Margaret Webb Shares Tools & Mindsets for Surviving Summer Break

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I’m excited to be bringing parenting coach Margaret Webb back to the podcast this week. Margaret helps parents find more peace in parenting the child they didn’t expect when they were expecting, and part of her work is supporting parents survive summer break. Many parents (and not just parents raising differently-wired kids) limp across the finish line of a long school year only to find themselves facing the stress of summer — new schedules and routines, different expectations, wants, and needs for everyone in the family, and lots of other changes.

In our conversation, Margaret shares her personal strategy for not only surviving summer break, but thriving. She walks us through her Summer Survival Skills Package, a free toolkit comprised of MP3s and worksheets designed to help struggling parents have a summer that works for the whole family.

 

About Margaret Webb

Margaret WebbMargaret Webb is a certified Master Life Coach, parenting coach, nature-based coach, former teacher, wife and mother. As a life and parenting coach, she weaves together her experience as an elementary education teacher with the tools she’s learned in Martha Beck’s Life Coach Training, Sagefire Institute’s Nature-Based Coach Training, and what she’s applied to her own life as a mom of a child with special needs.

 

Things you’ll learn from this episode

  • How “reality versus expectations” creates unnecessary stress for many parents over the summer
  • Why having “leadership energy” as a parent can help a family thrive
  • The importance of getting clear on both your personal needs as a parent and your child’s needs and wants for the summer break
  • What scheduling, mapping, and tracking have to do with surviving summer holidays
  • How focusing on our own experience and fostering personal self-care actually supports our children
  • Why nature can be so restorative for parents raising differently-wired kids
  • How to envision your ideal day as a way to begin creating a more peaceful reality

 

Resources mentioned for surviving summer break

 

Episode Transcript

Margaret Webb  0:00

One of the struggles that happens is that when kids are in school, there’s a structure and there’s a system there. It’s like everyday they know exactly on Monday, this is what we do on Tuesday. This is what we do. And if that structure changes, they’re in on that information. So what I realized was that by not having a structure set up for artists by not filling him in on what was going on, then that was creating some chaos.

Debbie Reber  0:34

Welcome to the Tilt Parenting podcast, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I’m your host, Debbie Reber. And I’m excited to be bringing back to the show parent coach Margaret Webb, as school is out or nearly out. In some cases, Margaret and I are going to be talking about summer survival strategies. I don’t mean what you should actually be planning for your child over the next few weeks or months, but rather how you as a parent raising a differently wired kid can get through the summer in a way that feels peaceful and positive and good for the whole family. It is possible, trust me. A quick note, I just want to acknowledge that we know that summer can be stressful for so many families, especially families who don’t have the financial resources to enroll their kids and expensive camps or families. We’re having a parent home all summer just is not an option. There was actually a big article in this week’s New York Times about this very thing, and we totally recognize this. So I just want to state upfront that the financial stresses of summer are not something we really address. In this particular episode. Our focus is really more on self care and planning to help parents get through the summer unscathed. And one last thing before we get to our interview, I wanted to quickly share that we’ve just hit the two month mark since we first launched tilt and episodes of our podcasts have already been listened to 10,000 times. It’s so exciting for us. So thank you so much for listening and for being a part of our audience, and for helping us spread the word. We have some great episodes coming up too, including an expert on ADHD, and Asher, a special episode on traveling with kids and much more. So please keep listening, keep sharing, and we’ll keep doing our best to provide you with super useful and inspiring content. I hope you enjoyed this episode to learn more about tilt the revolution for parents raising differently wired kids, visit www.tiltparenting.com 

Hello, everyone, it’s Debbie Reber with the Tilt Parenting podcasts. And I’m really happy to be bringing Margaret Webb back to the podcast. And for those of you who don’t know, Margaret was actually my very first guest on the show in episode one, which was all about finding peace and parenting the child you didn’t expect while you were expecting. And I don’t know if you know this, Margaret, that has been by far our most popular show, it’s been listened to 1000s of times, which is so cool to see. And so if you’re new to the podcast that you are listening to now, I highly recommend you go back and listen to that one because it’s full of great stuff. Just for a quick introduction. Margaret is a Martha Beck certified master life coach, a parenting coach and nature based coach and a former teacher. She’s also the parent of a differently wired son, and just personally has been a huge influence for me, and also one of my lifelines during some more challenging parts of my own journey with Asher. So welcome back to the show. Margaret,

Margaret Webb  3:37

I am so happy to be back.

