Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Positive Parenting and letting your Children just be Children with Anita Cleare

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Can we let children just be children?Parenting expert, coach, founder of Positive Parenting and Author of 'The Work/Parent Switch' Anita Cleare joins us this week to help us understand that there is never a wrong or right way to parent, but instead how to stay positive! Life in a blended family and cultural differences between the UK and Mongolia.Grab the book at https://tr.ee/NGv5vLx-Fh and follow Anita on Instagram @anitacleare_parentingSend us your experiences over at [e-mail] or contact our WhatsApp on 07599927537.---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to Mums A Word, the parenting podcast. I'm Grace Victory and I'm your host for the week. So parenting this week has been, I'm going to say just like normal. Bit up, bit down, nothing's really happened. It's been quite chill. We celebrated Kimiko's first birthday with a party. She's not won for a couple of weeks yet, but we had a big over-the-top dramatic first birthday party and it was amazing to have family and friends around and celebrate our little girl. So today's episode is focusing on the juggle between family and work which oh the struggle is real and I work from home but some days you know I do things like this I come into the studio to do a podcast or a photo shoot no matter what I do the juggle is real I have mum guilt I

I want to do it all in a sense but know that I can't do it all So I'm very much looking forward to today's guest. This week we have parenting expert, writer, coach and founder of the Positive Parenting Project, Anita Clear. Her book, The Work Parents Which, is a positive parenting guide for working parents based off of proven evidence-based parenting strategies. She's one of the UK's leading parenting experts and has been on an incredible journey to get where she is today. Let's jump straight into it and welcome Anita Clear to the show. Hello. Hi Grace. How are you? I'm okay. How are you? I'm good. I'm tired actually. Yeah, how come? The struggle of juggling everything.

Yeah. So I'm excited to talk to you today. As a single parent, how do you manage the juggle? Well, I was a single parent with two little ones. So I found myself on my own with a one-year-old and a three-year-old. That's me and working um i also then rather madly decided to study uh part-time um which i was doing at night after they'd gone to bed um and i can't say it brought out the best in me in lots of ways because

you're just tired all the time and you're at that level of overwhelm and stress that when children as they do when they're little do those really unreasonable kind of things it can easily push you over the edge and I think that's the hard thing is you haven't got anybody else to turn around and say it's all right Grace I'll deal with that or to give you a sense of perspective it's just you yeah and the kids and I think, it's all right, Grace, I'll deal with that. Or to give you a sense of perspective. It's just you and the kids. And I think really it's about managing yourself. Ultimately, it's not about managing the kids. That situation is about you and how you can kind of look after yourself

and enable yourself to be the best mum. Yeah, how you're regulating your own mood, your emotions. But it's really hard. Yeah, and when you haven't got somebody else kind of supporting you on that and maybe topping you up a little bit and just geeing you along or making you feel better. And I think you have to find a team. You can't do it completely on your own.

And if you are a single parent, know finding whether it's family or friends or neighbors or other mums people that you can reach out to yeah in those moments or when just to give you that little top up of a sense of do you know what life's a bit overwhelming at the moment it's quite hard but i'm still me and there is a way through this and i in here somewhere is the person that i know that is me and you kind of need a bit of that as well as the practical support which is invaluable it's not even just single mums i think working mothers and just mothers that have to do other things. It's not always by choice, you know, like life is expensive. What advice do you have for us mums who are just struggling to do it all? How do we work smarter? Because I can't work any harder.

I've got nothing more to give. It's really hard because I think there's lots of things that you need to think about in that situation. One of them is just reducing expectations and pressure. I think we can sometimes put unnecessary pressure on ourselves that adds to our list of things we've got to do. Now, whether that's stuff like housework or, you know, we put pressure on ourselves.

