Episode 09: How to Reset & Refocus After Tough Parenting Moments

working mom tips for handling tough moments

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Do you ever find your day completely derailed after a challenging parenting moment? Or maybe you're in a tough parenting season and those feelings are bleeding over into all the other areas of life, impacting your productivity, focus, and mood. In this podcast episode, Katelyn relates, sharing a recent chaotic parenting morning and offers some ideas on how to manage yourself and reset your day so you can still do what needs to be done. She explores practical steps to transition from parenting to work mode and from work to parenting mode. Katelyn also highlights the interconnectedness of family and work life and shares how coaching can support busy working moms in navigating these complexities.

In this episode, you’ll learn…

00:47 This topic came from the community as a question
02:54 Real-life example of a tough parenting experience
05:44 Emotional aftermath and what actually worked
11:11 Practical steps to reset and refocus on the rest of your day
15:31 How to transition intentionally and check-in with yourself first
17:19 What clients bring to coaching

You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hello, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am feeling inspired.
I've been having some really interesting, thought provoking, amazing conversations lately with my clients who just always bring the best topics and share so bravely and vulnerably. But also with you, with my community, in DMs on Instagram, or messages over on LinkedIn, where I am spending a lot more time these days, so if you're on LinkedIn, be sure to connect with me, I would love that.
And Yeah, I'm just feeling really inspired. Of course, there's a lot that we are all managing and navigating, and that's actually what I want to talk about today for the podcast episode, but there's also so much that we are doing, that we are creating, that you all are creating, and it's really inspiring.
And so, I just had to say that before we get into the topic today, which actually is a topic, a question, that someone in this community posed to me on Instagram, and I wanted to let you know that you can always submit a question or a topic for consideration for a future podcast episode, you can do that On the website at the mother nurture.
com forward slash podcast. There's a link there where you can submit a question or of course, send me a DM or a message on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn. And so I'm so grateful for this question this week, because as so often happens, as I start to think about a topic that someone asks me to expand on or to address in some way, it is.
Hand delivered to me. It is presented to me in my own life on a silver platter. And so I got a first hand experience at how I navigated it. And that's what I'm going to bring to the podcast episode today, which is essentially how to not let. A hard morning or moment or even season of life with your kids overshadow the rest of your time, overshadow the rest of your day.
So it's this question of what does it look like, or what does it take to reset and be able to focus after surviving an epic day, tantrum, or dropping off a crying or clinging baby or child at a daycare or the sitter's house or how to refocus after you lost your cool and didn't parent the way that you wanted to.
So my example, my, my silver platter example experience from earlier this week was a morning Really challenging. A morning that was really challenging. Our dentist has the capacity to see all three of the kids at the same time for their Twice a year cleanings.
And so all three of the kids had an 8 a. m. dentist appointment, but our school, doesn't start until 9, 10 in the morning, which feels really late.
So to get everyone out the door by 7 30 is a big change from when we're usually walk out the door at 8 50. So all three to the dentist appointment my youngest had been up multiple times the night before just really random You know, he couldn't sleep. He had a bad dream. His nose was stuffy. Who knows? So we were all kind of tired anyway, and The first thing they wanted to do with him was take x rays very simple x rays Put the thing in your mouth bite down take a picture and he freaked out, crying, screaming.
You would have thought they were pulling his tooth. They were not. And yeah, it was actually to the point where the hygienist just said, you know what? We'll just table it. We'll try again in six months. Maybe his mouth will be bigger. Maybe he'll be in a better mood. So, that was the dentist experience.
Then we rush home because at that point we could probably still make it to the start of school. I wouldn't even have to bring them in late. So we rush home, you know, grab book bags and plan to walk to school, because the car line is insanely long. So we're walking, we're power walking to school, the couple of blocks that we have to go.
And my daughter randomly trips over something, her own feet maybe. And falls down hard on the sidewalk to the point where I am with her on the ground as she's crying, wondering like, do we need to go to the emergency room? Did she break something? Did she fracture something? The verdict is still out on that.
We're keeping an eye on it. And then we get up to school, drop, my oldest, my middle off and get to the kindergarten door for my youngest. And of course he's clingy and he's tearful at drop off. It wasn't even 9 30 yet. You know those mornings, where you, I remember showing up in my corporate days to sit down at my desk and feeling like I'd run a marathon.
