that give you a better sense of what’s going on there.



• Surround yourself with parents that you can have a really good give and take with, but make sure you are available to give something!

• If you or the kids are working/schooling from home, set up very clear time and space boundaries for what activities are happening in what spaces.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

This week, Dr. Whitney talks about how to manage being a working mom with all of your kid’s school obligations that fill up your calendar. She coaches through how to do it with less guilt and way more intention.

Today we are talking about how to really manage being a working mom and also having your kids in school. We're gonna talk about things from two perspectives: 

1) Having your kids in actual physical school with in-person learning how to manage that



2) How to manage having your kids in school when they are learning right next to you at the kitchen table or within your house. 

Over the last couple years, we know so many kids have had to go to remote learning. And so we really wanted to make sure we're providing some practical support for people who are in-between or who have distance learning happening or in-person.

The number one thing to do with your child's school is to engage strategically. If you don’t have a plan and a framework for only three to five priorities that you’re always going to say yes to, you will always feel guilty. If you're not sure what I'm talking about in reference to your five most important things, go look at our Centered Life Blueprint for all of that. 

But if you have your priorities in alignment with your goals and the things that you value the most, it's gonna allow you to then make a plan that works sustainably for all the other things in your life. And school obligations should 100%, unless you are so loving being school mom, be something that is on your add-on list, not on your main focus list.

And that's why it's perfectly fine to engage strategically. If you are going to volunteer at your child’s school, do so for reconnaissance and teacher relationship building, right? There are other parents who do not work, who can volunteer for the sake of actually giving something back to the school. And I am such a huge fan of our teachers. My dad was a high school teacher at a public school for 27 years. I had the utmost respect for educators for how difficult their job is for how much they do for our kids. And at the same time, I understand that, as a working mom who has a lot to give to a lot of different people, giving to school all of my energy and time is not my number one job. 

My main focus is thinking about understanding what it's like in the classroom for my child. And then also making sure that the teacher of my child knows me enough so that when I have a concern about my child or he or she has a concern about my child, we can share with each other and converse with each other from a place of mutual understanding and mutual connection. I’m also a fan of skipping the PTA, unless that is totally your jam. I don't do school fundraising. I don't do decorating the gym. I don't do bake sales. And you should feel 100% not guilty for not doing that stuff too. 

If you do participate in a bake sale or a fundraiser doing the bare minimum to meet the demands of that requirement is 100% acceptable. So buy prepackaged bake sale cookies. Or you be the person who, if you have the means, writes a check for your child's run-a-thon fundraiser or you ask other grandparents and now you do not have to collect 80 signatures that would be a bunch of extra work for you and time that you don’t have.

So I want to give you here permission to not be the all-star mom for your kids at school, but instead, think about how you can strategically use school to help your child get the best education, to build community for your child, and to make sure that you're supporting your child as much as possible. 

Let’s look at communicating with teachers. Number one, set your own terms. What I do with teachers at the very beginning of the year is be really specific and intentional about divulging my work obligations to the teacher. I let them know what I do for my profession. When we're in the first parent teacher conference, I talk about what my schedule's like on a daily basis, so that they have a really full understanding. 

That helps me when they send out the volunteer list. Or if there's an email that I can't get to right away or a text message. It also has helped me in the past when there have been requests for parent volunteers for field trips, for example. And I know I'm not gonna be able to make it to something that I actually want go to unless I have pretty good notice. So that has helped me in the past with that part of communication. 

Second thing I do is engage really early in the year, pretty extensively. So if I'm gonna put any time or effort into communication with the teacher, I always do it earlier in the year. I have often recorded voice memos and sent them to the teacher to explain what's going on for my more high needs child, so that they understand what's happening. So that they can listen to it on their own time. And it works in the schedule that actually is appropriate for me. 

Once I have done that initial engagement and done that divulging of my work obligations to the teacher, then I use email or text almost exclusively with the teacher. With the exception of when there happens to be a pick-up or drop-off that I'm a part of and I need to do a verbal exchange with a teacher. But otherwise email, text, or whatever your school's application is to communicate with teachers is usually the most succinct and it's gonna be the fastest for you. 

And then I also make a need-to-know-basis pact with my child's teacher. So I have a discussion with a teacher about the fact that I'm in the office. I'm seeing patients. I can't step away unless I really, really need to know what's going on. So if they need to get ahold of me, I want them to write me a longer email. If they need to get ahold of me though, in the moment, I want them to really run that through a filter of, “Do I absolutely need to know it?” Do I need to pick up my child because they're sick? Okay. That's totally fair, right? But if it's something that they need my attention, but it can wait for a day, I make sure they understand that that's gonna be in their best interest and my best interest and my child's best interest to email me.

Next coordinating with other parents. So when you have a relationship with your child's school friend’s parents, please understand that some of those relationships are going to be businesslike. And being businesslike with other parents is not a bad thing. Businesslike is not a bad word. So you want to, with those other parents, figure out what is your biggest strength that you can offer to those parents.

