Becoming a better parent in 2022
It's the time for new year resolutions that usually revolve around being healthier, more productive, or achieving this or that. But what about improving in the area that is MOST important to you?
Read MoreHelping your child cope with grief
Tragedy, loss, suffering...all things we hope to shield our children from. But, inevitably, grief comes into our lives and our children's lives. How can we best support, help, and guide them through their grief? What coping strategies can we teach them?
In today's episode, I share 6 things that we, as parents, can do to help our children navigate through their grief.
Read MoreTransitioning from Senior in high school to 1st year University / College
In today’s episode, Liz shares her top 8 tips that helped her transition from being a senior in high school to a freshman in University / College. Then Chris & I share our 5 tips specifically for Parents. Tips to help US with the transition and ways to stay connected in a healthy and supportive way!
Read MorePuberty and our tweens
In today's episode, Stephanie chats with Amy Hudgens, the founder of the Nourished Girls Project about tween health. Amy shares her 3 step guide to helping our girls navigate this time of immense change and for some, unsettling and uncertain time. From healthy bodies to healthy minds to encouraging our girls to always be unapologetically themselves, Stephanie and Amy discuss how we as parents can be there to guide and support our girls and ensure we do so in a nourishing way.
Read MoreNever say this to your child!
The fundamental message behind Lazy parenting has always been that we need to build a strong relationship with our children built on mutual respect. I strongly believe that it is impossible to raise healthy, happy, independent, empathetic young adults if our relationship with them doesn’t have this strong foundation. When our children don’t trust us, they don’t respect us. And that trust comes slowly, over time by us proving to our child that we are there for them in the good and bad times and that we always have their best interest at top of mind. Trust takes years to build but only an instant to break. And this goes both ways...it’s a message our kids need to understand, especially as they begin to gain independence and start to make their own decisions. They need to understand that when they break our trust through lies or deceit, it will take time to earn that trust back.
Now, understanding this and committing to this as the basis of all our parenting brings a new way of looking at our child’s behaviour. It means that we always have to look at our child’s behaviour from their perspective, from a lens of trying to understand the where and why the behaviour is coming from. And, being honest with ourselves that it is often our own constructs, our own hangups, our own issues from our own childhood that get in the way of this.
One of the times we often respond in a way that is not at all helpful is when our children are angry, upset, or crying and we say the words…
Read MoreThe most important parenting rule!
Today’s podcast is an important one. I am going to share my number one parenting rule/tip/strategy for all parents, regardless of how old your children are. It is a tip that was shared with me long before I had kids and it stuck with me. Maybe my years of coaching and teaching helped give me some experience with this strategy before I had my own kids, but gosh kids are cute and their ability to get you to sway from this rule is sometimes downright magical…
This rule we are going to talk about today, this strategy/tip/rule is one that I believe to rank up there as one of the most important ones! It’s a rule that we all could use a refresher on. If you are like me, you likely slip a little bit once and a while and if you don’t catch it early on it can turn from a tiny snowball into an avalanche of whining, constant negotiations, yelling, screaming, anger and frustration.
The basis of this rule can be summed up in the following quote:
“People treat you only one way — the way you let them!”
Now think about your kids, how do they treat you? Do you have little ones who ask over and over again for something you’ve said no to until you finally say yes? Do they “ignore” you when you ask them to stop playing video games or watching TV to do something you’ve asked (for the zillionth time)? Do they roll their eyes at you when you ask how their day was? Do they use foul language or call you names, tell you they hate you?
If you answered yes to any of these things, I want you to take a moment and think about how you got to this place? How did you lose control and lose their respect? Because that’s what has happened. You have allowed your child to believe that THEY are in control and that they can have what they want when they want it. You have lost your position as the one who sets the expectations around the behavior in your house and I will venture to say that you have lost their respect.
Listen in today and learn the 4 steps to getting back on track and gaining the respect of your children. Change is possible and it can happen!
Read MoreNow is the Time to Become the Very Best Version of YOU | #27
Today’s podcast is specifically geared for moms whose little ones are now a bit older and who are finding that they have a little bit more free time in their day. It’s for moms who have been struggling with their habits, their health, their fitness, and or their overall mood and wellbeing.
