Episode 223: Learning to Trust Yourself as a Parent with Erin Morrison
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast! I am joined by Erin Morrison, the author of Three Minutes for Mom and the creator of The Conscious Mom community. In this conversation, we’ll explore how to trust your inner wisdom, embrace "good enough" parenting, and evaluate what’s best for your family beyond external pressures.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Understanding the challenges of self-prioritization in parenting after being raised to be people-pleasers
Building self-trust in parenting without clear models or experiences
Using mindful reflection to guide parenting decisions and actions
Practicing emotional honesty with children to foster trust and understanding
Managing emotions and allowing children space to process during repair
Creating simple practices to reconnect with oneself and handle parenting stress
Carving out time for parents amidst parenting challenges
Resources:
To learn more about Erin, visit her website theconsciousmom.com and follow her on Instagram @theconsciousmom
Remember: You have a deep inner wisdom that you can learn to tap into and trust.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about how to find an inner sense of confidence in your parenting, learning how to trust that inner wise mom or dad that's within you, and really learning to, find a place of good enough and learn how to evaluate yourself based on your own ideas of what's right and good and true as opposed to what society tells you, or even the feedback that you're getting from your kids at times. So, to help me with this conversation, I have a conscious mom. Erin Morrison, she's got a beautiful book to share with us and just a lot of wisdom on learning to turn inward. So, Erin, I'm so excited to talk with you. Thank you for being here. Welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Erin: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about our conversation. I feel like we have so many of the same ideas and thoughts, so it's just going to be such a great conversation. Thanks for the introduction. My name is Erin Morrison. Yes, the name of my community on Instagram is the Conscious Mom, and a little bit about me, I have a background in counseling. I went to Columbia University for that, which was amazing, and then I found my way into conscious parenting, which was a nice training. And then I've taken all of that and really blended it into digestible, doable ways for like the realistic parent who wants to feel comfortable in their skin, wants to be their authentic self, and wants to enjoy motherhood. And so I'm really excited to share about the book, of course, but really just to have a conversation with you about what you had said in the intro. I love this idea of trusting our inner voice and wisdom, and that's hard. When there's a lot of noise. Yeah, let's just start there.
Laura: So why is this so hard for us? And I, yeah, speak from your own experience. I know for me that in my transition to parenthood, there was a lot of scrambling to do what, figure out what was the right thing to do and not a lot of looking inward. But like, what is it? Why, why is this so hard? Because it is hard. I talk with moms every day for whom this is hard.
Erin: You know what, I'm going to start with myself just because I'll share about my own journey and what I see in my practice. And I think that for most of us, with every great intention, we were raised as women and mothers, mothers to be, as little girls who do the right thing. And I think when we're raised to do the right thing, it doesn't always include doing what is right for you. Often it's doing the right thing that's right for everyone else. And your own feelings and your convenience is sort of removed. So I think when we become mothers, when we use that framework of what's the right thing to do, what's the right thing to do, we forget that so much of the right thing, even with good intention, like I said, to be polite and kind and thinking of others, we really don't think about what's right for ourselves, and I think we show up as mothers being like why am I doing the right thing? I'm saying yes to this birthday invitation because I don't want to be mean and miss this friend of mine's birthday. But that yes to her really feels like a no to me and my kid because I'm either sick or my child's overtired. And I think over and over again of using that framework, we start to feel like I don't even know myself. I don't even trust myself, and it comes back to that idea of, you know, the way that we were raised to just sort of make sure everyone else is okay. Again, I do not like hard, hard feelings on the parents there. It's, it's just that's how they were raised, right? And so it's our generation where we're starting to realize as mothers, oh wow, I can do the right thing. And also know what's right for me too.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. And I feel like there's this other extra layer, you know, I'm guessing a lot of the parents that you work with, I know that this is true for me for the parents that I work with. They know, they came out of their childhood knowing what they didn't want to do, and they didn't, don't necessarily know what to do, right? And I think that you said something there. You said, Like learning to trust yourself, and I think that they don't. I think that they, for what I see is this is my experience was exactly what I don't know what to do. How can I possibly know what to do if I've never experienced it, right? So, yeah, so how do we find trust within ourselves? If we've never experienced the thing that we're going for.