Debbie Reber  3:40

I know that we’ve gone back and forth via email. And there’s a lot of things that we could and want to talk about for episodes of the podcast. But today because it’s June, and kids are just getting out of school and many parents are facing anywhere from a few weeks to some parents have a few months of time away from school, we thought it would be a great time to look at the issue of summer survival. Sounds like a Mark Burnett reality series when I say sometimes it feels that way. I guess just to start the conversation. Why are you know, in your opinion, why are summers so difficult for so many parents? I mean, I think they’re tough for every parent in some way or another but especially those raising differently wired kids, what are your thoughts on that?

Margaret Webb  4:30

Oh, yes, it can be so hard. And what I have kind of boiled it down to is that you know, you’re you spend the whole year you know, rushing around and having a very strict schedule and appointments and and whatnot after school that you know parents can look at this time of summer is this this time of like relaxation and ease and, you know, for me it was personally I refer to it as the kumbaya time. Were like, all of a sudden, we would just be like, have all this lazy, you know, the hammocks would come out, and I’d just be sitting by the pool, you know, and my son would be splashing around playing and running through sprinklers. And that was, you know, my, my hope and my expectation, and then reality hits, and the kids are home after a while, and they’re bored. You know, they’re, they’re all over the place. And it’s this expectation meets reality. And I think that’s, it’s a really, really hard time for a lot of people, and especially with parents who have differently wired children, these kids often have really powerful and strong and intense energy. And I know that for me, there was this feeling like I was getting sucked into his energy. So it was a struggle, because I wasn’t getting anything done that I wanted to get done or needed to get done. And he wasn’t doing the things that I had expected him to do. And so it was kind of this weird time period where it was like, okay, like, I should know what to do with him. You know, it should feel better than what it’s feeling and, and it wasn’t. And it wasn’t until I realized that things weren’t feeling good. And that, you know, I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is miserable. And I don’t really want it to be miserable, that I started kind of diving into what was actually going on. And that led me to creating the summer survival skills.

Debbie Reber  6:39

Interesting. You know, as you were painting this picture of this summer you envisioned a kid running through the sprinklers and just kind of you know, this relaxing summer. That’s actually very different from this, the way I used to envision my summer or the way I used to experience summer when Asher was younger. I was one of those parents, I definitely dreaded summer like I think I never looked forward to it. I was so happy that he was in school, and he was someone else’s responsibility for X number of hours a day. And summers for me were, you know, like, Oh, crap, like, what? What am I gonna do with him? I have all this time. And I would try to just schedule that boy in camps out the wazoo. Like, that was my answer at the time. And it was still very stressful, because I often just had to cross my fingers and hope that any particular camp I signed him up for whether it was in Canberra or aquarium camp or whatever I you know, would work and I learned the hard way that I needed to actually call the camps months ahead of time and kind of prep them and make sure they were ready and willing to to support Asher in their camps. But that was for me, I think I always like summer, like what am I you know, I just looked at it this huge albatross that, you know, I have, I have to figure this out, I had the spreadsheets I was, you know, doing everything I could to try to, I guess mastermind this summer that I could just kind of sail through Of course, that never worked out. So I guess whether you’re picturing this luxurious or relaxing kind of idea, like summer where you know, you’re going to the beach and your kids are running around with friends and everything is go smooth, and they come in for popsicle, you know, whether you have that picture in your mind, or you have a picture in your mind of, of your child just having these amazing experiences at camp and you just having like, all this great time to yourself, it is that expectations versus reality. It’s that disconnect, had never really works out as planned for parents like us, you know, case,

Margaret Webb  8:42

You know, it’s, it’s an expectation versus reality. Consider, you know, and for me, it was like, I was a teacher, and I taught kids his age. And so there was like, you know, I was kind of, you know, felt like I you know, he’s kind of my teacher and that feeling of like, Oh, I’ve got this in the bag. And Haha, no, you don’t try this. And so it was like, all of a sudden, I was back in this position, this learners position of okay, like, this is not at all what I had expected this to be. And from that place, it was kind of like, well, now what are that big question of, okay, you’ve got this child, you’ve got this situation, it is what it is. And so, you know, how can you survive this and how and kind of I’d say survival, but it’s more like using these skills to get parents to a place of leadership, so that it’s not just surviving. You know, it is more thriving and having a balance of what needs to be done and what wants to be done so that everybody’s, everybody kind of gets attention. So

