 Growing up I spent many days, nights and weekends on a softball field. Before every game, the teams would line up along the baseline and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and the Little League Pledge. All these years later, I’m sure that I could ask any of my former teammates and they would all remember the words:
I trust in God, I love my country and will respect its laws I will play fair, and strive to win But win or lose, I will always do my best. When you recite something over and over again, from the age of 9 – 18, the words blend together and become routine. These days, I still spend a lot of my time at a softball or baseball field, but now I’m on the other side of the fence. A couple seasons ago, my daughter's team lost in the semi-finals. They battled until the very last out and ended up losing 4-3, a score that rarely happens in 10 and under softball. As they stood along the baseline to receive their participation medals, a few of the girls fought back tears. My daughter however, stood proudly, not a tear in sight. After the ceremony, she consoled her teammates and that is when her own tears started. She was sad that they were sad. She has always been our empathetic heart, always feeling the emotions of her friends ever since she was a baby at daycare. Now on the softball field it’s no different. In the scenario above, I would have been one the girls with tears of disappointment of losing. In talking with a good friend about our softball days, she described me as “intense”, which I can’t deny. In hindsight, I would have had more fun if I could have dialed it back and spent more energy enjoying playing the game. I have been very aware of this from the first day my kids began to play. I have tried hard not to reflect my former intensity on my daughter. I’ve let her set the tone for her experience. This particular season started with her getting hurt during her first practice. It would have been easy for her to give up and quit, but she showed her toughness and kept going. She never got discouraged when she struggled with her hitting. She stepped into the batter’s box and approached every pitch with the optimism that she could do this. She was a great teammate, always cheering, always friendly and always smiling. Most important, she had fun. Around this time, I watched an interview with Dr. Shefali Tsabary where she talked about her book “The Conscious Parent”. One of the quotes from the interview was “Our children are showing us a mirror to our undeveloped self.” She goes on to say explain how traditionally the parental role focuses on the parent teaching the child, but in reality, it is the child that teaches the parent. It would have been “normal” for me as a parent to try to create a “mini me” on the field. I could have taught her about softball based on my experience, instilling in her the drive to practice hard and see success in the number of wins. If I had pushed her to do things “my” way, things would have been much different. I know my daughter would not have responded to that kind of pressure. It would not have been true to who she is. By allowing her to create her own softball experience, with her own motivation, she has had developed her own love of the game, where she has fun playing, improves a little every year and has developed great relationships with her teammates. Before her games, they don't recite the Little League Pledge, but it turns out she doesn’t have to, “Win or lose, I will always do my best” comes naturally to her and I couldn’t be more proud. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Are you working through a similar parenting struggle? My new course was made just for you! Details are coming soon, but if you want the inside scoop, PM me or send me an email at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and I’ll give you a sneak peek!
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 It’s hard to believe we are in the last weeks of another school year. Usually this is the time of year when two things happen. First, we start to think about how fast time is going and how impossible it seems that another year is almost over. Second, there is the mad scramble for end of the year projects, testing and activities.
Amongst the mad scramble is homework, a topic that has been the center of much debate over the last few years. We’ve been fortunate to be in schools where the homework is reasonable for the grade level. The homework stresses in our household typically come when we have after school activities and need to get creative to find time to get it done. I’ve heard the horror stories where elementary school kids have an hour or more of homework a night and high school kids have three hours or more. I’ve talked to parents where their older children are so anxious they can’t eat or where the pressure has become so great, their grades start to slide. This week I also heard about a class on the opposite end of the spectrum, where a first-grade parent complained there was too much homework, so the teacher canceled all homework for the rest of the year. There is an active debate over the importance, relevance and effectiveness of homework. Google the topic and you will see many articles written supporting both sides of the debate. What I think is missing from the articles and research that I read is the fact that every child learns differently. The research supports what is best for the whole, but it is our job as parents to identify what works best for our child. It’s easy for us to operate from a place of how we think it should be or how we think they should work best, but have we tuned in to see how and when our child works best? If there is resistance, have we looked to see if it’s about the content or is it more about the timing? If it is truly too much for your child, have you taken reached out to the teacher to see if there are other options? This debate will go on for years to come. It’s also likely that with the introduction of Common Core, STEM based learning techniques and gamification, the landscape of learning will continue change and evolve. What will not change is our responsibility to support our children. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Want to learn more about my upcoming course and the early bird discount for readers of the blog? PM me or send me an email at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and I’ll give you all the details!  As I sit here typing, it’s 5:30 am. I am the only one awake. The house is still yet full of sounds. There is the hum of the refrigerator, the buzz of the kitchen lights that are barely turned on and the gurgling of the fountain in the entry. Outside it is dark, yet there is a bird loudly chirping in the backyard. And last, but not least, there is the nonstop chatter in my head trying to focus my thoughts on this blog, while constantly being interrupted with to dos for the day (note to self: cancel that online membership). We all know it’s ‘easy’ to listen to the endless commentary running through our head, scheduling our day and reacting to all that is around us. But, how often do we clear all of that away, so we can listen to what we really need?