Erin: I love that question, and I have two different things I want to say. First, what I say to my mom, the moms in my practices, I ask them to close their eyes and take them back to a place or a part in their lives of something they know they are most confident in. What is something you know to be true, right? And what I have found, which comes to my second question that I now ask everyone when they say this, is, do I have my child's best interests at heart. 100% of the parents are gonna say yes, right? Especially your listeners. No one's gonna say no, I don't. So if you anchor and ground yourself in this knowing that I have my child's best interests at heart, you're already starting a step up from before where you're like, I don't know what to do. I don't, you do know that you have your child's best interests at heart. And even if you don't know what to do right now, You know you're going to do everything in your power to figure that out, whether that means talking to your partner, your co-parent, your mom, your dad, your friends, your siblings, because you do know at least that. And I find that's like a beautiful anchor to ground ourselves and my own self actually, because, gosh, every day something comes up for me and my kids where I'm like, I sure don't know what to do, but I know I will find out.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I love that. I want, I'm very curious what your second thing was.
Erin: Oh, so sorry. I made that confusing. What I was saying is the first question I always ask parents is, tell me something you know to be true and certain about yourself. Like, what is the thing that you are most confident about yourself as a parent? And if they can't find a parent, I say, okay. About, about yourself as a whole, as a woman, right? Or a father. Oh, sorry, a woman, a woman, a man, mother, a father. And because of that question, what most parents said to me was, well, I know I love my, I know I love my kid. I know I love them more than anything. So now that second question that I asked that I find is just almost easier for everyone is, do you have your child's best interest at heart? If that answer is yes, you're, you're already ready to you're, you know.
Laura: One step first two places. Yeah. And so and then like what are some other like mindful inquiry, because I think that that's something that you love to talk about, right? yeah. So what are some other like mindful inquiries that we can do in these moments of indecision of this thing is, you know, approaching us, perhaps in the moment, we just have to kind of deal with something, make sure everybody is, you know, not freaking out. But when we circle back around to it. I'm thinking about this one specific mom who is just, oh, she is, she's in my membership community, and she's so lovely. She's so deeply committed to doing things right with her kid. And she does a beautiful job. She tells me these stories where she's racked with panic over not knowing what to do, and she handles it so beautifully. And I think sometimes she just needs to hear me say like, you, it sounds like you handled it really well. But for moms like that who are kind of looking back at an interaction that they just had, what are some like some gentle curious questions they can be asking themselves around? How did it go? What could we do differently next time? We're not going out and seeking that information from an outside source, but where we're really learning how to seek it from within ourselves. That's a long question. I'm so sorry.
Erin: No, no, I get what you're saying. You're saying how can we actually check in with ourselves in these rough moments because we don't always have the opportunity to call your best friend or whoever your therapist, you know, you can't do that.
Laura: So I think that I don't know about you, but I really, I want the parents that I work with like their point of contact, right?
Erin: I have my goal for you. Like I can't wait for you to fire me and be like. I, you know, check in with me and I want to hear all the great things and how your family's growing, but fire me, please.
Laura: Yes, I want to walk alongside you at this moment, and then our paths will diverge, and that's good. We want you to know.
Erin: Yes, gosh, that's great. So, I think the first thing I always remind parents of is your progress and your, you know, just measuring yourself as a parent. If you're looking back at a situation. and saying, I really wish I handled that differently. Like that's huge. You know, if you think about how change happens, there's like this first part of precontemplation, you're thinking about changing, right? And then you're, you're planning it and then, you know, I'm gonna add in my own. You try and you mess up. To me, knowing that you messed up or you didn't do it the way you would wish is huge because you're on your path, you're on your way. I think there's this idea that, you know, one day your child's going to have a tantrum and you're magically going to be like, you know, this perfect mother who doesn't have her blood boil and doesn't say the wrong thing.