I must give my kids broccoli. That that somehow becomes the most important thing that we cook broccoli, that we make them eat it and that that's the be all and end all. And they never eat it. On that one day you want them to have broccoli, they don't eat it. And then we feel like a failure and we feel like, you know, we're just not rising to the challenge. So I think reducing the expectations so you're not setting yourself up to fail. to the challenge. So I think reducing the expectations so you're not setting yourself up to fail. And I don't mean that you give them pizza every night necessarily, but that we don't hold ourselves to ridiculous levels of perfection when really what matters in parenting is our

relationship with our children. So my big piece of advice, yeah, just stop thinking about all the stuff you've got to do. That stuff's going to be there no matter what. Don't add to it and think about what is my real goal? What's my performance metric for myself as a parent? And that is my relationship with my children. And that's what's worth my energy and my effort. And frankly, if I don't hoover for a year, that is less important than my relationship with my children. So it's about not thinking about tasks and goals in that way but thinking about parenting as an act of relationship building

as you're saying that i'm like do i have an issue with holding myself to a level of perfection that is it's not even it's not even real because I do my to-do list I feel like is just constant and I'm adding to it ticking off adding and it's stressing me out so you're talking to me right now you know the thing about to-do lists though they are such a trap because you never get to the bottom of them you always add more things to them so what we what we tend to do is we prioritize right i've just got to get through my to-do list and then i'll play with the kids i can relax then i'll relax or i'll do something nice for myself but the problem is if you're anything like me as you go through your to-do list more things occur to you think oh i must do that as well and you add it to your to-do list or someone else does because they think wow grace gets stuff

done we'll give her more things to do so you end up with a bigger to-do list and you're always deferring the stuff that you really want to do we kind of need to do it the other way around yes the to-do list won't go away it will still be there but if we just did 15 minutes of like something for us or with the kids first would that be different i saw a quote on on instagram yesterday and it was something like the more the less you do that's good for your soul the unhappier your life will be and I was like yeah yeah and it rocked me a little bit because I definitely I mean I am my period so I'm just feeling all the emotions but I'm definitely like I think I've been so busy recently I'm like I'm re-evaluating a little bit and I'm like I just want to be at home with the kids.

I think there are things that we do that take energy from us and sap energy and there are things that we do that give us energy and when you're a really busy mum especially when you're working it's easy to squeeze out the stuff that gives us energy and concentrate on the stuff that saps it and we're like oh I've got to do this I're like, oh, I've got to do this. I've got to do that. I've got to do the shopping because it all feels so important, doesn't it? I've got to clear up. I've got to, you know, mop the floor. I don't know, whatever it is. And the thing that actually would make us feel energized again,

like playing with our children or going to the gym because that does give you energy or doing whatever it is that for you makes your heart kind of seen and sore and lifts your spirits yeah that's the stuff we don't do and it's why is that though because we're so conscientious right yeah i think and i think we've been we've been told i think as as parents, we've been told there's an awful lot that you need to do to be a good parent. It's like that job description. It's got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Now, I don't know about you, my parents, I don't think they felt nearly as much pressure to do all the stuff that I do. Frankly, they thought as long as I was kept alive, went to school, vaguely knew right from wrong, bingo, job done. We are like, but my child needs to play chess. You know, I've got to drive them to karate. You know, if they're not doing play dates or, you know, we've got all those impressive birthday parties that we've got to kind of participate in, as you know. But we add more and more and more. And I also think it stresses out the children too.

and more and more. And I also think it stresses out the children too. I've noticed that if we're doing too much or we've socialised a bit too much, I feel absolutely, what's the words I could use? Just, my head is gone. I was going to drop the F-bomb there. The kids, my kids are just off their rockers. And I'm like, I think we're all overwhelmed and overstimulated.

Can we just rein it in? And that's the thing about, because my background is child development. So academically, that's what I studied. And what we know from child development is children build their brains and they grow and they learn by playing and encountering the world. That doesn't mean that they have to do structured activities. Actually, some of the best playing and kind of, it was Albert Einstein, play is the highest form of research. You know, that best research happens when kids are bored and they're not doing anything

and they're like, oh, I'm bored because they hate being bored and then they find something to do yeah and it's something new or creative so we feel like we're responsible for filling their time for building their brains for making them grow when actually kids do all that work themselves if we just give them space and leave them to it a bit more i just feel like you're talking to myself i know i really do i got um we my sister bought my little girl some dolls like baby dolls and cypress my little boy he's older he um took the baby and was like oh change your nappy and i was just i was letting him i was just looking at him let's change your nappy oh baby cry baby cry I was giving her the dummy I was like oh my god I love this is just beautiful just let him go off and do his own thing and I'm inspired by us our talk today our chat so yeah engage in more

play and just rein it in a little bit yeah and just leave them to it if you think back to your childhood a lot of the things that we do remember that were good were things that we made happen by ourselves you know whether that was you know i don't know playing in the woods with friends or you know tell you about a picnic yeah play that we created ourselves. Children are full of that imagination and creativity. And because we think as parents, it's all on our shoulders. We've got to feed them the right food. We've got to give them the right activities.

