Eps 301: Setting Expectations for the Holidays

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:03
Music. Hey friends, welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and a conscious human on the wild ride of parenting. I am your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer, parent, coach and mom walking the path right next to you as I imperfectly raise my own two teenagers. Joyful courage is all about grit, growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. Today's show is a solo show, and I encourage you to listen for how grit shows up as I kind of tease things apart for you. Thank you so much for listening. I'm deeply honored to lead you. I'm grateful that what I put out matters to you, and I am so stoked to keep it coming. Thank you for who you are and for being a part of this community, enjoy the show.

Hey everybody. I am so glad that you're listening in today. I want to tell you, straight off the bat, this will be a shorter than usual show, okay, shorter than usual, which isn't that great, because if you're in the States, it's a short school week, it's a long family week. We have Thanksgiving this week, and you know, you might just not have the time to listen to me ramble on for an hour. So today is going to be a much shorter show. I just want to check in on you and see how it's going, and connect and connect. I am really excited. You heard me mention this last week, if you listened all the way to the bitter end of my amazing Interview with Dan Siegel, I talked about my seven day challenge that's happening December 1 through December 7. I'm really excited. 1234567, yeah, seven days. I don't know why I needed to count that out. I am going to run a seven day challenge. It is going to be focused on connecting with our kids and creating the holiday spirit that we want to be creating so being intentional around creating the spirit that we want.

And you know, for some of us that's looking at some traditions, new traditions, old traditions, flexibility, how we want to show up. The reason that I wanted to do this is because I love my community, and I hear from you, I have my beautiful membership group that I love, I love you ladies, and I just finished a six week class a few weeks back, and I work with a amazing group of parents whose kids are an outpatient treatment right now for mental health challenges. And I've got the joyful courage for parents of teens group where you guys show up and you ask questions, and I know right now, for many of you, it is hard. It's hard to feel connected to your teens. Your teens are having a hard time. You know, life does not look the way that it should look for a 1314, 1516, 1718, 19 year old, like this state of the world right now is pretty messed up, and it is absolutely taking a toll on our teenagers, and then, by proxy, taking a toll on us as we work towards parenting them the best we can. And one place that can be feel really challenging is that relationship. And if you've been listening to me for any length of time, you know that I'm like, it's the relationship, is what it's all about, right? Like, that's where we have influence. That's actually where we have influence. Some of us, maybe, were raised in homes where influence came by way of threats, by way of, you know, controlling whether or not you could be out in the world or I got grounded a lot some families you might see controlling coming in the form of taking away technology. I mean, there's all sorts of ways to insert this facade of control, but ultimately, long term, moving us towards what we want. The place where we have influence is in the relationship that we're growing and nurturing with our kids. And right now, right now, some parents. Yeah, and I've been there, like, the relationship is shaky, right? The relationship is shaky. There's the typical brain development happening for teens where they are, like, peace out. I'm pulling away, moving towards my friends, like, that's normal. That's typical, right? And, and we want to encourage that. We want our kids to have a healthy social experience, and we want to maintain relationship. And I know that some kids are feeling so isolated and really kind of caving into themselves, and some kids have so many feels, are upset, are angry, and a great place to take that out, that sense of discomfort and unease is on the people that they know are aren't going anywhere, are unconditional, which is you, right? And so here we are moving into this time of year where we're talking about gratitude, right? We're we're getting together with family, we're being generous and abundant, and we want to bring a vibe of love and togetherness. And there's this like sulking human who doesn't want anything to do with anyone, right? It's tough. It's hard. How do we navigate that? So this seven day challenge that I'm telling you about this long infomercial for my seven day challenge is all about growing and nurturing that relationship with your teens. For some of you, the gap is really big. For some of you, it's just a tuning up right either way, this seven day challenge is going to be useful to you. We're going to connect every day, every day. I'm going to show up in Facebook, in the Facebook group, so if you're in there, you'll see me popping in at a certain time of day. I'm going to play, I haven't figured this out yet, but I want to play with using the rooms feature so that it's not just me on the screen. I don't really know how to do that, so don't hold me to that, but I am showing up live every single day of the challenge in Facebook to encourage, inspire and share information with all of you. There will be a guide, a downloadable guide that will go along with the challenge to help you keep track of the tools, of the information of your own declaration, of the steps the action that you take to nurture and grow your relationship with your teen we're also going to talk about, like, really focusing in on what it is that you want to create. What do you want to create? What do you want the vibe to be? How can we be intentional with what we're creating around the holidays? So that's, that's what the challenge is all about. You guys. And I am really excited. I'm really excited for it. I love it when I do a challenge. It's so fun in the Facebook group, because we got a lot of parents in there, and you're amazing with each other. You're super compassionate. You see yourselves and the people that post, I love you. I love the Facebook community. Go join if you're not in there. Joyful courage for parents of teens, go join in. But also go to joyful courage.com/seven day challenge. The number seven day challenge all one word. And sign up because I am going to send you daily emails. You're going to need to download the guide, so you have to sign up. I mean, you can roll with it through the Facebook Lives, but you're really going to be missing out on some of the goodies. Okay? Joyful courage.com/seven, day challenge. That's where you want to go.