Oh gosh, no, right? No, that's not real. I don't, I don't let me know if anyone, you know, please write in if that is your situation, I think that's wonderful, but I think it's about. being able to reflect and, you know, the, the big thing for at least my clients is that when they come back and they share, the validation we give isn't just because we're trying to be nice, it's because we're actually seeing it without the harsh judgment that they have of their own selves. And so I also say, well, what would you say to a friend? What would you say to your child if they looked at the situation? And I think that really helps you, you know, sort of watch yourself from above and say, okay, well, what did I do right? Here it is, and what could I have done better? Okay, let's try it next time.
Laura: I really, really like that. I like that kind of getting a little bit of distance and being able to check in from a place with a clear lens, right? So, and a piece of that is becoming aware of the lenses that we are using to look at ourselves, right? So if we, we know we look through a lens of self judgment, just even becoming aware of the lens. Like I don't know, like, you know, for folks who wear glasses, my mom wears glasses and she can never see that her glasses are smudged, right? Someone on the outside can see that there's smudges there and say, okay, mom, here, let me clean your glasses for you. And then it's clear when she puts them back on, but we're so used to looking through something with smudges, you know.
Erin: So true. And you know what, this might be a little interesting to think about. I hope it comes through when I say it. I think when you recognize a mom, let's say you're, you're a mom and you just yelled at your child in the car, when you, when you reflect back and you're like, gosh, like, why did I yell like that? Well, the person doing the reflecting, who is that versus the person that just did that? So to me, I think, gosh, that's like my higher self or my more my true authentic self knows that's not how I wanted to respond. Trust that that person that's reflecting is the real you and the other person is just someone who needed some tools or some compassion themselves. You know, I tell parents all the time, we as parents, but our kids, we don't wake up every day and say, gosh, I want to have a bad day. No, we're all, we are all programmed and hardwired to do good, feel good, and be good. And when we don't, It's because we are, there's something we need. It's not because we just want to cause havoc on our families or our kids just want to be, you know, tantrummy. Absolutely not. And so I always go back to doing good, feel good, be good. If they're not, there's a reason. And how can I give my child the support, the comfort, or the tools they need to get through that? And the same goes for me.
Laura: For me, right? What are some of the things that you do when you're noticing like, oh gosh, I am. I need some more support. What are you going to do?
Erin: So this is totally my kids even know this. So you know, I would say, I'm not saying everyone feels this way, but around a specific time of the month, I just really don't have patience. There's like 2 days where I am irritable, and what I love to do is I love to tell myself. I love to call myself out when I am having a moment where I feel I don't have a lot of patience or I feel cranky. I say to my kids who are 9 and 11, by the way, and I understand that this is different based on your ages, but I say to my kids, oh my gosh, guys, I'm so cranky. I'm like, Do you hear me? They're like, Oh yeah, do we? Yes, we know we're new. Gruella Deville, you know, you can picture her driving with her coat and her eyes like crazy. That's me sometimes. So, what I like to do by telling on myself, it really takes it down a notch for me. It's almost like I don't have to pretend that everything is perfect.
Now, I use what I, you know, my phrasing, I've decided to call this is appropriate honesty. I use this with my kids all the time where I am appropriately honest with them about what is going on, right? So if I am really cranky, let's say it's that time of month for me, right? Very cranky, but also I have asked both of them, kindly, to put their shoes on 5 times in a row. I will say to them, guys, getting really cranky over here. I really need you to put your shoes on and you have it. And so I'm gonna, I'm either gonna go in the other room, let you guys get that together, and then we're going to have a conversation about, you know, how we're going to get our shoes on without and also without me being cranky. I'm honest about my feelings because I don't ever want my kids to look at me and say, Are you mad? And then I'm like, oh no, I'm fine, because one, they're not going to believe me. They're going to either learn to not trust me or trust themselves about feelings.
Laura: I mean, huge right there. Huge. When we, when we don't own our feelings, absolutely, we teach our kids not to trust themselves.
