Are you feeling stressed about the school year coming to a close for your kiddos? Summer break is going to be here before we know it and you feel totally unprepared for it. Let’s stop putting off that planning session for summer.
Decide what kind of mom you want to be
The first step is to decide what you want your summer break to look like. Not what Sally down the road does for the break or what your mother-in-law wants you to do. But what truly sounds like a fun summer to you? Are you a super structured mom or a lets play it by ear mom? Maybe fun isn’t the goal. Perhaps its to help kids get caught up in school or figuring out how create self care for yourself while kids are home 24/7. You get to decide what you want.
Are you saying, but Keira, I don’t know what I want! That’s the problem. I’ve got you covered. You can start by journaling about what you secretly wish your summer break could look like. Or/and you can start with this free Rediscover Yourself Mama Workbook of mine. Dream big! No judging what you want. Make a list whether its realistic or not. Then go back over the list and intentionally decide what it is you want this summer.
Make a realistic plan
Now that you know what you want, lets brainstorm all the ways you can create that. Once again we aren’t judging any of the ideas. Write them ALL down. When you have 10 ways to achieve that picture or you’ve brainstormed for 10 minutes, go back and review the list. Now you get to decide which ideas are the ones you want to do.
Take the time to acknowledge you could do any of them, but you choose not to do them. For example, I wrote down hire a nanny. My brain to naturally go to, “I can’t afford that.” The truth is that I choose not to spend my money and time doing that. I choose not to pick up a part time job to pay for a nanny or to put it on credit cards, etc. But I truly could figure out how to hire a nanny if I wanted to. Owning that you chose not to do that creates so much freedom for you mama!
Plan for the unpredictable
We all know that working with kids means we are not 100% in control. We can’t control how fast they put on their shoes, what days they flat refuse to do chores, etc. What we can control is how we are going to respond. We can plan ahead for the challenges, changes in schedules, and hard days. Maybe that means you pre-map out the consequences for certain behaviors. Or you decide it means nothing about you as a mom. Maybe you plan in an extra blank day to reschedule things onto when needed.
But decide ahead of time how you want to show up as a mom in the “hard” times. Remember there is no right way. It’s how you as mom wants to react knowing that it may or may not change your child’s behavior. That can be a hard one to wrap our head around, that our result is ours not anyone else’s. We can’t control other people. Trust me if I knew how to, I would tell you how to control those kiddos.
But do we really want to control them? Isn’t that a form of manipulating them? Also if we made them behave perfectly, we would be taking away their growing experiences. Without growing experiences they can’t learn to become functional adults in the world.
You got this mama! I see you trying your best day in and day out. Go live that summer dream. If you find yourself not knowing what you want that summer dream to be, book a Complimentary Discovery Call with me. Where we will work together to help you discover what it is you want and achieve it.
Until Next Time
-Keira