We've got to build their brains. We've got to make sure they grow and learn. And if we just stood back and said, you know what? Children do all of that if we give them space. And not only that, we get to enjoy them a bit more because you sit back and you watch and you do listen and you earwig on what they're doing. And you get that real insight into their minds,

into how they're thinking and feeling. It was like, oh, you really are just watching what we do and then you're just doing it. Like mummy, mummy do. And yeah, cypress do. I was just like, this is incredible. What do you think has changed from maybe like 10 years ago to now with the pressure and the work-life balance? Because it appears to me that mother's just working way more than kind of 10 years ago.

Well, definitely the data says that we've been through a period of intensification of work. So not only are we working more hours, we're also working more intensely during that time with less downtime, fewer breaks, for example. So that pressure is very real. And although with COVID, some people switched to working from home, for example, and that held out a lot of promise that that would help us balance. I think for some mums, not all, the reality is what that's led to is this real kind of like even fewer boundaries around work because it's in our in our homes and it kind of leaks into our family life and then we're like well we're working around the edges of our children we're on our phones we're on laptops and then we really never get to step away. Whereas, you know, before we might have left it at an office or something.

So I think it's harder and harder for us to draw those boundaries because we've got this real blend going on between work and home life. And my fear is in that because we're quite conscientious, we're quite goal driven, you know, work fires up that in us. It makes us want to succeed. And then you never quite completely succeed. You're always driving on to the next thing. The danger is what that squeezes out is the downtime with children,

the relationship with children, and our sense of being competent as parents, then we feel like we're letting our children down. And work kind of wins that battle quite often when it comes to work-life balance unless we really set boundaries and make sure that we do something about that but you have to be quite active about that in my experience yeah yeah i i definitely feel that i work from home a lot and I really have to tell myself, okay, put the phone down now. You've posted, step away because the kids are here.

But you do, it is so hard to kind of switch between the two all the time and the pressure. I think social media does impact that as well because you see these mums that seem to have it all. Their house is spotless. they can post all the time i'm just like how are you doing this they're not doing it they're not they really what they're doing is they're taking a photograph yeah and they're posting that that's not their whole life that's one moment which is probably selected from a lot of other moments that weren't perfect. And that kind of comparisonitis does not help anybody at all, I don't think. And I think the scary thing about always switching between work and home is that they kind of need different things from us, work and children. So when we're

at work, we are quite, you know, focused on achieving things. You know, it's kind of like, I've got to get things done and I've got to do this as well as possible and I've got to succeed. When we're with children, they don't need that kind of approach from us. They actually need us rather than always thinking three steps ahead. What have I got to do next? What have I got to do next? How have I got to do that? They need us to than always thinking three steps ahead what have i got to next what have i got to next how have i got to do that they need us to be in the present with them at that moment to kind of slow down and be curious and playful and not always to be driving through time just be there yeah and and therefore if we don't mentally our mindset, manage to readjust between work and home,

the dangers, we get frustrated with our kids because they don't stick to the plan. Even though you're like, right, we're doing this now. We're going to the park. It's bedtime. They're kind of quite chaotic young children. And they're much more in the moment. They're much more like, oh, but I need this. Or, oh, wow, there's a leaf.

Or, you know. And then we get frustrated because we're like, like no we're supposed to be doing this now yeah yes it's it's control isn't it suddenly you're like i can't control this and that is triggering me is what i feel like happens to me exactly so you lived in Mongolia right but you had your children in England I did both my pregnancies in in Mongolia right but I had came back for birth yeah I wouldn't have survived the first one frankly what was what was that like what was the difference between, you know, growing your belly in Mongolia and then birthing in England? So, of course, you know, it was my first pregnancy. I didn't know anything different. But culturally, I think some of the biggest shock was I was probably, I think, 31

when I was pregnant with my first. And I went to see the doctor and the doctor said, well, you're very old. You have to put your feet up until you give birth and not use any computers. And I thought, well, that's not going to happen, is it? Because I've got a job and I'm certainly not going to do that. So I had to pick and choose a little bit the advice that I that I took um and I had to be very accepting that whatever was going to happen was going to happen and it was quite a non-interventionist sort of approach as such um um and I didn't know any different I absolutely loved you know being pregnant and that experience. I'd wanted to be pregnant, you know, so it was a really important thing for me. And I just sort of focused on enjoying it until I got as big as a house and then just thought nobody can enjoy this.