Some of them you're gonna become like fast friends, but a lot of them you're not necessarily going to. So you need to define for yourself what is gonna be your fellow-parent superpower, right? I am the person that when parents have sick kids, they call me. When they have a scrape and they need to know if they need to go to the doctor,  I tend to be the person that they ask. Other parents are the ones that I can call on if I have a sick kid at school and need to be picked up. Or if I forgot something for a special project at school and I need them to drop it off at the school because they're working from home, for example. And then I work with those other parents to trade items of value. To think I could do this for you and you could do this for me.

This is really similar to what I do in my relationship with my husband. And I know it sounds a little bit cold or calculated, but it's really not. It actually just is the true meaning of community where one person has a special skill or a time unit that's available to them. And you're just exchanging that together. 

We make a text change with other parents in the classroom. And that way, if one of us has a need, people can volunteer to fill it. And I really, really invest in quality over quantity when it comes to school-parent friendships. 

Lastly, when it comes to after-school activities and extracurriculars with your child, minimalism wins the day with my children. We have one to two after school activities per season. Three max. So for example, my youngest daughter, she wants to do climbing and she wants to do basketball. So those are gonna be her two activities this season. If she wants to do something else, I usually will have her wait to do it until the next season, because I wanna make sure that I am not run ragged on my days when I am picking her up from school. 

And I also wanna make sure that other parents or other caregivers, when they are carting my kids around, that they're not having to do that more than they need to. I'm also always thinking about a balance of growth opportunities and joy opportunities. So again, with the climbing and the basketball. For example, she loves climbing. She's actually been trying to climb a refrigerator since the day she was born. So I knew that was gonna be something that she would absolutely love, would bring her tons of joy, and would help with some of the behaviors she was exhibiting at home. So that was a joy opportunity. 

Basketball, on the other hand, we had to actually really work with her to be interested in it. She was a little bit nervous about starting it out. She didn't know how to use a basketball. So always trying to balance out what's something that really will bring your child joy. You know, it's just right in the pocket. It will get them into a flow and really loving life. And then what's something that can kind of stretch them a bit. 

And then demonstrating a willingness to fail yourself. I mean, when I choose activities, I try to think about if this is something that I just love to do. You know, it's great that I love to be singing and dancing and on my Peloton. But maybe there's something that I could try also that I might fail at. I talk to my kids a lot about failure at work or in my Modern Mommy Doc business. So trying to give my kids examples of me doing the very thing that I'm asking them to do as well.

I'm always really encouraging parents to try to have a growth mindset with their kids. Again, letting your kids see you fail and rebound from your mistakes, celebrating their effort over their accomplishments, learning to understand your child as an individual, and then focusing on raising the 35 year old you hope your child will be, not the college applicant you hope that they'll be. When you try to focus on raising your child to be the college applicant you hope they'll be, that's really surface level accomplishments. Anyone can kind of fake it until they make it when it comes to getting into college. But the 35 year old has had to have an actual job and prove that they can actually do the work that they say that they can do on their resume, that they actually have those skills.

And so I'm actually way more interested in raising the type of child that will be able to get the second job, that 35 year old job, versus the first job, the right outta college job, or get into college. And that is from Ken Ginsburg who talks about this a ton. About really trying to focus on building character and building what he calls the seven Cs of resilience in your child. We have an entire episode on that if you wanna check out.

Finally, a growth mindset and really talking about that with your kids means modeling, taking care of yourself and finding your own center. Which again, if you're not already part of the Centered Mama's Club or the Mindful Mama's Club, please, please, please join us there because we talk all about that. 

So we talked for a minute about how you can handle things when your kids are in actual in-person school. But what about when they are at home with you and you are working from home with your kids present? Here's a few things that I always tell parents to keep in mind. First, set expectations with your kids about the day's activities, what you're doing, and why. Ask them for what you need and explain the boundaries, right. If you know that you're going to have an hour-long meeting, your kids need to know that. So that way they are not bugging you in the middle of something that's really important. I look my children in the eye and say, “Hey, this is the one hour that I really need you guys to be focused, so that way I can take care of this work thing. And then I will be back to you.” 

Now I cannot ask my children to do that eight times a day and expect it to be successful. But one hour a day, nine times outta 10, they can do that. And of course, it's very age dependent. You also have to decide, if you are working from home and your kids are there, that there's going to have to be some level of distraction unless there's another caregiver present. So you have to give them age appropriate distractions. 

It can be really helpful to only allow screen time at these moments when you really, really need them to be focused on something else while you are focused on your most important activity for the day. So if I was having a meeting, for example, with one of my corporate partners, that would be a moment where I would say, “Hey guys, it matters that I'm in this meeting and that I'm really focused and I feel professional. So I'm gonna have you guys go ahead and watch this screen time while I'm doing that.”