Today I am sharing my own story of health and wellness that I embarked on, way back when Covid first hit and I had to make a pivot in my business that ultimately was the best thing to happen to me and my health. I unpack all the decisions I made, all the pieces of the puzzle that helped me stay on this journey for the past 237 days, and helped me finish and complete the #75hard challenge.
If your children are still small, I encourage you to listen in and see if there are some takeaways and small steps that you CAN implement into your life to help you manage your stress, your emotional eating, your tense relationships, and the chaos that you might be living in each and every day.
Today’s episode is full of tips and tricks and takeaways that you can take, use, and implement today. I promise, that if you take that very first, small step to adding something into your day (or taking something out of your day) it will be the catalyst, the spark, that can help you achieve everlasting change.
Listen to Andy Frisella’s podcast #14 HERE
Fostering Resiliency in our Children so They Know They Can Do Hard Things
We are in a hard season. There is no doubt about it. And, depending on where you are living --- the uncertainty of the election happening right now in the US is just one more pile of bricks loaded onto your back making the weight of motherhood, parenting, living….that much harder.
I talk often about how we as the parents HAVE TO work on ourselves so that we can become the best, the strongest, the most resilient version of ourselves so that we can be the model to which our children look.
I believe the best way to help our children through these times is to shape the lessons they are going through. To do this, we have to INTENTIONALLY manage our own feelings and actions knowing that they are what our children are seeing. They are looking to us to see how they should be feeling.
Read MoreTurn your child’s behavior around before 2021 | #26
In today’s episode, I share 10 steps you can take TODAY that will help get your family and relationship with your kids back on track so that 2021 is better than today. I promise, that if you follow the steps outlined that you will see a dramatic improvement in your child’s behavior.
Read MoreYou NEED to Listen to These Episodes TODAY! | #25
WOW - Episode 25! We have made it to 25 consecutive weeks of a podcast! This was one of the goals that I set out for myself back in the Fall and I am so proud to have made it to the end of season one. I have decided to look back over the past 25 weeks and pick out the TOP 5 downloaded episodes and share a little about each of them and my thoughts on why they have been the most popular.
Here are the links to all of them!
TOP 5 DOWNLOADED EPISODES:
The Parenting PIVOT - What Really Matters to Your Family? | #24
Here we are - week TEN!
Let’s take a moment to think; what did our lives look like 3 months ago? What were our days filled with? What were our evenings filled with? What commitments outside the home did we have? What consumed our minds and brought us stress? What about our kids? These past few months have, if nothing else, showed us that things we thought were a given, really aren’t. Never again will there be snow days in school...instead, teachers and students will head online, into their portals, and e-portfolios and learning will continue. Crazy right? Just 3 months ago, snow days meant school was shut down, no work could be done, no learning could take place, parents had to figure out how to get out of work...now, parents can work from home in a way they may have never thought possible before COVID. Students and teachers now have a way to connect and stay on track in a way that was unfathomable only a couple of months ago. So...today my question for all of us - and the topic of today’s podcast is this “What really matters to you and your family?” The world is beginning to open back up. NOW is the time to re-evaluate your pre-COVID life and compare it to your life now. What do you miss? What don’t you miss? What do you never want to go back to doing? What do you want to ensure stays protected in your life moving forward? What about your kids? Now is our chance for a big reset...a chance to redesign our lives and to craft one that holds space for those things we really cherish and are passionate about and a chance for us to keep the things we don’t like, don’t miss, don’t want back away for good.
Read MoreStop Telling Your Kids To Get Off Their Phones! |#23
WEEK NINE!
Holy crow - can you even believe it? How are you doing? Flourishing or just surviving? Or maybe somewhere in between? Let’s be honest--it’s probably been a whole lot of mess with good times and bad times, moments of peace and moments of chaos, sprinkles of sweetness and tornadoes of anger...hopefully you have found a groove with the kids and are managing your family’s day and keeping it together.
I totally get that for some of us this time home with our kids 24/7 has been very difficult while for some of us it has been pretty normal...that's the craziness of it---our families, our own temperaments, our kids’ moods, and our work situations are all sooooooo different. Yet, somehow we all have to survive, we all want to continue to raise our kids to be good humans, we all want to see our relationships stay positive, and we all want peace and quiet in our homes.
And if your partner is working outside the home, you may face the same challenges as me...a partner who comes home sees the kids (and me) on our phones and immediately assumes that we have been on them all day...and gets frustrated by it. And continues to grow increasingly frustrated as the evening progresses and he sees us stay on our phones.