I'm huge. I just thought, oh, you know, get this thing out of me. But no, I went back, I think, six weeks before the birth. Just as well, because it was a very complicated birth. And I quite possibly wouldn't have survived if I'd have, you know, stayed in Mongolia to do that, which I wasn't going to do. And then you went back to Mongolia after the birth.

Yeah. So we took, I did, I think five months after the birth, I stayed off work. And then when my son was six months old, we went back to Mongolia, which was, so he called me mummy in Mongolian before he called me mummy in english what's mummy in mongolian edgy edgy yeah um oh yeah because we had a wonderful um mongolian childminder nanny who would come to the house and obviously you know she spoke to him in mong in Mongolian and that's what he called me.

Yeah. And then we came back and I never went back after the second pregnancy. Do they live slower in Mongolia? I think, you know, city life is city life anywhere. It's always a bit hectic, isn't it? But certainly out in the countryside, it's a very different pace of life you're much more at one with nature when i first i mean i was it was such a privilege to be able to live there yeah and to be able to travel around oh was you working there yeah okay so i went there for work and it was the first time it sounds really slightly weird but the first time

that i realized i lived on a planet because the countryside is so empty in terms of people so unoccupied by people that you just feel like you are in the landscape and yeah you drive for hours and hours and hours and you you see animals and no people and I hadn't had that experience you know growing up in the south of England where it's quite intensely kind of built on yeah um but yeah it was it was funny and obviously some of the parenting expectations were different really some of them are odd some of them are lovely um uh Mongolians have a tendency with boy babies to tickle their willies which um as a greeting I know and not something that i was comfortable with or had experienced before i expected um had to draw a few i know

i think it's a really ancient tradition of checking that there are actually a boy um because there's a lot of pretending on who's a boy and who's a girl to stop the ghosts coming to to to seize the children lots of things like that that i kind of learned um my son we went back when my kids were six and eight to visit people and my son was mortally embarrassed because we went around to see um his old nanny and her parents and they kept telling him how he had blessed their house by doing a poo in it when he was you know like a year old he did suction they talked about how big this poo was and he's just like he's eight thinking oh goodness me you know the ground swallowing up yeah but that was that was a

blessing i suppose it was something that was good luck oh okay i know i love how different cultures celebrate childhood. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Yes. So you've also worked in child services for nine years? Yeah. So that was when I came back from Mongolia. At that point, my relationship with my kid's father was over, really, which is why I didn't go back. So at that point, I sort of lost my career because that's what I did.

I worked in international development. I traveled and did that for a living. And suddenly I was on my own with a one-year-old and a three-year-old and no career. I couldn't really on my own go and do that because there was so much travel involved. I really didn't feel comfortable to leave the kids, you know, just with a carer who wasn't part of the family for long periods of time, which is what I'd had to do. So I had to reassess. And that's why I ended up studying, because I went and worked in children's services in a local authority, because I'd done, you know, similar work, but in an international context. And I thought, no, I need to be grounded in, I need to understand this. I'm one of these people that I like to know what I'm talking about.

I feel like I actually have. In your soul. Yeah, I've done the research on that and I know what's going on there. So I went and did a postgraduate in developmental psychology. I say went, I did it in my bedroom while the kids were asleep. And then, yeah, I worked setting up kind of children's centres psychology i say when i did it in my bedroom while the kids were asleep um and then yeah worked setting up kind of children's centers and support services for families so parenting courses everything from really low level yeah kind of early intervention prevention services through

to quite level high level intensive support for families that had a lot of problems and pretty much everything in between and what were the most common things you know parents used help with well i think when you've got little ones it's a lot of it is around behavior isn't it it's just that sense of oh my goodness this is not a rational person that i'm dealing with or is this normal yes is this normal and what on earth am i supposed to do about it you know it's so i think there was a lot of just trying to support on those kind of that kind of behavior um and you know i mean families have so many different challenges and just feeling like they have somewhere to go i think is so, but not somewhere to go that is going to give them advice that isn't safe or helpful. Because I think, you know,

