Mindset

Getting Kids Dressed Without Fighting

June 19, 2020 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

We have this weird situation going on at my house right now. My youngest daughter wears the same outfit for days on end. She picks what she wants to wear and she’ll wear it all day, all night, and all the next day. Sometimes she even puts the same clothes back on again after she takes a bath.

My middle daughter, on the other hand, wears five outfits worth of clothing in one day. She changes her clothes all the time, for reasons that are all her own. And if she wears something for 5 minutes, she puts it in the hamper.

My oldest daughter is somewhere in between. She normally wears pajamas to bed, but sometimes she leaves those pajamas on for days. And I’m talking fleece long pajamas and it’s summer.

Here’s how this happened.

I used to have this idea that they had to wear pajamas every night. They had to change their clothes every day. I wanted them to look as cute as other kids that wear adorable boutique clothing with matching accessories, even though we didn’t have any of that stuff.

When they were babies we got them dressed. As they got older, we would start fighting about their clothes. They didn’t want to change. They didn’t like what we picked out. They didn’t like how things fit. We didn’t think it was appropriate for the weather. It would take forever to find something they would agree to.

But the struggle around getting them dressed wasn’t really the problem.

The real problem and the reason we were fighting is because I was letting other people’s rules dictate how I showed up as a mom, when it wasn’t even important to me.

I don’t care whether or not they wears pajamas. I don’t care if they wear the same clothes for more than one day. I wear the same clothes two days in a row all the time, so obviously I think that’s acceptable.

I decided what my standard is (they decide what to wear) and let the rest go. Now they wear what they want, when they want. We don’t fight about it and I don’t worry about what other people think about it. In fact, it’s made laundry even easier.

If getting your kids dressed is a battle, think about whether nor not it’s worth it to you.

Are you ready to figure out your own standards and let all the other rules in your head go? I can help you with that. It starts with one conversation. You tell me your struggles and how you want things to be, I’ll tell you what the real issue is and how you can get past it. Click here to book your free call.

Sometime I Need to Give Myself a Time Out

March 14, 2019 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Mommy Time Out - Just Getting Things Done

Do you ever have one of those days where your kids are all up in your space and you can’t even sit down without one of them climbing on you or stepping on you? They follow you into the bathroom even when you try to shut the door. They ask for things non-stop. By the time you start working on getting the first thing they asked for, they’ve already asked for two other things?

Yeah, me too.

They’re the days that try my patience. I get frustrated and it just keeps building and building until I am about to blow. And then I do.

I lose it with my kids and yell at them.

It’s so weird how the people we love the most are also the ones that see this side of us that most people never even see. I mean, my kids are the last people I want to treat this way. I love and respect them.

But they’re family and they know how to push my buttons.

I’m not saying they do it on purpose. I’m not saying it’s their fault if I lose my cool. I’m not even saying it’s ok to lose my cool or yell at my kids the way I have.

It’s not ok for me.

That’s why I’ve been working so hard on my parenting skills – my main goal is to keep calm and not lose my sh*t with my kids.

But here’s the thing. No matter what parenting choices I’m making, I have to pay attention to how I’m feeling. When I realize I’m starting to get frustrated is when I need to do something about it. I don’t have to wait to ask for help.

It’s hard though to recognize when I’m getting frustrated and take action about that.

It’s so much easier to see when it’s happening to my husband. I can see that he’s getting frustrated, I can hear the way he’s talking. I know that’s not how he would normally respond. When it’s my own feelings and emotions, it’s hard to see it that way. Luckily I get to practice all the time.

My parenting coach and mentor, Ann Kaplan, says that we can remove the child, the object or ourselves – and when I’m the one that’s frustrated is usually when I have to remove myself.

I give myself a time out.

Seriously. Sometimes I just need a few minutes by myself to calm down, and I take them. I tell the kids, “I’m getting really frustrated and I need some time to myself.”

Whether I have to ask someone to watch them for a few minutes or I just go into another room. I take the time I need to calm down and then I can deal with the situation the way I want to. Without losing my cool.

Of course there are days where just a few minutes don’t cut it. I might be back to ok in a few minutes, but then need more time later. Or I might just need more than a few minutes. I figure out how to make it happen.

Mommy time outs are just one more tool in my parenting arsenal, but they are an important one, because sometimes the kids aren’t the problem.

