Strong Emotions

How To Create Positivity from Missed opportunities

September 16, 2020

I had an experience last week that got me thinking about missed opportunities and the things that we participate in that we think are beneficial, but it turns out they aren’t. The question is what do we do with those missed opportunities? What do we do when a door closes? We pick up and start over. Here’s how to turn a missed opportunity into something positive. As the saying goes, turn lemons into lemonade.

When One Door Closes

This story is such a first world problem. It’s so inconsequential when we look at the big picture, but sometimes the smallest things can teach us the greatest lessons. I was apart of a Facebook group for bloggers where we can promote our blog using the daily threads. I have been a regular participant in this group for a while and always did my best to give more than I take. I’d always engage with the other bloggers on the threads. Whether it be liking social media posts on their accounts, commenting, or sharing their blog posts.If you know me, you know that I always try to go above and beyond to do things the right way. Especially when it involves helping other people. It was a shock to me that I was suddenly muted and could no longer respond to the other comments or post. There were days when I couldn’t respond until late in the day because I’m a busy mom. I make my original comments in the morning and then go back throughout the day to help the other bloggers. That is what’s always worked for me.

At first, I got mad because by doing that, they were basically accusing me of dropping my link and running. Then I was disappointed because I couldn’t participate for another month, but I quickly realized that maybe that group wasn’t the place for me anyway. When I thought about it, most of the bloggers in that group aren’t apart of my niche. While their content is great and they were super helpful, there wasn’t much of a connection. They aren’t the people that will become my clients. I could’ve waited a month and then tried to figure out what I had done wrong. Then I could spend time making sure I followed every rule, but for what?

I had to ask myself, how is this benefiting me? Is it helping my blog or coaching practice grow? How does it make me feel to be apart of this group now? It wasn’t giving my blog that much of a boost and I no longer felt welcome in the group. In the past, rejection hit me hard and while I felt a touch of that, I turned it around to something positive.

How To Move On

I started looking for groups that were geared towards busy moms, coaches and female bloggers. I found several that I have joined and so far, they’ve been wonderful groups. The best part is that they’ve given my blog a boost and the women are awesome. There is a supportive environment where we help each other. If you are interested in joining any of these groups, find their links at the end of this post.

Journal Prompts

How about you?
Are there any doors that have closed for you lately? How are you feeling about these experiences now? Here are some prompts to dive into if you use journaling to get your thoughts out. If you aren’t much of a writer, don’t worry about it. Just answer these questions in your head. The answers are all within you.

Describe your last missed opportunity.
Is this a positive or negative thing for you?
Did a better opportunity open up as a result?
If not, how can you turn it into a new opportunity?

List your first three steps for creating your next opportunity.

Finding Clarity

This process also works if you are trying to decide if a. New opportunity is right for you or if you need to get out of a situation. This could be a relationship, friendship or anything work related. Of course, we have to do things we don’t want to do at times. It’s a fact of life, but we can change our mindset. When deciding if something is right for you, answer these questions to get clarity.

How does it make you feel in your body?

If you let this thing go, what will happen?(pros and cons)

What are you giving up by moving on?
What are you giving up if you stick with it?
What are you gaining from moving on?
What are you gaining by staying where you are?

When thinking about doors opening and closing in life, I try to remember this quote. “What is meant for you won’t pass you by.” This applies in business, relationships, purchases, friendships etc. What doors have opened or closed for you lately? Tell me in the comments. If you’d like to talk about creating amazing opportunities in your own life, feel free to book a discovery call to see how we can work together. I’d love to hear from you!

As promised, here are the Facebook groups I mentioned above.

Mom Blog Network Personal Development and Wellness Bloggers

Successful Mom Entrepreneurs Women’s Side Hustle Network

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Motherhood

Why You Should Say Your Sorry to Your Children

June 9, 2020

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, the days where your kids won’t stop asking you for things. The days when you try to hide anywhere where you can lock the door to have a moment of peace. You may be in your bathroom just trying to do your business with someone knocking at the door. Maybe you’re trying to sneak a snack in your pantry closet with someone in hot pursuit wanting to know what you are doing. Yes, I’m speaking from experience.