especially with the internet, there's a lot of information out there on parenting. It's overwhelming. Yeah. And it can actually make you feel a lot worse rather than better. And I do that, I have that really solid academic grounding. I've written books in parenting and I'm like like I still look at the internet and feel bad about my own parenting because I think oh my goodness is that true and it's it's kind of really gets under your skin so having reliable expert information that's actually based on evidence and simple I feel like it's so there's a lot of jargon and it and it's my brain actually aches thinking about it all. And sometimes I think, can we just strip this all back, please?

I need like three bullet points of how to do this and that's all because otherwise I'm overwhelmed. Yeah, absolutely. And getting contradictory advice just makes you feel worse. And I think the truth is that parenting small children is challenging it's exhausting and it's hard and if you start from that point and say but maybe these things are more likely to be helpful than doing it this way yeah and trying to empower parents is so much better than making them feel like well if you're not doing it this way you're doing it wrong yeah that really really

winds me up that kind of messaging that telling parents that i think it is about being practical and saying you know it's hard but try you know try this particular type of principle or approach and see how you go and it's not going to work every time and it's not a magic magic wand yeah but you might find that you're moving in a better direction doing it that way. Yeah. Baffled, the Factor podcast bringing you some amazing facts

that are complete nonsense. More people in the world have mobile phones than toilets. Since most people are right-handed, in World War II, the Germans trained their army to eat with their left hand so they could spot spies

in the cafeteria. A woodpecker's tongue actually wraps all the way around its brain, protecting it from damage when it's hammering into a tree. You can find us wherever you got this podcast. Just search for Baffled Amazing Facts. I'm pondering. There's a lot to ponder on. You are the founder of the Positive Parenting Project. Yes. And you believe there's no such thing as a perfect parent. Of course not. Which makes me feel better.

What advice do you have for parents that feel like they're just failing or I'm a bad mum? Yeah. I think, you know, guilt, all parents feel guilt, but I think working parents especially get attacked by guilt. And the first thing to do, I think with guilt is hold it up to the light and look at it. The thing about guilt is we try and kind of push it away or we just, you know, accept it. And I don't think either of those are useful. So if you're thinking at the end of the day, oh my God, I'm a bad mum, examine that thought. Don't try and avoid it and don't just accept it. Say, okay, where's that coming from? What's my basis? What's my evidence for that? So inspect that thought

and think, well, I'm a bad mum because I shouted at the kids. Or I'm a bad mum because I had to go to work and I didn't go to see them at assembly this morning or whatever it was. You say, okay, so inspect it further. So does that mean that good mums never shout at their kids? Does that mean that good mums always turn up at school events, you know, despite the fact that they've got a job? And when we get to that point, then our rational brain starts to kick in and we think, well, no, that's daft. Of course that's daft. But at that point, we also might find that there might be something helpful in the guilt. So if it is, for example, the

shouting one, say, no, I don't believe that good mums never shout at their kids. However, I do think maybe I'm doing it too much at the moment. And at that point, it's like, so that might be a helpful thought. What do I do next with that? How can I turn that around? And we turn that into action. Or if it's an unhelpful one, you know, mums always turn up at school events. They're always there. Then you go, well, don't be ridiculous. That's a really unhelpful bit of guilt. Quite frankly, you can do one. I'm not, you know, I'm not playing that game. So with guilt, I just think it's really important that we actually look at it and work it through rather than just sitting in it, dwelling

in it, feeling bad or trying to kind of avoid it and not think about it because it makes us feel bad because that doesn't get us anywhere. That's good advice, you know. If it is that you're shouting at your kids too much, then where can I go for good information that maybe might help me do something differently? Yes. I'm going to start doing that because i definitely go through i have days where i'm just

too much i'm just a shouty mom i'm so tired that i've just got no patience and i always tell myself just go outside well if i go to a field and my toddler in particular can just run around i haven't got to do much parenting just obviously keep him safe don't let him kill himself or whatever but let him just run yeah and find some mud dig a hole let's dig a hole and i need to remember that but that's my my little toolbox Just go into nature. Yeah. And that toolbox analogy, I think, is so important because we all need options and tools in that toolbox. And the more we've got, the better, because then we can go, right, where am I right now? What's my situation? What are my options?