This winter’s flu was a bad one. People I know were sick for a week (or more) at a time, only to get better and then be hit by another strain a week or two later. Of course, when you have little ones it’s easy to feel like you are on a carousel passing it around and around. It gets to the point that someone is always coming down with something, or recovering, or getting sick again. Then there are those of us who get sick when we go on vacation? We push so hard all the time that once we give ourselves the chance to relax, our bodies are so depleted we instantly get sick. What happens in those days leading up to getting sick? Are we listening to our body? If we are listening, it gives us subtle clues that we are tired, getting run down and not eating properly. We ignore the signs because x, y, z must get done. We push on and push through and then pay the price days later when we are not feeling well. Why is it so hard to listen? I sit in so many meetings every week where very few people are truly listening to each other. It’s so much easier not to listen, to respond and keep talking until you’ve said all that you needed to say. In an earlier blog, I’ve shared that after about thirty seconds people stop listening to what you are saying and are already formulating a response in their head. People are so concerned with responding that they stop listening. The same can be said for our bodies. Our bodies talk to us all the time, but we are too busy responding to everything around us that we don’t listen. Outside, my little bird friend is no longer chirping. It now seems very quiet. Does that mean there is nothing left to hear? On the contrary, now the true listening can begin. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Want to learn more about my upcoming course and the early bird discount for readers of the blog? PM me or send me an email at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and I’ll give you all the details!  I had today’s blog almost done. All I needed to do was read through it, make a few edits and it was ready to post. But I can’t post that one today. Instead I’m sitting in the bathroom of a hotel in Austin while my friends sleep, writing a new post because this topic seemed more important.
It’s April, where is the Joy? It’s been a few months since we talked about it. Christmas seems like a distant memory. All the decorations are put away and you have to look a little harder to find Joy as you go about your day. Has it been out of sight, out of mind for you? Have you gotten wrapped up in the hustle of everyday life? Have you been looking for Joy? Where is the Joy? I found it last night. Joy is laughing with lifelong friends until you cry. Joy is seeing your friend SO happy, that their happiness rubs off on you. You are happy simply because you can see they are so happy. Joy is still all around us, it’s just that sometimes we just need a reminder to look for it. I hope ya’ll have a joyFULL day! Kacey Want to learn more about my upcoming course and the early bird discount for readers of the blog? PM me or send me an email at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and I’ll give you all the details!  Thank you all for such an awesome response to last week’s blog and reassuring me that I am still cool. This topic struck a chord with so many readers. I had some great conversations with many of you throughout the week. In our Facebook Group, Balanced Heart Moms (connect with us if you haven’t already), so many of you shared your experiences and challenges. We learn so much from each other and today I’m going to go a little deeper into a couple of the questions and topics that were raised.
One of the questions was: what happened in the end? I let her stay home, while her brother and I continued with the plans to go to the mall. I think she was a little surprised that I didn’t push her more to come with us. I didn’t push her because I could tell this was based on her peers would think if they saw her. I knew there was no way I was going to convince her to see this situation differently, so I didn’t try. What helped me the most was staying calm and not letting my emotions (disappointment, frustration) get the best of me. It would have been easy to get worked up and react to her sudden decision that she didn’t want to go, especially since we had been planning it all day. However, I’ve been working really hard not react emotionally. Yes, it’s work. Reactions are automatic and retraining your brain (and your mouth) to do things differently is not easy. It takes effort. As parents, I think that we think we are just supposed to automatically know how to do things and to admit that somethings take work somehow makes us a bad parent. But when you read that statement you know it’s not true. We can all get better and do better at “being a parent” and to do that we must put in the work. Another great point that came up in our FB group was that teens and pre-teens are going through so many physical changes during this period that their brain chemistry is literally altered. The changes in their brain make it physically impossible for them to think and act rationally at certain times. One mom shared that she and her husband have a hand signal they use to remind each other when their teen is not thinking rationally. We can actually apply this to our children at all ages. Too often we try to reason with a child who is over tired or hungry or just in a space where they are at the end of their rope (usually at the grocery store or any other shopping experience). If we can recognize they are at their own point of no return, we can instantly change our mindset. Instead of approaching them with frustration and try to “fix” the situation, we can give them the compassion they need to get through it. You may need to go back to them to discuss the behavior later, but recognizing they are incapable of rational thought in that moment, will save you hours of frustration. The last common topic of discussion was around how hard it is to watch our relationship with our kids change. Those looks our kids give us when we say something “embarrassing” in public or when we show them too much affection. It’s easy as a parent to feel hurt in these situations when it appears to us that our child is pushing us away. The important thing to remember is that they are not trying to hurt us, we cannot take it personally. (See above comments about keeping our emotional reaction in check.) We know our kids are growing up and changing, but so are we. We are different too. Have you thought about that? Think about your lifestyle, your likes and dislikes, your definition of fun before kids and now after. It’s different, right? We have changed too, we are not the same people we were when they were babies. So, we’re both changing and in turn our relationship will change too. The definition of what it means to be our “child” is changing. It’s confusing and complicated and that’s how the parents feel! Think about how confusing it is from our kid’s perspective. If only there was an Instruction book or Parent Handbook if you will, to help us through……..well, it’s coming! I’m putting the finishing touches on my first online course: A Parent’s Guide to Raising a Pre-Teen: Connecting through Communication. Stay tuned for more details in the upcoming weeks, but if you can’t wait and want a sneak peak, let me know. In the meantime, for all my fellow cool parents out there, hang in there, they won’t be preteens (or teens) forever. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Want to learn more about my upcoming course and the early bird discount for readers of the blog? PM me or send me an email at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and I’ll give you all the details! |
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AuthorI started writing this blog because I wanted to have deeper conversations beyond "How are you?", "Busy", with other parents. Over the years I've shared personal stories, articles, authors and topics to facilitate conversations with parents about the joys and the challenges of parenting. |
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© 2021 Balanced Heart Coaching
Disclaimer: I may receive affiliate compensation from the resources and websites mentioned on this website.
© 2021 Balanced Heart Coaching