What about the days when you are on edge and when your prescious little one asks you for something one too many times? When that happens, how do you handle it? Well, I’ll admit, there are definitely times when I lose my patience. Every mom knows that it’s unavoidable. At one point, you will snap at your children or make other cringe worthy mistake which brings me to the original question, why should we say sorry to our kids?

We are all human beings

This is common sense, but there are many parents out there who don’t make a point of apologizing to their children when they make a mistake. They feel that they are the parent, they are in charge and children should just comply. Everyone makes mistakes, so I’m not sure what is behind this thinking. Maybe it’s fear of losing some of that power/control but I believe that when you make a mistake and learn from it, you have more knowledge and power than when you started.

Also, as human beings, we all want to be treated with respect and even though our children are little, they are beings with needs, wants and feelings who are taking everything in and learning how our world works. Don’t we want that world to have as much kindness and fairness as possible?

It is good role modeling

Much of what our children learn is from what they see us doing. As their parents, we obviously have a huge influence in the way they think and feel about themselves and others. How can we expect them to be able to accept responsibility for their mistakes and actions if we don’t show them?

This past weekend has been extremely rough at my house. There has been lack of sleep, extreme clinginess and everything goes in one ear and out the other. I hate to say it, but my patience has gone completely out the window. After hours of hearing mommy, mommy, mommy, play with me now, make this for me now, turn on the tv now, I want this, I want that, I snapped. I was exhausted from trying to do small things like putting dishes away, make dinner, getting dressed etc and being constantly interrupted. This was in between hours of play time, so Rosebud was getting plenty of attention as I have been trying to limit the time I spend working. When she came in the kitchen while I was making dinner demanding chocolate milk, I lost it. I yelled at her to stop and leave me alone. I just wanted a moment of peace. I told her to just go watch tv and to stop bothering me.

About five minutes later, she came back and asked for a hug. Of course, I gave her a hug. In that five minutes, I felt horrible about yelling at her. Even though I didn’t say anything crazy, she only had a small request and I handled it poorly, so I apologized. I told her that I was sorry for yelling at her and that it wasn’t a nice thing to do. I explained that when she is constantly asking for something while I’m busy it is really frustrating. I told her that I love playing with her, but sometimes I need to do other things that are important as well. In turn, she said she was sorry and we agreed we were still friends. It’s a little ritual we have.

The Results

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first parenting mistake I’ve made and it won’t be the last. It’s also not the first time I’ve apologized to Rosebud. Even if I don’t do it right away, I may say something when we’re having snuggle time before bed. Now, she does the same thing. If she thinks about something and feels bad for something she’s done, she tells me.

For example, we have a strawberry plant and last year, she ate the strawberries as soon as they popped up. She didn’t even wait until they were red, so we kept telling her to wait and let them grow, so that they are edible. Rosebud has an amazing memory, so during our quiet time yesterday, she told me she was sorry for eating all the strawberries last year and that she would let them grow big this year. This is a funny story, but she does this with serious issues as well. She’ll apologize for hitting, breaking toys, not cleaning up etc. It leads to some really thoughtful and wonderful discussions.

This goes to show that even on crappy days when we feel like the worst moms ever, we are actually not. Yes, we make mistakes, but it’s how we handle them that really matters. When our children grow up, will they remember how we yelled at them about chocolate milk or will they remember that we snuggled with them before bed. Will they remember when you hid in the bathroom to get away from them or will they remember what you taught them about caring about the feelings of others? They will remember that we valued them as human beings. That we cared for them and loved them even when it was hard. Even when we are grumpy, make mistakes or feel like we haven’t done anything right, our kids forgive us and love us unconditionally. That’s what makes this mom thing all worth it.

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Activities For Kids, Motherhood

How To Help Children Work Through Feelings

April 19, 2020

This week on the blog, I’ve talked about how to sit with our feelings at this uncertain time. If you missed the post, I shared several strategies to help us work through our feelings. As adults, we understand what Is going on the world around us and of course, we are feeling many strong emotions. We may be feeling fear, sadness, anxiety and or grief.