Erin: Right. So I'm owning my feelings. I'm also saying, yeah, what you did wasn't great either, right? I'm not gonna let my kids grow up and believe that not putting, not listening 5 times, everyone's gonna be happy with them. No, I'm like, guys, I am cranky, but I take accountability for how I respond. So if I'm gonna yell at them, I'm never gonna say, Well, you're responsible for me yelling. Absolutely not. I'm gonna say, hey, I shouldn't have yelled that. That really was not great. I don't like it. Like, and with younger kids, I'll, I used to do with my kids, an unkind rewind. I'll be like, bloop, you know, like, be like, little robot and model that for them. They don't now they're like, your mom, you're cringy, don't do that. But I used to do that.
Laura: My kids are 12 and 10. You know the word cringe.
Erin: Oh, so you're cringy too.
Laura: I have always been cringy. I always knew that I was cringy.
Erin: Can we? Can we start the cringy mom club because I'm like, I'll be the vice president or president. But my point is like I do the same thing. I don't want them to think that just because I'm their mom, I don't have emotions, but I'm never going to make them feel responsible for my emotions or my behaviors. And I think there's a very fine line, and this is a practice, like I've had to practice this for over a decade, right? And I think as long as you know that, that's again, you're anchored in that, I have my child's best interests at heart. And I'm always gonna work towards that. You're golden, you know, you're gonna get there and you're gonna mess up like I mess up.
Laura: Yeah, I like, I really like that. The highlighting of that boundary around, I'm going to be, I'm going to share, but be appropriate. And I think that that is a big concern for a lot of parents. I think it does keep us from not sharing sometimes because we know we don't want to be co-dependent. We know we don't want to put our, we don't want to parentalify our kids. We don't want to put responsibility on them that isn't theirs, right? And that is true for all relationships, right? As a marriage and family therapist by training, like, We did the same thing to partners too. Like, you made me mad. Well, no, actually you did something that felt disrespectful and I'm mad I need to go take care of myself, right?
Erin: Absolutely. And you need to change your behavior too, because you need to, you need to check yourself and I'm gonna go check myself, right?
Laura: Exactly. We're both going to be responsible and accountable.
Erin: You're so right. And I think touching back on what you said earlier about the pendulum, this What I see in our generation of mothers who, by the way, I think we're fabulous, but we have, we do the pendulum sort of swings a little far, right? And I think a lot of us and a lot of our moms were so concerned about not making our kids codependent, not parentifying them and not making them feel responsible for our feelings that we forget they still need to know that their behaviors have consequences, and I don't mean that we have to Punish them or whatever your belief is on that. But I do mean, don't take away the natural cause and not natural cause. The natural reaction that comes from someone being rude, right? Am I gonna give it back to them the same way they give it back to me? That's not ideal. But I am gonna let them know it wasn't okay. And so there is like, there was a video I made once that people really, I took to and I said, I'll share it here is that, think of your child's bad mood and bad behavior, like they're holding a ball, like I'm holding a ball in my hand.
And they're throwing that ball so hard at you with their anger and their frustration and their behavior. You have the choice to take that ball and throw it right back at them with the same energy, your anger and frustration and your bad mood, or you have the choice of looking at that ball and dropping it and saying, you know what, wow, that was a pretty awful ball you threw at me, but I'm not gonna throw it back at you because I understand. That you want to do good, feel good, and be good. And right now you're not. And so I'm gonna figure out what it is that we need to do for you. And I'm also going to let you know that that wasn't okay, right? So it's a mix. And so I love that feeling of like my kids throw a lot of balls at me, you know, and I can see it coming at me and I'm like, drop the ball, don't take the bait.
Laura: Yeah, I love that. We call it hot potato, we call it emotional hot potato in our house. And we're just tossing the hot at times and it's your choice whether you hold it in your hand and burn yourself or put it down.
Erin: I love that. That's a good one. I'll use that one too. That's awesome.