Or feeling like I'd lived a whole life, and here, here my colleagues were, some of my childless colleagues, sitting next to me just enjoying their first cup of coffee, and I'm like, buddy, I have lived a whole life before 8am. That's what it felt like for me. I hope you're smiling. I hope you're nodding along.
Like, yeah, I have had those mornings too. I know exactly what you're describing. And so as I walked back home from the school drop off, I'm not going to lie. I had tears in my eyes. Thank goodness for sunglasses. I had tears in my eyes on the walk home. I felt exhausted. I felt overwhelmed and just fixated on all of the things that went wrong that morning.
And as I got back home, though, I had a full day of work ahead. Yes, it was 9. 30, but it was only 9. 30. I had a full day of work ahead. Clients, so many to do items to take care of. But my mind was stuck on all of the events of the morning. Could I have tried something different to get my youngest to get those x rays done?
Should I have taken my daughter to get an x ray, to have that arm looked at? Is there something I could or should be doing to help my youngest with his sort of separation anxiety for kindergarten, which is brand new for us. He's been dropped off at daycare since he was an infant.
And so I just kept thinking and playing over those things. And not only physically was I exhausted from just, managing everyone and getting everybody where they needed to go, but I was mentally exhausted from listening to the whining and the crying and the tears and the, all of the logistics that went into that morning.
And, instead of saying old Katelyn, I'm gonna say former Katelyn. Former Katelyn would have walked in the door after dropping them off at school and zipped right up to my office. I would have powered on the laptop and started just checking things off the list, throwing myself into work. Because Really, I didn't have time to waste.
There's no time to waste. I've already lost time and energy with the morning that I'd had. But what happens when we move so quickly from those hard moments, those hard mornings or segments of our day to, work, is that those feelings, the replay, Of the morning plays in the background. It's like the TVs that are on at a bar or in an airport waiting area, or even at the doctor's office.
You might not be watching the news show or the game that's on, but you hear it. You catch glimpses of it out of the corner of your eye, and occasionally you might get distracted or sucked in, as we say, or get sucked in to a headline that's being presented or a commercial that sounds funny or the music that you hear.
And it becomes this slow leak to your productivity and your focus. Not to mention the unresolved feelings that you probably have about the morning or the experience that you had or the season of parenting that you're in. That frustration, that overwhelm, anger, sadness, they will come out eventually.
Maybe it'll come out at your kids when you go to pick them up and they are whining or arguing.
Maybe it comes out at your partner in the evening when you start snapping. At him or passively, aggressively scrubbing the dishes. Please tell me I'm not the only one that does that. Maybe it comes out at a colleague or a client during work. Our days are so full and they move at a pace that is hard to describe.
But I mean, luckily, I don't need to try to describe it here because I know you get it. I know, you know what that feels like. And so it can feel counterintuitive and frankly, just really, really hard to pause. For any length of time, you're already rushing. You're already feeling like you don't have enough time.
You certainly don't have, or you tell yourself you don't have a few minutes to pause and acknowledge what you're going through. You've got a whole list of things that need to get done. I think, especially if you are in a tough season of parenting. Where you are dealing with, a challenging behavior that is persistent, overnight wake ups, a persistent issue at school or daycare with your kid.
The rest of life goes on. Your day has to go on. And to have to pause and acknowledge every day can feel really challenging.
But what can you do to get out from under that cloud, so to speak? For me, earlier this week, I said former Katelyn would have just gotten right into work, dove into the to do list, started answering emails, whatever the next thing was. Well, present Katelyn, who I will say has been through therapy and years of coaching, I still always have a coach.
Present Katelyn went through a few steps. And these steps could take just a minute, really, or five minutes, or ten minutes, if you have that. Whatever you can give it, these steps will help you reset and refocus for what you have to do next. So the first thing is to acknowledge. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling frustrated, angry, sad. In the same way that, as a parent, you might help a toddler name how they're feeling, we can do the same for ourselves. So, if you've read any parenting books or, read any articles or listened to podcasts, I think of, That classic, it's probably a little bit dated now, but I read it, and within the last five years I read it, how to speak or talk so your kids will listen and listen so your kids will talk.
it's naming what they're feeling. It's matching their tone. You're really upset right now. I can see that you're, oh, so angry. Very sad. Saying it out loud to them helps them not just name the feeling, but see that you, see it too. You feel that too. And so, we may not have a parent around to help us name our feelings, but that's okay.
We can do that for ourselves. Saying it out loud or just in your head, it's the recognition. It's the validation. Parent yourself in the same way that you would parent your kids. Acknowledge what you're feeling. What you just went through. That morning sucked. That morning was really hard.