On today’s podcast, I am going to take a bit of a different angle to my usual tech/phone stance… and discuss why I think that they can be incredible tools to support our kids and teens! I am going to give you 5 reasons why our kids’ phones are actually really powerful and amazing tools for them to use to help them not only survive this pandemic...but THRIVE!
Virtual Classes - Homeschooling Without Conflict | #22
WEEK EIGHT!!! Can you believe it? How are you holding up? Hopefully, where you are finally beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel! It might only be a glimmer but around the world, we are beginning to see some loosening up of the social-distancing rules. For many of us parents, it is now week 4 or 5 of virtual school/homeschooling with our kids. All across North America and possibly the world, schools are shut down to in-class lessons, and all the learning is now happening 100% through an online or a distance learning model. With 1 or 2 more months left in the school year depending on where you live, it is unlikely we will see our kids returning to regular school days until next year. In today’s episode, I am sharing 7 strategies that I encourage you to use to WIN the homeschooling game -- without yelling! Think it’s impossible? Click the audio link to listen in and implement them and see the difference for yourself.
Be The Leader Your Kids Need You To Be | #21
WOW - In real-time, I am recording this podcast at the beginning of WEEK SEVEN of self-isolation here in Vancouver, BC. The idea for this podcast came to me when I was leading an online Zoom practice for my cheer team and I asked them why they weren’t joining me for my live 8 am workouts that I was leading on our team Instagram page. Many of them told me that they just aren’t awake at 8 am. They told me they are sleeping in until at least 10 am, some till noon, and one of them told me she had just woken up (it was 4 pm!) And this blew me away! I asked what time she went to bed and she said 5 am. I’ll be honest with you...I don’t get it! I don’t understand why they are being allowed to do this. I think it is crazy! Now...you may not agree with me BUT - I firmly believe that holding our children and ESPECIALLY OUR TEENS to a schedule that resembles their regular school day is important if we want to be raising kids who can handle adversity, can see this as a time to set some goals and reach them AND if our relationship with them is going to thrive and grow instead of having one that is riddled with one argument after another until quite frankly, I believe many parents just throw their hands up and give up.
That is not how the world works. If anything, this quarantine is showing up and teaching us a whole lot about ourselves and our ability to stay positive, stay healthy, set goals, follow a plan, and do the things/have the habits that will ensure we walk out of our houses stronger, healthier, happier, more centered and knowing what we want than we were 2 months ago before this all began.
I know this one thing --- I want to walk out of this house all of that! I don’t want to look back at these weeks and think of what I could have accomplished. I don’t want to remember fighting with my kids, I don’t want to remember them locked up in their rooms all day long. I don’t want to remember yelling and fighting between the siblings or with me. And further, I want my KIDS to remember this time as an opportunity that they took advantage of. That they didn’t have a victim mentality and just waste the days away playing video games, scrolling social media, and isolating themselves away from the family. I want us as a family to look back at this time and remember the nightly game nights we played, the laughs we had, the meals we all ate together, the roasting of marshmallows we did, the long walks we took, the fitness programs we all participated in, the home projects that we all took part in to make our house cleaner, more organized and more livable. I want them to remember that we LIVED during this time. That we LOVED during this time AND that we ACCOMPLISHED the goals that we had.
In today’s episode, I share FIVE tips/strategies that we as parents need to work on if we are to be an effective and inspiring leader of our family.
Read MoreTop Family Friendly Movies | #20
These family-friendly movies are a MUST-SEE, especially during this time of self-isolation that we find ourselves in. So, grab your kids, pick a movie off this list, grab some snacks and settle in.
In today's episode, I share the MUST USE online resource to screen the movies you want to watch, my top animated and live-action movies AND a list of some movies you may not know about or have forgotten about :)
Read More10 Tips for Parenting Your Unreasonable Child
Don’t perceive your child's behavior as coming from a reasonable place - it isn’t! They aren’t reasonable beings...They do most of the behaviors that annoy us out of impulse, out of stress, out of emotion --- which are all heightened right now. And in your house, if you have a new baby, a new pet, a new parent home, new schooling schedules --- so many new things!
By definition - unreasonable means “not guided or based on good sense”. Well if there was ever a word that described children this would be it!