Laura: I'm thinking about this, so I'm, I'm wondering about those moments where perhaps we've made a parenting mistake and, you know. We didn't mean to. It's not a grievous thing, but our kids are holding onto it a little bit. They're not ready to forgive us. They maybe are holding a little bit of a grudge. They are not letting it go, and maybe it's over something like, you know, like I said no to going to get ice cream, you know, or, you know, I didn't realize how important it was for you to be at that skate party that and I, you know, didn't, I had already scheduled something else for us, you know, and so they're holding on to those things, so they're not like, but we made this error, but and we want to repair with them. And they're not quite ready. Like, what are, like, what do we do in that moment? Because for me, as a person who has shifts a little bit towards an anxious attachment style, like that's within my own self, I have to be really aware of when I'm like, poking at someone, like, make up with me, make up with me. I'm not done. I like, we have to be, this has to be over, you know, I have to be, how do we get settled in this place of, okay, especially with our older kids, I'm ready to repair. They might not be. I've owned my taking accountability. I've done all these things that Erin has taught me, and now what? How do we sit in that kind of waiting, wanting things to be better?
Erin: And I'm so glad you said, how do we sit in that? And that's, that's what it is. It's that, you know, asking yourself, am I responding to my child's emotions, or am I reacting to mine, you know.
Laura: Oh my God, I love that so much.
Erin: Right. It's a, it's a it's a good one because a lot of, a lot of things in parenting. I'm reacting to my emotions about this, and that's okay. You're allowed to have them. But when you're poking at someone and you're saying, it's almost sometimes kids feel this energy. It's so kids, I say kids are like the dogs at the airport where they sniff everything out. That's not right. Like when your kids know that you are asking something from them for you, it's almost repelling.
Laura: It's a repellent.
Erin: Like I don't exist to make you feel okay, mom. And what a beautiful thing they do, how beautiful they know that. We don't, we don't want to break it down. We don't want to break that down. We want to say, oh shoot, like they have, they're they're just, they're the same as us. They have all the feelings, just smaller bodies, and they're allowed. They're allowed to not be ready. And and again, it doesn't mean that they can be. You know, and not so nice to us, right? I, it's something I laugh all the time because my husband's taken on the phrase I say is you can be mad, but you can't be mean. True, they can be mad. They can't be mean. But if I know that I am actually responding to my child's feelings instead of reacting to my own, I'm going to show up more like the mom I want to be.
Now, it's difficult, right? Especially if you know, okay, I'm a more anxious attachment or okay, I don't like the feeling of being wrong. I don't like being in the dog house with anyone, okay, well, understood, right? No one wants to feel that way, but. It is also absolutely appropriate for your child to still be upset and still be mad, you know, it doesn't, we all go through it and it's no different than a marriage. Usually there's one partner that wants to get at it right away, and there's the other one who's like, Don't you dare. Like, I need my space. And how funny that we choose those partners that are different than us. But, you know, it's a perfect dance, the anxious avoid it. It's just lovely. there not that everyone is actually anxious about it, but you know the tendencies, of course. So yeah, you know, a lot of this stuff is the same with, it's not the same as your partner and your kids.
Laura: But it is really similar when you have dynamics.
Erin: Yeah, right.
Laura: Preaching to the choir, of course. Erin, I just want to say that for the listener one more time. Am I responding to my kids's emotions or am I reacting to mine? I love that question so much. You know, I'm gonna make a little screen saver for us and we'll, we'll put it on our screen so we can put it on the background of our phone like. I mean, I'm even thinking about that as something, so I have a rage journaling practice where like if I'm like feeling really just regulated, which happens sometimes, like I just write it all down and I just feel like maybe I should even go into that journal and like 20 pages ahead, just write that question at the top of the journal so that when I open it up while I'm rage journaling, like I mean like I'm confronted with it right then and there, you know. Because that's what journal is. It's reacting, it's reacting to my own emotions and putting it on the paper as opposed to putting it on my kid. It's beautiful practice.