The next thing that I would say is true for all parenting. And again, my pediatrician hat is on. You have to have a reward system in place to reinforce good behavior. If you are constantly talking to your kids about what the consequence is if they don't follow through on the requests that you make in the end, that's going to be less successful than setting up potential rewards if they do work well together. So, for example, this past week, my kids have been home from school actually because of some health concerns. And so we have had to work together quite a bit. We have a whole reward that is planned out at the end of the week, which includes a movie night with popcorn and pizza and ice cream. They're really, really looking forward to it. And so I keep on kind of mentioning how excited I am about that, as opposed to threatening to take that away from them.

I also want to just make a mention about working from home. That, of course, is not ideal in any scenario for children to be at home with their parents without any other caregiver there. But sometimes it happens. So if your kids are there for extended periods of times, which has happened of course because of the distance learning thing, you wanna try to set up calls on days or times your kids aren't there or during normal nap times. And if you expect your kids to interrupt you, you wanna proactively let the person on the phone know in advance that it may happen and explain the situation and how you'll handle it. And I have loved this in the pandemic. I feel like people have gotten so much more transparent about the fact that their kids are here on the sidelines, their kids kind of pop in and say, “Hey,” and that's become much more normalized. And that is amazing. But if you just give a heads up to the other person on the end of the line, or on the other end of the zoom call, it will significantly reduce your stress level. 

And then depending on your schedule, I always try to play with my kids earlier in the day. Kids hate waiting, especially for our attention. So instead of making them more and more frustrated as you make just one more conference call, try to give them the attention they need at the start of the day and get them moving with fresh air and exercise. If possible, early on, you could take a walk outside with your kids first thing in the morning when you wake up. You could take a little coffee break out on the porch with them or read a book with them in the morning. And that way, when you finally do need to sit down and hammer out some tasks, they won't be so antsy and you'll be able to fully concentrate. 

The other thing that I've done with my partner is to try to consider an alternative schedule for some parts of the pandemic and for some of the distance learning components of the past couple years. So especially when we were working from home, maybe I would take the 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM shift with the kids. And then I would “go to work” in my home office. And then dad would work 2:00 to 8:00 PM. Or we'd divide up the day and think about working in two-hour shifts. 

And then maybe most important is designating different areas of the house that are workspaces and that are play spaces or communal spaces. So if you are a parent who's working from home, have some signage that has a red stop sign and maybe says, “This is an office space” or a cut out of your hand on the office store. That can be a really clear indicator to a young child that you are in the middle of a meeting and that they are not supposed to enter at that time. They still might, but that can be really helpful if you're kind of out of sight outta mind and you've closed the door and put this sign. That can be extremely helpful to a young child. As long as, of course, they're safe and they're distracted with something that's gonna be safe and they're not gonna hurt themselves. 

Similarly for kids, if they're working from home, making their own specific learning space or learning corner can be really helpful. So remove a lot of distractions, allow them to pick out maybe some colored folders or some colored pencils that they can use there, and try to make it so that it feels homey. That can be really helpful. Maybe they can make a little sign that says it's their office. That allows them to kind of know that when I'm in this spot, I'm supposed to be focused and learning. 

And then the other thing I would say is to set up your child for success. You know, if you have a really young child, they're probably not gonna be able to do much on their own. You're gonna have to set up activities for them. So for my youngest child, when I'm in meetings, sometimes I will go through and make a little scavenger hunt for her and I'll put five different types of games or different types of toys in different areas. And I label them because she can read numbers. So we'll do one through five and she has to find them as I'm in the meeting. And that takes up some time. 

For an older child ahead of time, you could brainstorm with them. What are 10 or 20 activities they could be doing? You could put that up on the refrigerator so that when you're in a meeting, they can go to that when they're bored, before they come to you for extra assistance, unless they are hurt or it's a safety issue. 

And then similarly, I try to plan ahead for food because a hangry child is no good when you're trying to have a meeting. So I cut up fruits and veggies. I put them into little containers and they're called meeting snacks that are in the fridge. I also will make little mini quesadillas with protein and veggies and set them out right before the meeting starts. So that way, again, it's kind of buying me five to 10 minutes.

But I think maybe one of the most important things that I can tell you is what I said at the beginning: it really is buying time. And so if you CAN do it without using screen time, if your kids aren't doing their own virtual school, if you CAN do it with healthy snacks and activities with toys, amazing. Sometimes, though, when you're in a very important meeting, if you need to do it with screen time, that is okay! Give yourself a break mama. Just know, you're really gonna have to cut down on screen time at other times or give them a lot of special invested you-time before or at the end of those activities.

Finally, whether your child is in school or your child is at home and doing distance learning with you, please give yourself grace. We all have to accept that when we are trying to do two jobs simultaneously, we are bound to sometimes be less than perfect at both of them. In fact, we will be a lot of the time. And so my number one self-care ritual is just to take breaks with and without my kids. And definitely when you are doing homeschooling or distance learning with your kids, that is not a time to add more to your proverbial plate. The errands, the vacuuming, the toothpaste you still need to buy. It can all wait. 

If you are feeling burnt out, the thing to do is not to add more work. The thing to do is to add less work, to take away. So if you were in a season where you are really, really juggling and you have no control over it, be kind to yourself and see where you can limit any other expenditures of your time or of your physical or mental energy.