Debbie Reber  9:54

I love that word leadership in that context. It’s something we don’t often hear in relationship to parenting for some reason, because when you say it, it seems so obvious that is our role is to be a leader and setting the tone. And,

Margaret Webb  10:10

And I think it’s important because tying back into having differently wired children who have that, like they often and I’ve heard you talk about in previous podcasts about, you know, perfectionist ideas, strong energy. And it’s been really important for me to step into that leadership role more and more in a very conscious way. Because otherwise, it’s easy to get sucked into that perfectionistic energy or that strong willed energy or that intense energy because they can be very clear about what it is that they want. At least that’s been my experience is that like, you know, even before he was verbal, which didn’t actually happen until he was five, that that kid could get anything you wanted, and managed to get exactly the color cup that he wanted. And so I think being a leader, you know, while it sounds simplistic, it’s, you know, it’s really that energy of like, okay, like, I’m, I’m seeing the big picture of what’s going on and making decisions from that place.

Debbie Reber  11:14

Who, okay, this is gonna be good, I can already tell. So, okay, let’s get to some of your awesome tools. Now you have created a summer survival skills package for parents, which I grabbed it at least a year ago, I’m not sure that first year you had it available, but it’s a combination of some mp3 ease and PDF worksheets that you offer for free on your website, which is amazing. So I was wondering, could you just kind of walk us through the different tools that you have in that package and explain why you created each of those components?

Margaret Webb  11:47

Absolutely. I created them. Because as part of my nature base coach training, I was learning about and playing with the importance of mapping, and tracking and rituals and celebration and how they’re important for survival in nature, how native cultures survive, and yet, I realized I was not implementing them into my everyday life. And that’s something that is so important for me as a coach is to be able to bring tools to people that I actually use in my everyday life with my child with myself, I don’t share anything that I haven’t used. And so those are four things when I sat down and thought, Okay, what is it that I really would help me and that I really need from kind of a big picture point of view. And so the mapping, part of it is in creating a structure. And I know that some people are like, oh, you know, structure, but you know, and then there’s people like you who are like spreadsheets and everything. And so there’s a balance and realizing that, you know, one of the one of the struggles that happens is that when kids are in school, there’s a structure and there are there’s a system there are you know, it’s like every day they know exactly on Monday, this is what we do on Tuesday, this is what we do. And if that structure changes, they’re in on that information, they’re given that information by the teacher, you know, okay, like so and so teacher is not here today. And so, Pe is going to be canceled, or we’re going to do something different. And so they’re kind of in on it. So what I realized was that by not having a structured setup for our day, by not filling him in on what was going on, then that was creating some chaos, it was just creating all this open space. And that open space was being filled by things like electronics. And while I’m not against electronics at all, it was just that it was being filled way too much with electronics. And so I decided to, to kind of investigate, what that could look like in our life. And I felt like it became really important to think about what my needs were. And I didn’t say his needs, I said my needs, what are my needs during the day? What are my wants during a regular day. And that was really important to kind of dive into okay, what are some things that I need to get done? What are some things that I want to get done? And then also, what does that look like on a weekly basis? What does that look like on a monthly basis? And that’s really important because I think when our kids are around our needs and wants sometimes can get put on the side burner because we feel like oh, we should be playing with our kids. I’ve had a lot of people come to me with that lately, of oh, I should be you know, spending all day playing with my kids and I don’t know what to do and I’m miserable and I don’t like it and what and then judging themselves for that and so, putting out in front like okay, these are some things that I want to do and these are some things that I need to do giving yourself permission just to kind of label those or to put them out there. And then go to Okay, well, what are some wants and needs? What do I know about my child, and or children, if you have more than, you know, if you have, I have an only child, you have an only child. But if you have more than one child, each of those children has different wants and needs. In addition to that, they have different personalities. And so taking into consideration your personality, your wants, your needs, and then also putting into consideration the wants and needs of your children. And from there, spending some time thinking about how you can map out your day, how you can map out your week, how you can map out your month with things that are going to meet each of those needs and wants, do you