Erin: That's amazing that that works for you too. No, I mean, listen, everyone has a different, like, I have a lot of moms who can't journal. It's not their thing, you know. And I tell them, hey, if journaling is not for you, take out notes on your phone. Do a voice note, and delete it. Like, you know, it's so important to get, get it outside of you in any way, and it doesn't always have to be with a coach or a therapist or a friend. It can be like on your own. I think that's a beautiful practice.
Laura: Yeah, I'm one of those people who can't be in the way like the Pinterest perfect way that I would like to be able to. I think I like my kids are both using journals from my childhood, so I have always had this like aspirational journaling bent to me where like, so they both have journals from my childhood were like the first page is filled out and then like the next page is like 6 months later, and then the next page is a year later. And so I've been an aspiring journal person my entire life, basically. So I can never keep a normal, pretty daily journal. Only the Rage Journal works really well for me. And so we're releasing the perfectionism that has been really helpful.
Erin: Yes, oh my gosh, no, totally.
Laura: What are some other, you know, so we haven't touched your book a little bit, and I, so your book is called 3 Minutes for Mom, and right, I got that right, yes. So Three Minutes for Mom. And I really it's, I would love to hear a little bit about, because I'm guessing there are some practices there.
Erin: Every day there is.
Laura: Right? And so will you tell me maybe like your favorite one or two that, you know, is just an easy entry point. Like, okay, we're looking to make a little bit of change. We're not gonna, you know, do everything all at once. We're going to be really patient and compassionate with ourselves. And here's a nice way to dip a toe in.
Erin: I love that and actually that's a page, you know, so it's Three Minutes for Mom is the 365 days of just that. The idea behind it was what I wanted. To wake up in the morning, excuse me, I wanted to wake up in the morning and, you know, I used to open my phone and scroll, which you, right? And that's all, but that's a lot of us. And I felt like I was letting in all this other stuff, and I wasn't starting my day feeling connected to myself and feeling like doing something that felt great. And so that's where 3 minutes from Mom came, where I'm like, you know what, every day we just need a little something to get us anchored, grounded, rooted and like our The goodness that we have. And so every page is the first is, you know, like a quote. Second is more details into that quote. And the third is a takeaway, a practice that you can do or not do, and they're very doable because again, I wasn't going to say, we'll go journal for 30 minutes. This is 3 minutes for mom. You get 1 minute. And so a lot of these takeaways at the end of the day are really just for you to see the good that you do.
Because as we spoke a little before this, we're doing a lot more right than we're doing wrong. We're just so hyper-focused, you know, and evolution purposes, we are focused on what's not going right more than wrong, right? We needed to survive and not get eaten by the bear. If we didn't pay attention to that, we wouldn't be here, but you know, now our brains are just looking for the 99 things we did wrong, you know, and we don't even see the things we did right. So that's what this book is. It's like a love note to moms everyday to be like, hey, this is an empowering, encouraging book, but not a BS way, in a way that's like, let's actually help you target what you already are doing right, so that you can use that, let it compound over time and take that momentum. And maybe make a different decision that day, maybe feel a little more connected to yourself or your child. And so there's, I mean, there's so many I'm going to open one and see what, so a takeaway. Ah yes, well, this is just what we said. This is 155. It says the pages when your child tells you no. Oh, how fun. Taking the time to understand your child's not can set you free from reactivity.
Okay. The takeaway here is the next time your child tells you no, don't take the bait, that will drag you into a power struggle. Instead, take a moment to understand, and you may be able to proceed feeling more in control of yourself. So that passage, I didn't read it, but I know it's about, you don't have to like what your child did or said, but you can understand why they feel that way. And I think that's a powerful thing. We forget things like, you, you told your child no, they couldn't have more screen time or ice cream, and they're disappointed. Is it really that crazy that they're upset? Absolutely not, right? Like not. And so a phrase that I love and it's in this book too is that it's not personal. It's developmental. And if you can say that to yourself about your kids over and over, again, you're going to show up a little bit more like the mom you know you are and not let all that other stuff get in the way.