Our kids are having these feelings too and the hard part is they may not even know how to describe what they are feeling. Young children are just learning how to regulate their emotions and express themselves. They may start acting out, become withdrawn or become extra clingy during this time. They hear our conversations and see the news if they have it on. They are hearing things they don’t understand and are picking up on whatever their family members may be feeling. Their worlds have also been turned upside down. Their routines may be totally different with the school closures and parents now working from home or not working at all. Even though all this extra time at home with our families can be wonderful, it’s a huge change.

However, there are things we can do to help our toddlers and preschoolers understand and work through their feelings. We can help our youngest toddlers label their feelings and we can help our older preschoolers work through their feelings by playing and creating. I have compiled a list of activities that parents can use to help their toddlers and preschoolers recognize, label and work through their feelings.

Art Feelings Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

The Feelings Collage

What you do:

Look through magazines or print off pictures from the internet that express different feelings. Then glue them on paper.

Paper Bag Puppet

What you do:

Take a brown paper bag and draw or create a face using materials from around the house.

Materials may include googly eyes, felt, tissue paper, foil, paper scraps cut into different shapes etc. Be creative!

Dry Erase Faces

What you do:

Print off blank pictures of faces like these coloring pages from Dabbles & Babbles. Then have your children color them, expressing whatever they are feeling. Then erase and start over.

Open Ended Drawing or Painting

Have your children draw or paint whatever comes to mind. Then talk about the picture. They may open up about their thoughts and feelings.

Play-dough

This is usually classified as a sensory activity, but it is creative as well. Make silly faces out of play-dough or let your children use their imaginations to create whatever comes to mind. They can also add items to the faces like beads, pompoms, googly eyes, rocks, shells etc. You could do this with modeling clay as well. It makes a perfect mixed media art activity.

Story Writing for Preschoolers

Have your child dictate a story to you and write it down. My daughter loves to do this. It’s a great window into your child’s thoughts. You can either make the story into a homemade book letting the child draw the pictures or keep it as is.

Family Feelings Activities

The Happy List

Have the child make a list of things that make him or her happy. They can draw pictures to go with it and you could turn it into a happy book. This could be done with other feelings as well. You could also make it a family happiness list and write down things that make each family member happy.

Feel Good Jar

Talk with the child about how to make others feel good. Each morning, they can either draw a name from the jar or an action depending on how you want to set this up. You could either put in the names of your family members or you could write down actions instead and the child can pick who they want to do something nice for that day. Here are some action examples.

Give a complement,

Give a hug,

Share a snack,

Take a walk together,

Call a friend,

Help a family member with a chore,

Tell someone you love them,

Make a homemade card,

Share a toy.

The Bruised Apple

This is a good activity to do in a classroom setting, but you could do it at home as well. It’s a good activity for teaching how our words or actions can hurt other people without us knowing it. All you do is have the child hit the apple on a table or the floor. Then cut it open to see the bruising inside.

Conversations About Feelings With Kids

Sometimes the best way to teach something is to slip it into everyday conversations or activities.

One way is using the daily calendar. We have a calendar that has a space for feelings. Ask the child how they are feeling and have them put the face on the calendar.

Since we are all stuck at home, there may be more screen time than usual, so talk about the shows your child is watching. Many shows have feelings, friendship or specific fears as themes for specific episodes. My daughter watches Bubble Guppies, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie and Pete The Cat. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is another show that talks about emotions often. There are many episodes of kids shows that talk about being sick and or going to the doctors. With all this talk of sickness due to covid19, that may be worth exploring with your kids as well. They may have new fears about sickness and going to the doctors. My daughter has mentioned being afraid of the doctor several times since the pandemic started. I know she’s not alone.

Feelings Snacks for Kids

You can tie the feelings theme into meal times by having kids make faces on their food while preparing it. This works best with foods with toppings.

Mini pizzas,

Pancakes,

Rice cakes with peanut butter.

English muffins with peanut butter.

Feelings Activities Resources

I’ll leave you with a few extra resources that you can explore. If you want books, games and even more activities, check out these informative web pages.

If you are looking for games, songs and even pretend play activities with a feelings theme, check out this list of feelings activities for preschoolers.

Here is another great resource for art, math and even science feelings activities.

Check out this list of 10 books to help kids understand their feelings.

What are you doing to help your kids work through difficult emotions during this strange time? Tell me in the comments.

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