Debbie Reber  15:49

Loop your child into this process in terms of when you’re spending that time thinking about what their needs? And once are? Is that something you bring them in and say what do you see for, you know, what are your goals for this summer? Or what do you want to make sure that you spend lots of time doing? Is that something you do together? Yes,

Margaret Webb  16:08

Absolutely. Because it’s important for me to get his feedback on what it is that he wants to do. And that helps us to bring those expectations back to reality. Because if he wants to go to Six Flags, every single day of his summer, in order for it to be like this awesome. So in his ideal world, you know, he would love that, but knowing like, Okay, I you know, I would like to go to Six Flags, I would like to go to a waterpark, I would like to go to, you know, whatever it is that he has in his mind of what he thinks then that allows me to step back into that leadership role, and plot that out and say, Okay, well, let’s pick, you know, some days where we can plug those in. And that is super helpful. Because you’re hearing your child, they know that they’re being heard, like, if you know, write it down or type it, then it becomes real. So they know, it’s not just the thing hanging out there. And that their wants and needs are being considered in what you do. And the same thing goes the other way is telling them like, for me, what I’ve been doing Andrews not doing any camp this summer. And so what I’ve been doing each morning is I sit down, and I think about, you know what my intention is for the day, and then what I need to do during the day and what you know, what my needs and wants are, what his needs and wants are and I, I make a schedule, and it’s a very loose schedule. And I print that out. And so then he’s filled in that, you know, at this time from this tend to this time, mom is on a phone call. And so from that time to that time, that’s, you know, that is his time to use electronics. And then after this time, I’m very explicit, and I say no electronics, and then give some ideas for some things that he can be doing during that time.

Debbie Reber  17:59

So you have your needs once and what I know worksheet where you’ve kind of mapped those things out. And then the schedule you it sounds like and correct me if I’m getting this wrong, but you create kind of a basic schedule. And then from that each day, you kind of come up with a schedule for the flow of that particular day.

Margaret Webb  18:21

Yes, yeah, I look at what we’ve got. And then you know, what, is there something there, a library event? And so it’s the schedule and the structure, you know, I say that and some people you know, don’t want to, but it’s, it’s having that as a framework, which allows us to have this freedom of kind of moving the pieces around, where it’s not set in stone. It’s not like we can’t veer from that. But if there are certain things where we need to be at a certain place at a certain time, then those are already out there. We’re all aware of it. And I think that’s really important because keeping kids in the loop, and letting them know what’s going on. And when things are happening. I think we’ve all been in situations where you know, as adults, somebody comes in and says, Hey, I need you to stop what you’re doing. And I need you to come and it’s annoying, and it’s frustrating, and we might not want to leave what we’re doing. And so I think given them the courtesy of having a heads up and some notice of what’s going on and what the expectations are, then that can help you to have a more peaceful and a more joyful reality.

Debbie Reber  19:33

Absolutely. You know, you started the conversation by talking about this idea of expectations versus reality. And it’s the same for our kids. I know for Asher one of his primary triggers is his expectations not being met, you know, and I homeschool Asher so we do some version of this every day and it has really changed everything. To bring him into the process makes sure that his needs and wants are kind of covered there. And then kind of even checking in throughout the day, not just in the morning, but throughout the day, where are we? Here’s what we’ve done, you know, just kind of constant. That’s how we have to do it and in our home constantly checking in and making sure, or maybe noticing, oh, we may not get to this today, what should our plan be if we can get to that? Or how can we move things around to accommodate both of us right now.

Margaret Webb  20:27

And that leads to the next tool, which is tracking, you know, so if you’re out in nature, you’re tracking, like prints in the dirt, and you’re following along, but the most important thing is not necessarily you know where they’re going. But it’s also, like, I take that to mean, in my everyday life, I’m tracking what is going on? How are things going? what’s working, what’s not working? What can we do differently? And you just gave the perfect example of okay, looking, checking back and going back to our map, you know, we’ve kind of gone off track a little bit. And so how do we get back on track? Or are we okay, with being off of the track that we originally mapped, and continuing on this, but checking in and sharing that is, you know, it’s, it’s really empowering for both, you know, and checking in with yourself like, okay, pressing that pause button, you know, and I constantly remind myself about the importance of chest pressing that pause buttons and asking myself, what is working. And it’s something that so many people just jump past, and they go to the focus of what’s not working, because that’s usually you know, the chaos and the loudness. But if we allow ourselves to go back and think about, okay, what is working? And if it seems like nothing is working right now, in the present moment, think back to a time where things were working. When did you have a morning that went really well, and go back and really dive into that? What was going on? What did you do for yourself? What did you do to kind of set yourself up for success, and that is key information for what you know, you might want to try in the present.