Agree or Disagree – Kendra Hennessy says to Take a Chill Pill

January 22, 2019 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Kendra Hennessy of Mother Like a Boss has a podcast episode called Take a chill pill. In the episode she says, of course, that we all need to take a chill pill. We need to chill out our egos because we’re letting them run the show. Our egos are always complaining, telling us what we’re doing is wrong and forcing us to worry about things we don’t need to worry about.

I don’t know about all that. I mean, I had to look up ego to even try to wrap my head around it. According to google, our ego is our sense of self-esteem or self-importance, by the way.

She also said we’re all so worried about how people will perceive us and how we show up, and I definitely do those things. If I had to say it in my own words, I guess I would say we have to stop taking ourselves so seriously. And also, other people don’t notice what you do as much as you think they do. We’re all too busy thinking about ourselves.

What works for Kendra is to take action. She said you can sit down and answer these questions:

What are you worried about?
What can you change?

Get it out of your head and let go of the stuff you can’t change and do something about the stuff you can change so you can enjoy what’s surrounding you right now.

(She goes into a lot more detail on control in Episode 103, Letting go of the need to control)

Do you agree or disagree?

I agree that if you feel that way, getting it all out of your head and onto paper so you can determine what things are out of your control and let go of those, and which things you can do something about is a good thing.

Body Image – What Message Are We Sending Our Kids

January 14, 2019 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

I have 3 daughters and I want to raise them to love their bodies. I want them to have a healthy body image. I look at them and I think they’re beautiful. But I also think they’re going to be built like me. I mean, my oldest is only 5 so who knows. But the thing is, I can’t imagine ever thinking they aren’t beautiful, even if they are built like me.

I feel pretty certain that my mom looks at me and thinks I’m beautiful. No matter what.

So why don’t I feel that way myself?

I went through this phase where I was watching a lot of stand-up comedy and there’s a lot of material out there about women’s bodies. I mean, I know what goes on in my own head about my body, I’ve talked about it before. Recently I was at an event, sitting around a table with a group of women I didn’t know and the topic of body image came up. Everyone had something they didn’t like about their bodies. Everyone.

Why do we all have something we don’t like about our bodies???

I don’t have an answer.

I know that I have a strong tendency to compare myself with other women. Just the other day, we went to a thing at my daughter’s new school. I was standing around a playground with tons of other moms and I felt like it was some kind of audition. And the really sad thing is, I was so jealous of the women that looked really good that things like “Oh, she thinks she’s so hot. She’s too good for us so she’s just looking at her phone.” were going through my head.

What?!?

On the one hand I want women to feel good about themselves and take care of themselves in a way that shows it. On the other hand, if someone looks “too good” it makes me mad because I don’t feel like I look that good.

There’s no way to win.

I mean, it’s not a game. I know I’m a competitive person, but I am not in competition with these women, so why do I feel that way?

Again, I don’t know.

I know that the images we see in the media, in movies are not that realistic. I know that women have a million choices to make about how they look. Where they get their hair cut, how they style it, what products they use, where they buy their makeup, how they apply it, what kind of clothes they wear and on and on.

And somehow we all sit here thinking “I wish I had her _____”. Meanwhile she’s sitting there thinking the same thing about someone else.

We are all beautiful.

It’s not about our waist size or our cup size or whatever size you’re worried about. It’s not even about the clothes or the makeup you wear. It’s more than that.

But it’s so hard to accept that in real life.

It doesn’t have to be a comparison. We can each be beautiful in our own right.

Maybe that’s the problem, the comparison? Or is it that I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin? Why do I feel like something about me needs to be different for me to be beautiful?

My husband loves the roundness in my belly that comes from having 3 kids in the last 5 years. He doesn’t ever criticize my body, he only says positive things about it.

I would never criticize my daughters’ bodies.

So maybe it’s time to stop criticizing mine.

I try to tell myself that I’ve grown, birthed and fed 3 humans with this body. That’s crazy! But it doesn’t really help change how I feel about it.

I still sometimes wish it were different.

But now instead of trying to change my body, I’m trying to change my thoughts.

Melissa Camara Wilkins wrote a post she called What I Want My Children to Know About Body Image and her message is, your body doesn’t need to be bigger or smaller it just needs to be your own. That in our culture there seems to be one type of body that’s “best” and everyone should look like that.

But that’s not how bodies work. We have different hair and eye color. We have different size feet.

She says there is no best. “We aren’t all supposed to be the SAME. We’re all supposed to be OURSELVES.”