Laura: I really like that a lot. Okay, so I'm thinking about it. Those early days of parenting, when things were hard and my time seemed to be not my own. Right now with the tween situation in my house, I have a lot of time for myself because they want to talk to their friends, they wanna, you know, they're reading, they're doing other things. So, but I'm so I'm thinking about even the thought of getting those 3 minutes would have been so hard. And so what are some, like, do you have some suggestions for how to approach this with our kids that go beyond waking up 5 minutes earlier because that doesn't happen for me. So how do we carve out a little bit of time for ourselves?
Erin: I love that. And so, okay, so I'm thinking of the age of what age are we thinking of? Because I feel like it's so different for a newborn to like a toddler to be talking like let's 2 to 5. I like it.
Laura: Maybe the parent has a 5 year old and a 2 year old.
Erin: Okay, so. This is like my favorite age of brainstorming ideas for moms. This is like the age that most parents come, you know, come to me for support.
Laura: Yeah, it's just like, because we don't know what we're doing. Yeah, no, no. So, Okay, so the kids are new too, right? They move into age 2, they start developing theory of mind, they realize they're their own person and then they start asserting that personhood. It's gorgeous and challenging. It is, right?
Erin: It's the most beautiful thing and the hardest thing. It's like, thank you. I'm so glad you're a strong human being and it's hard to parent you. So, I always say if there is something that you need to do, I love to rehearse and practice with kids that age and show them. So, you know, it can go from like, okay, we're going to sit here for a minute and like, like, like with the timer and like practice that. If it's about them, you actually needing them to like not be on you for the minute. If that doesn't work for you, the other thing is, getting them involved. Oh, you have this book, Okay. Oh, I know your viewers or your listeners can't see it, but I'm holding up the book. I'm saying like, oh, here's this book. I want you to pick a page. I want you to flip through it and that, oh my God, you picked the best page, you know, like you want to get them incorporated so that they know. That what they're doing matters to you, but also that you have your own time.
Now, I get it, like that's not gonna always work for every kid, especially if you're having a screaming, crying tantrum in the moment. No, you're not gonna get your 3 minutes. But Even if it's not this book, right? It's, if you have a phrase in your head that you know you're going to say to yourself, if you can close your eyes and be at a place that you know makes you feel good, I think anything that you can anchor into to remind you that you have your child's best interests at heart and that you're always trying to do the best that you can. That's all you can do. And you know, I'm always hesitant to give ideas because sometimes I'll listen to podcasts and things. I'm like, yeah, that'll work, that will work. I get it. That's why the book Three Minutes for Mom is really not about, here's the best thing for you to do. It's like, try this, try that. Every day there's something, and you will find the thing that works best for you. And it's not always deep breaths and journaling, you know, and I sometimes you get that and you're like, well, that's cool.
That that will not also those deep breaths don't work for me, you know? So I actually have a couple of different one-minute breathing exercises if that's your thing. If not, I have ways for you to reflect on how to have a little more fun in your day for yourself and your kids. You know, there's so much that can help us on our motherhood journey. There's never just one thing, and it's finding that for you, which is really what it's all about. It's your own authentic motherhood. Journey and no one can tell you exactly what's best for you. But the more you tune in and start to realize you like something you don't, you're like, oh wait, I do have it all. It is already inside of me, and I, I don't have to doubt myself as much.
Laura: I love that, Erin. Thank you so, so much. Can we hear from you on where folks can find you? You've mentioned you've got an Instagram page, like, what, you know, I'll put everything in the show notes, but sometimes folks like to hear it.
Erin: I'm so glad, you know, I post videos almost every day, and it's really just whatever comes up for me. Nothing is really scripted. It's either what's going on in my life, my friend's life, or my client's life, of course, not with any details. But I make short digestible videos to help you through whatever is going on in your motherhood journey, and it's really not just about parenting, it's really about the mother. So you can find me on Instagram. It's The Conscious Mom, and then you can grab my book Three Minutes for Mom Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble, anywhere books are sold.
Laura: Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Erin: Thank you. This is wonderful. I want to chat again. Let's do it again.
Laura: I would love that. That would be good.
Erin: Okay, good.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.
All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!