So having a lot of different tools and I'm you know I'm a big fan of people learning about parenting strategies and having lots of them but preferably from you know a good reliable source an expert yeah rather than just Instagram yes which seems I think the issue is it's it feels like it's accessible doesn't it you go on your phone you scroll you see something like oh okay and you sort of just take it and you you don't realize the onslaught of information that you're getting every single day and it can just you know impact your brain yeah and it usually because it all wants it to be on one nice neat kind of visual it condenses it down to a level of simplicity that is just like well that's really not helpful it's just too simple yeah very true so you have a blended family now tell me more about that and

the transition to that kind of new dynamic yeah well i think we were slightly unusual in one way in that it went very smoothly. So I think I got together with my husband when my youngest was six. And from their side, it went really smoothly. In fact, one of my sons, every time I brought a man to the house, even if it was a relative or a friend or, you know, was in no way a romantic interest before this he would literally latch on to them as if he was saying please be my daddy so that was slightly embarrassing but I knew they they were both kind of open to it I would say and um that all went really really smoothly and it's been remarkably easy partly that's because I've got quite realistic expectations. I come from a blended family

myself as a child and didn't have that, you know, necessarily quite such a smooth experience of it. I think for his kids it was a bit harder because they were older so they were slightly less accepting you know, when you're already a teenager or it's a bit more difficult.

Yes, that's a random woman. Exactly. No, definitely. And rightly so. Why should you just accept someone being imposed on you in your life when you're that age? You've got enough to deal with, frankly. You know, trying to work for the whole world. All that, exactly.

So, but, you know, it's been a really good outcome from my point of view, you know, and I think from the kids' point of view as well, that they've seen a nice kind of relationship. That is nice to have the people to hear that it's not always dramatic and traumatising, you know. Sometimes things go right and they go smoothly. I think taking it slowly is important. Not expecting, you know, as a stepmother or as a step-parent

or if you're introducing a new partner, not expecting that suddenly everyone's going to love each other because that quite frankly that's ludicrous you know and I think love and affection grows really slowly in those situations you haven't done that bonding as a as a baby and it comes through daily actions of just showing up of being the one you know i think definitely with my husband being the one who picked them up from parties who drove them to you know football matches you know on that really simple kind of day-to-day level being active being there and through that and those conversations without pushing it you then get those those feelings you know start to develop of reliability and

especially for kids who've perhaps been through shall we say who've been let down or have been through you know a situation where they weren't necessarily having someone showing up for them oh i love that just showing up for them yeah so you have a book the work parent switch yes tell us about the book where can we buy it etc etc well i wrote the book for all of the reasons that we've been talking about the fact that if you're a working parent parenting i think is even harder i mean it's hard being a parent anyway but when you've got to show up at the end of the day when you've already worked all day you're already completely tired and you've got to be day, you're already completely tired and you've got to be calm and consistent and loving and rise to all of those challenges. That's really

hard. And every parenting book I read almost assumed that you had endless energy and time and all of this. And I just thought, well, no, I I'm sorry a lot of the parents I work with and knowing my own life as a working parent there were evenings where if I managed to play with my kids for 15 minutes that was a win because there was so much going on and just trying to get through the daily stuff so I wrote it to try and be empowering to parents and say it's not about the quantity of time but but it is about the quality of moments. So could we think about how you use those little moments, those little interactions with your kids to build relationship, to be there for them, to be present and connected,

rather than thinking that's about hours and hours of doing that. It's actually about stopping and listening at the right moments and paying them attention and giving them affection in those times that they need it. So it's full of just really practical stuff like mornings. How do you get out of the house in the morning? How do you manage homework when that's ruining your family life? How do you manage screens?

