I am writing this at the end of our first week of summer and we are starting to get into our rhythm. My kids, husband, and I had a summer planning meeting (as mentioned in a recent podcast episode) to map out what “regular” weekdays would look like and our goals for the summer. Our goals are: 1) To be kind (can I emphasize this with my font anymore? Ahem.); and 2) Tidy your things each day. My own personal goal is to get my kids to do more for themselves and shift out of my “I have to do everything for everyone” mindset. Here is how I plan to achieve this.

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I have become that person, the person who when chatting with friends about life happenings now says, “well my therapist said”. I try to only use this to describe my own stuff, but I can’t help it if she is good. And knows things. Because she is disarmingly good and knows a lot of things and after every session I have learned something new about myself and have a thing to work on. Allow me to share how I got here.

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Summer is coming and along with planning vacations and camps, comes the adventure of also figuring out, “how can I work / get things done with the kids home all day?”. I don’t need full time childcare, but I do still need set time each week to work (uninterrupted). In the spirit of building independence (and moving up a parenting level) I have an idea for a new venture: Camp Big Brother. Here is what I have in mind and how I devised this plan.

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Usually on the days we record a podcast episode I like to share the topic and speaker with my family at dinner that night. It's fun to see what gets interest and what gets an eye roll. The last episode we recorded was about supporting kids to have healthy relationships with Joe Myers from Crime Victim’s Center (the episode is out on March 28th, after this blog post comes out–you can find it here to listen once it is live!). I was explaining that we talked about how to have positive relationships and friendships, and my son, a 3rd grader, asked, “Well, you know who my crush is right?”

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Sometimes (ok, many times) things I learn as part of my job working in mental health and drug & alcohol prevention overlap with my personal life. The story I am sharing today (with permission) happened right after I recorded a podcast episode about the substance in question so I was able to be helpful, even if it was after the fact.

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Full transparency: I am in a post-holiday-winter-blah funk (with the added layer of covid stress). My mood is “bored and rammy yet I have no motivation to do anything”. I feel sort of…flat? I considered just putting up an image for this blog post that was a sign like the ones in store windows that show the time a shopkeeper will return, and instead have it display, “Back in…February!”

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My goal to end 2021 is to somehow miraculously pair rest and quiet with what some would argue is the busiest time of year. How, you may ask, did I come to make this my goal to achieve over the next few weeks?

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I consume a good bit (some may say an obscene amount) of parenting content. Many of the tips and tricks I read and listen to have similar themes, but oftentimes I find myself in situations where I am doing “the thing”, and it just doesn’t work. Like at all. Maybe this has happened to you? However, last weekend I did “the thing” and it actually worked. In real life. With my kid. Finally! Here’s the story:

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The other night my daughter and I were preparing to hang out and watch a show of her choosing while my husband and son were out at an activity. The whole house and entertainment selection to ourselves! She chose to watch a beloved series featuring a family of pigs. In the episode the family was tending their garden of vegetables, and the kids helped the grandparents (grandpigs?) prep everything for a salad. As I watched I was thinking to myself, “oh this is cool they are showing ways to try new healthy foods,” observing the plot of the story.

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You heard it here first: CTC will soon be launching a podcast! In a way--yes, cliche I know, who doesn’t have a podcast nowadays--but we are excited to offer simple, quick tips for parents on a variety of topics from the local experts that are also our community partners. But this post isn't really about the podcast...stay with me.

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Back to school is right around the corner and every year the fall brings a sense of new beginnings and excitement, but also stress about the unknowns...though especially this year (similar to last) that unknown factor is climbing a little every day (ahem, looking at you Delta doom). We are also mere weeks away from getting out of “summer mode” and into “school mode” where everyone needs to be real functioning people out the door by 8:15am.

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We have all seen those memes of “How it started vs how it’s going”, right? I figured since we are at the halfway point of the summer I would check in on my progress with my intention to be more present with my kids from our May blog post. So far I would give myself a “B-” if asked for a letter grade. Some days we (oftentimes me) just can’t seem to get it together. I am working on saying, “it’s ok, we can reset and try again tomorrow”. Other days we have planned things to do together, or time set aside, and I feel like, “ok, I am doing this!” I thought it might be helpful to share a few things that I feel are going well:

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The other day I was in my basement exercising while my kids were upstairs making noise and jumping around, from what I could hear, but overall playing nicely together. I also heard repeated singing of songs from the soundtrack of a musical we recently watched that they loved (and had re-watched many times).

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As we inch closer to the summer with each passing day, I find myself caught between two schools of thought: the first is--yay, no more virtual school work to complete, we will have open days to frolic and play! The second is--open days to frolic and play and more (more!) togetherness… yikes! I am starting to map out the summer and plug in activities and travel into the calendar, but there are still many days of “what are we doing today?” ahead of me.

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I’ve been talking to my kids about the harms of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs on the developing brain and about how it’s very different for a young person to drink or use drugs than it is for an adult. Studies show that kids who believe it’s risky to use drugs and alcohol are less likely to use, and kids who know that their parents don’t approve of them drinking, smoking and using drugs are far less likely to use.

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Welcome to Parent2Parent, a space where Downingtown area parents can find support, information, and guidance to empower their youth to make positive choices and strengthen their families. Our kids are under more and more pressure to succeed, so it is understandable that they may feel overwhelmed and stressed—as parents we can feel overwhelmed too! But you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

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