She also talks about noticing our feelings and asking if they match what we believe. Even just writing it down makes so much sense – of course there is no best and we aren’t all supposed to be the same. So when I notice myself having these feelings of not measuring up to someone else, I’ll just have to remind myself that we aren’t meant to be the same and neither one is best.

I want my message to my children to be that their bodies are just as they are meant to be too. It all starts with me though. I have to lead by example. So I will do my best. For me and my daughters.

Flying Alone with Three Kids 5 and Under

December 28, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Can you travel alone with three kids and not cry?

Spoiler Alert: It’s possible.

Flying Alone with Three Kids 5 and Under - Just Getting Things Done

When we came to visit Michigan in August, we tried something new –

I flew alone with the 3 girls and my husband flew out two days later.

People thought I was crazy.

I had a team meeting at work the day before I left and told them I was travelling alone with our 3 children 5 and under. They said things like,

He’s going to owe you.”

My husband’s coworkers said I was a “saint.”

I thought it was weird people would have that reaction to it. I mean, they’re my kids why wouldn’t I go somewhere with them?

We were going to visit my mom so it wasn’t like I’d have no help once I got there and we had a direct flight.

In fact, usually my husband is the one that does stuff alone with them. For him it’s not a big deal. He just hops in the car and goes. He took our two girls on a road trip by himself (when we only had two).

Despite what everyone else thought about it, I was excited because I wanted to do it.

Stay at Home Mom – Is It Really Freedom?

November 28, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

For the first two weeks after I quit my job and we moved, I didn’t have any commitments. My mom would call up and we would decide what we wanted to do, and I would load the three kids up in the car and we would go do whatever I wanted.

It was great.

We got to see my mom every day or every other day. It felt great to decide what I wanted to do with my days.

This is what I pictured it looking like.

This was the freedom I was looking for when I quit my job!

Then we finished getting our 5 year old enrolled in kindergarten and they were ready for her to start and I was like

“Now I have to be at school at 8:20 and 3:40 every day?!? What the hell?”

I mean, we’re a short walk from the school, but still,

I didn’t like the idea of having to be at a certain place at a certain time twice a day every day.

We had also talked about putting our 3 year old in preschool (at the same school as the kindergartner). I made the phone calls to get it set up and then started questioning that too.

“Do I really want to have commitments on Tuesday and Thursday mornings too? If we do swim lessons or something, that only leaves two free mornings a week…That’s not enough free time.”

I didn’t really want to put her in preschool because I liked having all of our mornings free. I mean, preschool’s only for two and a half hours, and then I’ll have to be at school 4 times on those days. I can’t leave the baby with my husband 4 times in one day. He has to actually get work done. So that means I’ll have to take the baby with me at least 2 of the 4 times…

I enrolled her in preschool anyway.

Maybe because they want her to start after the holidays, so I haven’t really had to face up to it yet.

But it has made me wonder, am I thinking about freedom wrong?

I thought freedom mean that you have “free time” all the time but alas, it does not.

Maybe freedom means having the freedom to choose whether or not to put her in preschool. Or even that 2 half days of preschool are something we can do because we don’t need her in full time care.

Is it the freedom to decide what I want to do with my time, not just in the moment but ahead of time?

The freedom to schedule things during the day? Or even at 5:00?

I never even considered doing activities at those times before. Well, I did consider doing them but never did.

My oldest wanted to do dance lessons and I looked into it and never found a time that worked for us. Which is to say, I didn’t want to make any of those times work for us because it was just too much for me. Our days were already spoken for and we didn’t have room for anything else.

But now I do have the time and I find I’m still resisting making new commitments.

Even when I know that having “free time” all the time is not a good thing for me – because I will just sit around watching tv or reading (when the kids aren’t awake of course).

Forget about cleaning the house. I may pick up, but I’m not going to be accomplishing grand things while the kids are napping because in my free time I just want to relax.

Most of that “free time” I talked about before is actually time where I’m taking care of my children. Which also means that we can do what we want as long as we’re home by noon, or maybe 12:30 at the latest because my kids nap.

I have to adjust my idea of freedom.

It’s not the freedom to do what I want whenever I want with no responsibilities. I’m still married. I still have kids. I still have responsibilities in our home. I also still want to do things that are just for me. So I’m still working on the idea that I can have time commitments and still have freedom.

It’s the freedom of choice.

I get to choose how I spend my time and how my children spend theirs.

I have to make choices for myself and my kids. This is new for me. Defaulting to watching Netflix (thanks Offspring) is still a choice, but not a good one. I’m working on making better choices about how we spend our time, but I think it’s going to take awhile.

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