Read MoreNo Excuses - MAKE your Kids exercise while in self-isolation | #18
On episode #18 Host, Stephanie Kennedy reviews week 3 of self-isolation during Covid19. She discusses the one thing that has become CRYSTAL CLEAR as we navigate this new and uncharted territory of parenting through this crisis -- that our number one priority needs to be the mental health of our children. Stephanie discusses the number one way that we, as parents, can manage this; by ensuring that our children’s’ PHYSICAL HEALTH is set as the top priority. Now more than ever, behavior problems, conflict, and stress between family members for example, often stem from the basic principle that they aren’t moving their bodies enough to manage the stress, to ward off the depression, to tackle the boredom and/or the feeling like they aren’t accomplishing anything.
Read MoreA Parent's Guide to TikTok | #17
So what is this app that your child is spending hours and hours on? You have heard them talk about it, you have seen them making up dances, and you see them spending hours and hours consuming content.
So what is Tiktok? Well, it is a free social media app that lets the user create, share and watch videos -- often to soundtracks of popular music. It has over 100 million users. And, it has become so popular that there are now Tiktok “celebrities” that are making 100’s of thousands of dollars in revenue creating content.
If you are like many parents, your child is probably on this app and you probably aren’t.
In today’s episode, I share my deep dive into this app, what I learned, what I saw, what I am concerned about and what I think are things you should be sure to educate yourself about if you choose to allow your child to use it.
Read More5 Things Thank Week One of This Crisis Has Taught Me | #16
We are now one week deep into the global crisis that has descended on Canada. Yes, it has been going on for longer than that, but this week we went from a world where businesses were running as normal, people were out and about enjoying the parks, the libraries, the cafes and the movie theaters. And now, we are all sequestered in our homes, venturing out only to get groceries and to go to work. No extended family dinners, no playing on the playground, no going out for dinner or even to Starbucks. Our world has changed. Our day to day is drastically different than it was a week ago.
In today's episode, I share 5 tips or strategies that I believe to be essential things to think about as we move into the next few months. As all this craziness gets crazier, we will need to keep the physical and mental health of our families at the forefront. We need to check our own physical and mental health so we can lead our family through this challenging time and make it through to the other side stronger, closer, better connected and able to navigate whatever our new normal turns out to be.
Read MoreNo School, Now What? How to keep our kids safe & busy during this uncertain time. |#15
So here we are...in real time, smack dab in the middle of a global crisis... Well, what I hope is the middle although it might likely be just the beginning. This episode is being released on Tuesday, March 17th...here in Canada the Prime Minister just announced that our borders were closing to anyone except Canadians and US citizens...Community centers, libraries, pretty much all public places are closing their doors. I announced today that my own business, a children’s cheer & tumbling facility was suspending all programming for the next 2 weeks. All sporting events, concerts, all public gatherings have been canceled. The economy is struggling with the markets dropping “Social-distancing’ has become a common household term. People are being asked to work from home. Many people are being laid off. Schools have been canceled with no re-start date confirmed. Parents are having to think fast about how they will hunker down and survive the next few weeks, at home with all their kids….and amongst all this chaos...there are those of us who understand that we get to CHOOSE how we react to these circumstances...we can’t change what is happening, we can’t alter the course that is going to unfold...but we CAN choose how we react, how we behave in front of our children, how we control and mold the experience our children have through this time...we CAN make the best of this! In today’s episode, I am going to break down how you can not only survive through this time with your children at home but how you can THRIVE and strengthen your relationship with your kids, how you can ensure that they learn and grow and remember this time as one that was amazing - because they got to spend time with their parents in a way that they haven’t been able to before.
So what is this magic I talk about - how can you make this time with your children special and manageable and not just something you survive - barely - going to bed frustrated and angry and at wit’s end (although let’s be honest, there will be days that are harder than others). Well, as any good teacher or coach knows...the old adage “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!” is going to hold true for all the parents out there...
I have included links to websites that have 100’s of ideas...go through them and write down the ones that you think your kids would like and that would work for your family. Put them in the jar!
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/craft-ideas/how-to/g1389/diy-kids-activities/
https://indyschild.com/70-things-to-do-with-kids-now-that-were-all-stuck-at-home/
https://familyeguide.com/boredom-busters-110-fun-at-home-activities-for-families-kids-2/