Debbie Reber  22:21

So once again, everything you’ve just said is such a great reminder, so much of this serve, not just surviving, but thriving in this role we have of parenting differently wired children, is putting the focus back on ourselves. And I think so much of what exists out there as tools for your kids, what your kid needs to do, you know, which is great, not that our children don’t have, you know, things that they can be working on in skills to be developing. But at the core of the experience, it’s the choices we make, it’s how we choose to feel, it’s how we think about the situation. I think I mentioned this in our first interview, it’s just a focus that so many parents seem to be missing out on, because there’s not a lot of that, just not the approach a lot of parent coaches take when they’re working with their clients. It’s just and it really is, it starts with us.

Margaret Webb  23:17

Absolutely. And that’s, I think my one big surprise was all the focus on him. And I certainly placed all my focus and energy on him and trying to change his behaviors and change his, you know, his experience so that I could have a better experience. And I realized, oh, my gosh, that’s crazy. Because I can’t control him. I can’t control how he’s wired, I can’t control his developmental timeline. So it really did feel so much more peaceful and empowering to put the focus back on me. Because that is, you know, that was something that I could always tune into. And I could always think about what was going on for me, and what was I making it mean? And you know, what were the thoughts and where was I going in the past where it was going in the future. And it made such a difference for me to put that back on, on me. And at first, I think it was survival to put the focus and attention on him. Because it was so much and it was like, you know, it may have been painful to go to those things. But after a while shifting that and realizing oh, and nature for me was a huge thing. Because you sit out and you watch nature and it is survival to take care of yourself, you know, the Mother dear doesn’t take care of herself, then she’s not going to be helpful to her babies. And she’s not going to be able to lead and to be aware and to keep them safe. And so it really is. It is survival to take care of yourself and that’s not what society puts out there. It’s Oh my gosh, we’ve got to put up. We put ourselves on hold and put everything on the back burner, because we have to, you know, put all of our time and energy into our kids. And I certainly do put my time and energy, but it’s been more fruitful and productive in finding a joyful life to put that focus and energy back on me and my stuff.

Debbie Reber  25:23

Yeah, I’m just thinking you’re talking about nature. One of the things that I am really happy about is that I feel like I have gotten Asher to the point where he loves to walk in nature, and nature is kind of my happy place. We don’t have a lot of hills in Holland. But we do have some really nice parks with great hikes through beautiful forests. And that is, you know, if I were to think about my needs, and once for this summer, it’s definitely making sure that at least once a week, we get out to some park somewhere in nature, where we can just walk and I know that that’s good for him, he used to complain about it, and now he’s fine with it. But it feeds me so much, that that one walk that week, could get me, could kind of carry me through the rest of the week. So it’s kind of cool to be able to bridge that the gap and get what you need and what you want, and also be supporting your child at the same time.

Margaret Webb  26:19

Well, and the thing is, the thing that I love so much about using nature as a coaching tool is that there is no judgment, it allows you to be exactly who you are in that moment. And it’s all, it’s all fine. It’s all good. It’s not creating any stories about who you are as a person, or what you need to be doing. It just accepts you as it is. And I think it’s you know, I often go to this place of just like enormous gratitude, you know, that it’s like Mother Nature, it’s like, I go on, I sit outside, and it’s like, oh, you know, I’m being taken care of, and that, you know, that feeds me, and that I can go and I can pass that same energy on to my child where I’m not judging him. And I’m not perfect, I still tell stories in my head about what he should be doing or how he should be. But it’s recognizing that and going back to that place of you know, okay, like in this moment, it’s all good. And he’s exactly the way that he is supposed to be. And he’s teaching me and it’s, yeah,

Debbie Reber  27:23

Yeah, when you take care of yourself, you’re able, whatever that self care looks like. And there might be people listening to this who are not into hiking at all, or being in nature, and that’s fine. But it is that idea of when you are taking care of yourself and doing things that kind of rejuvenate you and help you feel grounded and inspired, then you can transfer that energy, it’s definitely a win win.

