Fostering Resiliency in our Children so They Know They Can Do Hard Things

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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.

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Turn your child’s behavior around before 2021 | #26

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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.

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The Parenting PIVOT - What Really Matters to Your Family? | #24

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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.

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Be The Leader Your Kids Need You To Be | #21

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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.

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10 Tips for Parenting Your Unreasonable Child

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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!

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No Excuses - MAKE your Kids exercise while in self-isolation | #18

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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.

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5 Things Thank Week One of This Crisis Has Taught Me | #16

Lazy Parenting Canada
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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.

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