And for me, the tears sometimes come and that's okay too. But acknowledge and validate what you're feeling. And then the next piece, which is so easy to skip over, is to ask yourself, what do you need? In my moment, in the morning, after I'd gotten back, I realized I hadn't had my coffee yet. I actually gave up coffee a year ago.
I could do a whole other podcast episode on that. If you're curious about it, reach out. I drink mushroom coffee instead now. But I realized in that moment I hadn't had my mushroom coffee yet. That ritual of holding that hot mug in my favorite spicy romance mug that I love. I hadn't had that yet, and I needed that.
So I made a mug of my coffee. I decided that I wanted to sit out on the porch, still outside, away from my screen for just long enough to finish that mug of coffee. For me, it was less than five minutes. I just stared at the clouds. What do you need? Did you eat? Have you had water yet? Could you take a deep breath?
Five seconds. Just a deep inhale and exhale. Can you shrug your shoulders? Relax them down. If you're not in your office where you have a bunch of co workers, maybe you're working from home, can you go down into a downward dog? You know, the yoga position, so many of my clients that find that so relaxing and just as a great reset, just right next to your desk or wherever you are, drop down, tip upside down in that way and do a down dog.
Do you need to play some music that matches how you feel? I often revert to my teenage musical tastes when I am feeling angry or upset about something. I want to rage a little bit. What do you need to listen to? Do you want like a spa music to calm you down? Something classical? Do you want something upbeat to kind of switch the mood to what you need for the rest of the day?
Can you go put your bare feet in the grass? If it's not the middle of winter with snow on the ground, or do you have time for a quick walk around the parking lot or the block or just around the kitchen island? What do you need? You spent the morning or you're in a season where you're taking care of and thinking about everyone else.
I'm not asking you to go get a massage or do a 90 minute yoga class or even a 30 minute HIIT class. I'm not asking you to do any of those things. I'm just asking you the basics. Have you been fed? Have you been watered? Have you had some sunlight? Did you move your body in some way, even if it's as simple as a deep breath or a shoulder shrug?
Transitions, when we have to move from chaotic mornings to work mode, from work mode to mom mode. You're changing location. You're changing focus, the way you use your brain, the way you use your energy. It helps to mentally prepare yourself to acknowledge where you were, what just happened, that happened, that was hard, and now what you need, moving into the next thing.
Dr. Becky at Good Inside, which if you aren't familiar with her work, her book, her podcast, highly recommend it. She has a phrase or a saying that goes something like this, I may not get it perfectly, but essentially, Sometimes parenting feels hard because it is hard.
And what I would add on to that is you are doing it. Every morning that you get through, every tantrum, every sleepless night, every dental x ray that you do or do not get your kid to do, You're doing it. You are.
Sometimes this coaching work that I do to support working moms and managing work and home and life without losing themselves in the busyness of it all. Sometimes it's about the logistics, the schedule, your to do list, the chores, and how you fit those things into your life in an efficient way, in an easy way, or a way that feels easier.
And sometimes this work is about pausing, it's about shifting perspective, acknowledging that there are parts of this that are hard, and reminding yourself that you are doing it, and in this case, It's about committing to the pause, pausing between the different modes in your life, taking care of yourself in the moment because you deserve that and your to do list is just a list.
It will still be there. This is your life we're talking about and how you feel in it. The beauty of life and executive coaching is that we get to cover it all. It's all intertwined. Our family and our home life intersects and at times overshadows our work life and vice versa. There really isn't.
Any compartmentalizing, it's all worth examining and being intentional about. So if you are coaching curious, you want to learn about how I support busy working moms, the types of topics we cover in a coaching session, what homework looks like, and most importantly, what you could expect to get from coaching yourself.
I invite you to fill out a quick application on my website.
Tell me a bit about you and what has piqued your interest when it comes to coaching. And,, If I think that coaching could be a good fit, I'll send you a link so we can spend some time to talk further. We'll create a three part plan for the opportunities in your work and life to make things even easier and talk about what it would look like to work together if that feels aligned for you.
The application's on my website at themothernurture. 📍 com forward slash application. And my reminder again, acknowledge. where you are, what you've just been through, and what do you need now to support yourself as you head into the next thing you need to do. And you're doing it. All right. Take care. Talk soon.
I'll see you in the next episode.

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ProductivityKatelyn DenningSeptember 10, 2024Working Mom, productivity, time management, to do list, task management