Margaret Webb  27:45

Yeah. And it’s that mindfulness that you were talking about in the mind, you know, in the mindful poet podcast that you did, and how that looks, you know, again, what are your wants and needs. And so for you, that might be a, you know, a hike out through a park. And for somebody else that might look totally different, it might look like going to yoga might look like, I have a good friend who her thing is, is playing tennis, and that fills her up. So that’s why it’s important to think, yeah, and you can, there are so many people who think, oh, you know, it’s selfish for me to do that. And I counter that with the fact that it’s selfish not to do that, because of the difference in energy that you bring to the people that you’re with. And in this case, like the children that you’re with throughout the day, and so even if you might not be able to go to a yoga class, you know, you’ve got you might not have childcare, knowing what you know, about what your needs and wants are, how can you make that happen? You know, you’ve managed to find a way to do it with Asher, I have a practice that I do called sit spot, which is just sitting outside in nature. And, you know, Andrew has, you know, he has done that with me. And if he’s not doing it with me, he knows Oh, mom’s just at her spit spot, as he calls it. And it’s, it’s fine, but that’s part of my survival is having time to myself taking that into consideration. And how can I go about creating that for myself?

Debbie Reber  29:19

So you have a a tool in your summer survival package? It’s called My ideal summer day. And maybe could you just take a minute to tell us what exactly that is? Yeah,

Margaret Webb  29:31

it is a tool that is based on something that I learned, you know, the ideal. There’s an ideal day coaching tool that Martha Beck teaches and I just kind of adapted it to be your ideal summer day. And it’s designed to allow you in your mind’s eye did go to okay, if I could create the ideal summer day, what would that be? What would that look like from the time that I wake up to the time that I go to bed and taking notes about what pops up, what shows up gives you insight on what is important to you. And what it is that you know, essentially you are wanting to have more of in your life taking into consideration also the energy flows that you have throughout the day, you might wake up and you might want to linger a bit and have you know, enjoy your coffee. And like for me it was that it is enjoying coffee, sitting down writing, journaling, mapping and doing the using these tools. But then after that my energy skyrockets and I have a lot of energy. So, you know, on my ideal day, I would be getting a lot of stuff done. And that would be where I would put that kind of focused energy. And then, you know, after lunch, it’s kind of like siesta time. And so it’s allowing yourself to kind of dream about, you know, Okay, where is what is my energy, like throughout the day? And what is the energy that I’m wanting throughout that day, so that you’re not fighting your natural energy? You’re kind of you’re using it to go with the flow.

Debbie Reber  31:06

Yeah. And just for listeners, part of your toolkit also includes a guided visualization. Correct. So it can walk people through the process of thinking about this, which is great. And then it’s not that your ideal day, the goal is to Yeah, you don’t have to make that happen. But just to be conscious of, if I could create it, this is what it would look like, and maybe are there a few things I can little adaptations or tweaks I can make to my day now to bring me closer to that ideal.

Margaret Webb  31:33

Absolutely. Because there might be things that you’re already doing. Or from that perspective, you look and say, oh my gosh, you know, like, the first thing that I do every morning is I jump out of bed and I start going like a wild, you know, crazy person, which was totally me. That’s where I was. And once I did this and started having that awareness, I realized, oh my gosh, you know, I’m jumping out of my bed, and I’m taking off. I call it pinballing, where it was like I was like this pinball that was shot out into the day and whatever caught my attention, or whatever I bumped into. That was what I would do. And at the end of the day, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t get anything done. I feel horrible. And so taking time to do something like this, so that you can make those tweaks in your real everyday life, it can make a huge difference. Those two minutes might change everything.

Debbie Reber  32:29

That’s great, super powerful. So we’re running a little long. So I’m going to kind of wrap this up. But before we do, I was wondering if you could just share with us what does what is your summer look like? I’ll share what our plans are to just curious if you have kind of a typical day.