But also how do you manage yourself and your stress levels and connect with your kids in those small bits of time? So the idea is it's really practical. I feel like I need this book. I'm stealing this book today. I'm taking it home because I think that is what a lot of parents need. Just, yeah, expert advice and just simple ways to kind of break down parenting and work and just managing a home and everything. Yeah. And I think because my background's in developmental psychology, what I tried to do was translate an understanding of what's going on in your child in terms of their thinking processes and their emotions and translate that into a

really accessible kind of easy to understand um sort of reference point so that all parents could get that because i think we often interpret our kids as if they're mini adults and they are really not the way their brains think we when they want that blue cup, not that green cup, and they are screaming blue murder about that. I feel like you're in my brain because this exactly happened with Cyprus. He wanted the blue cup and they gave him the green cup. And do you know why that is? cup and not happy. And do you know why that is? Because we know that when you put liquid in a blue cup, it's exactly the same as the liquid in the green cup. You can pour it from

one to the other and the liquid stays the same. That is a key principle of the universe that children who are toddlers and preschoolers don't 100% understand. As far as they're concerned, if it looks different, it's a different drink. It's not the right drink. So they've got all of those emotions of, I want that drink in my head. That's the one I want. And you're giving me completely the wrong one. In your head, you're thinking, you're being really unreasonable. It's the same drink, kid, just a different cup. But when we step inside children's brains and understand a little bit about where they're coming from they're not doing it deliberately they're not being awkward they are just frustrated that we are doing it wrong yeah we're being

unreasonable but try to give them totally the wrong drink why would you do that mum that's you know and i i think trying to sort of step inside their heads a little bit is quite helpful. No one teaches us this stuff. This is the problem. We become parents. You leave the hospital. You get signed off on the two-week check. That's it. lovely human beings with no, no, like no book, no worksheet, nothing, just your intuition.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's hard. It is. It's really, really hard. And I think if I had my way, I would have, you know, people having free access to kind of parenting courses, anything that they wanted to do like that because it's a big thing to do you know parenting children and actually if you do want to go get information i'd just really like that to be available in as i said in that evidence-based way of what we know

really works with kids rather than that void being filled you know by i've loved talking to you it's been very very educational and yes i'm gonna read your book fantastic so we have a listener message from meg on whatsapp she says hi ladies just looking for some advice after returning from maternity leave. What a complete shock to the system that is. I have a little girl and myself and my husband are finding it really hard to juggle it all. We're both full-time in the office. We swap work from home days and often have to work a few extra hours. I never thought it would be this hard to go back to work. I'm feeling so stretched. How on earth do people do it without having a personal assistant to organise their life? Do you have any tips? Oh, I think it's okay if you're finding it

hard because it is hard. And I think not to feel like a failure about that. Everybody else struggles with it too. They might look on the surface like they're managing it, but everybody goes through exactly that same thing. I've got one really practical tip in that situation. When you get back from work, so if you're going back into the home and your child's already there, or even if you're picking them up from nursery or childminder,inder whatever don't rush into doing stuff have 15 minutes of complete stillness now that might be you going and sitting on the sofa

and allowing your child to play on you or to say hello or to slowly reconnect or just watching them just watching them and getting used to the fact bringing back up those kind of money feelings rather than those kind of you know manic i've got to be very efficient kind of professional feelings. And just sit there and allow some reconnection. Now, the rest of the evening, you're still going to have to do all the things that you had to do otherwise. But the way that you go about those, the way you feel about your child when you go into the rest of the evening will just be slightly different. And if you're picking up from nursery, sit on a bench, especially if it's not dark, sit on a bench.

Oh, if it is, kids love looking in the dark, looking at sparkly lights and the moon and everything. Sit still and just do, if you can't do 15 minutes, at least five minutes of stillness, bring yourself down, reconnect with your child and then move through the evening it won't reduce the workload which you should try and do as much as possible but it will mean that you approach that in a really different kind of spirit and the calmness and the connection that you've got just resetting your energy before you have to enter mom mode yeah and also allowing yourself to transition into mom mode when we do that it's almost like we are transitioning into it

i sometimes say to parents if you've got a commute home take out a picture you know on your phone whatever it is of your child and look at it and smile because Because when we do that, all our lovely mummy feelings kind of start and we already walk in the door kind of halfway there. But you've got to find a way to kind of let go of that sort of marching through time, stress of work

and re-access some of those lovely, positive, kind of lovely feelings so that you can make the most of the time that you've got with your child rather than, you know, feeling stressed by it or taking the stress into it. Great advice. Thanks for listening to Mum's The Word, the parenting podcast. Make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode.

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