You and so, yeah, so this week, I'm curious as to what your plans are. What are your plans my my husband and I are just coming off a week of together time with my dad, my stepmom and my siblings. We went to Cabo to celebrate my youngest brother's 30th birthday. So when I was 18 years old, my stepmom birthed my brother, Jessie. Isn't that crazy? It was crazy. We have a serious age gap, and I you know, he's my brother. I love him so much. So my brother Justy, my sister Kate, my brother Chris justice, girlfriend Nikki, Chris's wife, Megan, Ben and I, my dad and Julie, we all got to stay in this beautiful space in Cabo and just take a little time out from the race. Reality of our lives, and it was really fun. It was super fun to be on vacation with all adults. It was a little nerve wracking leaving my kids at home, especially since my youngest, Ian, is now a driver. It's actually, it was terrifying. Actually, it was really hard to leave the country, knowing that he would be behind the wheel while we were gone. Grateful for my community, for the parents that I had on standby, for my kids, knowing that if they needed the support, the support was there. So so that was that week, last week, and now this week, right this week. In just a few days here in the States, we've got Thanksgiving, more family together time. And you know, when I think about getting together with family, well, first of all, it's really special for us, because last year, I mean, for all of us, last year was kind of a shit show, right? 2020, the depths of covid, and now we're all vaccinated, and there's still some risk, and we're aware of that, and being smart, and we are going to gather with family this week. And I cannot wait. I cannot wait, because the spread is always really good. We're not hosting it at our house. And last year, you know, Ben was fresh out of his stem cell transplant, right that he had to go through for his cancer journey. And, you know, it was just the four of us for Thanksgiving. It was very low key. So it feels really good to be stepping into family. And I get to, you know, talk to my kids about things like, what are the expectations of their phones and phone use, right? What are the expectations around engaging with the family, around manners at the table? What might be some talking points, right? I really want to support my kids in having what they need to show up to the day and for them to feel really good, for them to feel connected, to know how to navigate it, not that they, you know, I mean, they're 16 and 18. It's not like it's a new thing. But I am looking forward to having conversations with them so that it's really clear what I'm expecting, right? And they can ask questions around that, specifically around the phones, because the phones gotten kind of loose, and I am not okay with them having their phones out during our family gathering later this week, and so it's important to me to let that expectation be known. Right? Does that mean they can bring it in the car on the way there? Sure. Does it mean it can be in their back pocket? Hmm, we're gonna have to talk about that. What does that look like, right? Is there notifications, like the vibrating notifications on that might make it really hard to stay engaged and not to look so this is one of the conversations I'm gonna have with my kids. And I'm just wondering, what about you? What's going on with you? What are you going to do for Thanksgiving? How are you prepping your family for it? Right? Do you go away? You know, nice thing for us is, it's an afternoon. We're going to drive down to see family. It's just a few hours, if it was, you know, flying down to California to see my family and spending days at a time with them, we'd have different conversations, right? So I think it's really important not to assume that your kids know what you're expecting, even your big kids, right? Even your big kids. And I also think especially considering how many of you I talk to have kids who are anxious, having a few talking points, I think would be really useful. And by talking points, I don't just mean let me tell you about me, but also some questions that they can have in their back pocket, so that when they find themselves sitting on the couch with their uncle or their grandma or their cousin, and they have that awkward like, I only see you like twice a year moment, and I don't know what to Say, they've got something to pull out, right? They've got something to pull out that they've maybe practiced, although, as they get older, they're less likely to want to practice. But you know, just kind of doing a little work ahead of time to prep them for being in conversation. Now, granted, grown ups are pretty good about instigating the conversation. What I've noticed is a lot of time the grown ups do all the instigating and the kids do the answering, but the kids aren't always skilled at keeping the conversation going, and so that could be something that you work on with them before the big event, before the big. Feast could be useful. Could be useful? Yeah, so I don't know if you're spending days cooking or if you're getting ready to travel, but I just wanted to send you a little bit of love this week, some thoughts around being proactive to create the day that you want. I hope that you enjoy the long weekend and know that I will be back next week with an interview talking more about the holidays. So have a beautiful, beautiful Thanksgiving. For those of you in the States, everybody else, just have a great week. Okay, just have a great week, and I'll see you later. You thanks for listening, my friends. If you feel inspired and you haven't already, do me a favor and head over to Apple podcasts. Leave a five star review, continuing to work really hard to stand out make a massive impact on families around the globe. Your review helps the joyful courage podcast to be seen by even more parents. Thank you also follow joyful underscore courage on Instagram and Facebook. I love connecting with you on social media. Don't forget the seven day challenge starts December 1. Go to joyful courage.com/seven day challenge number seven day challenge, all one word, joyful courage.com/seven. Day Challenge. Get yourself signed up so we can spend some time together. All right, have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends, I'll see you soon.