Margaret Webb  32:46

So my typical day is waking up and not having an alarm, which is actually really nice, I do have an alarm in that my son will come down and get in bed and snuggle. But waking up and taking that time to sit down and think about my intention and what I want for the day. I also print out our schedule, like I said, and along with that chores, which are things that my son is now at the point where he understands money and understands that money can help him buy things like outdoor light fixtures, which he really loves. And so he’s very motivated to do chores, but I print them out because if I knowing what I know about him, if I just tell him they will never get done. And so he likes to have things written out so that he can follow that. So he usually does that while I do coaching calls. And then I keep our afternoons very open. And so we have lunch, we have quiet time or rest time. And then our afternoon is usually a relaxing activity like we’ll go sit outside and swim a little bit. I want to do more reading in the summer. So we joined our summer reading program at the library and we put up a tent up in his bedroom. And so we spend some time up in the reading tent, reading to get certain minutes and finish some books, and then dinner and sit outside and enjoying the summer.

Debbie Reber  34:15

Sounds very civilized about you. This summer, I am really taking it easy. And we are not finishing school till July 1. So we haven’t gotten into our full on summer vacation. But what I’ve noticed about Asher is that he still likes to have some sort of school aspect. So we’ll probably still do our morning meeting every day. He’ll probably still want to do a few subjects. We will make a joint schedule every day and maybe kind of dive deeper into some more project based things he’s wants to create a stuffed shark for from the game Subnautica which is another one of his obsessions at the moment so so we’ll probably tackle some projects like that, but I intend to kind of enjoy the summer and get out and About and have playdates and just kind of just try to give myself a break, relax and have fun. So that’s the plan, we’ll see how it goes.

Margaret Webb  35:08

I mean, and I think and rituals is, you know, part of having fun themes or rituals, it depends on what your kid wants and needs. Like, we have to have some structured things, because Andrew is the same he likes to, he probably would actually like to be in a camp because he likes to have places to go. And so like I’ve had to get a little bit more creative with, okay, we do have to have planned outings and certain things like that, but just take into consideration what your kid likes, if they love cooking, you know, do we weekly themed meals, you know, where they get to decorate the kitchen, and you know, just relax and have a little bit of fun,

Debbie Reber  35:44

Good stuff. Well, if you could leave listeners with one thought, or kind of one reframe, that could help them shift their thinking to help them survive the summer, what would that be? I’m sorry, I’m putting you on the spot.

Margaret Webb  36:56

I think that what helps me most is and what you know, what I would strongly encourage people to play with is to, you know, every once in a while, just press the pause button and look around, like almost like an observer of what’s going on around you. And check in like, is this what I’m wanting? And if not, what can I do right now to create a shift to get back on track with what I want? It sounds really simple. And yet, I don’t think you know, it’s something that can then really create a lot of changes, just pressing pause and observing what’s going on, and checking in with yourself and see, notice,

Debbie Reber  36:40

Now I’m wanting to make a big pause button that I have is a visual, maybe when for me and one for Asher so we can both push pause when we need it. That’s great. Yeah, simple tool. But how many of us actually take the time to do that? So all right. And for listeners who want to download your free summer survival skills package, where can they do that?

Margaret Webb  36:59

There is a link and on my website, which is MargaretWebblifecoach.com. And there’s a menu bar that says products and freebies. And it’s under there. It’s parenting survival skills. And it’s helpful at any time of the year. But it’s like I kind of gear it towards summer. It’s a Dropbox file. So it’s there. It’s free. And it’s helpful for me,

Debbie Reber  37:25

Helpful for me, it’s great, great stuff, man. It’s so generous of you to make that available for parents, I will include links and information on the show notes as well. So listeners can just go to the show notes, and you’ll get a direct link to that. But, Margaret, I just have to say, I know I gush about you all the time. But you truly are one of the most generous wise women I know and it just really grateful that you are able and willing to share with our community. So thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Margaret Webb  37:55

I am so grateful and I gush about you as well. And I just love what you’re doing and love being part of it. Thank you. Thank you.

Debbie Reber  38:07

Thank you so much for tuning into the Tilt Parenting podcast. To learn more about Margaret and her parent coaching practice as well as to download her free summer survival strategies toolkit visit www.margaretwebblifecoach.com. If you don’t want to remember that just pop over to the show notes on tiltparenting.com/session13 for all of the links. Lastly, we’ve got 11 reviews over on iTunes. We’d love to get some more since that really helps more parents find us. So if you’ve gotten something out of the podcast and want to help us get more listeners, we’d be so grateful if you could go to iTunes and leave a short, honest review. Thanks again for being part of the Tilt revolution for parents raising differently wired kids. For more information and to sign up to be part of our community. Visit www.tiltarenting.com

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