Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry

What important family event are you missing out on? All of these events, these milestones, these celebrations, they’re being canceled and postponed. And it’s not just the actual event. It’s all the fun, the excitement, all the preparation, all the anticipation.In this episode, we find silver linings in ways to teach our kids critical life skills in adaptability and managing disappointment. We talk about why to put those perfection issues on the brakes and how to focus on creativity, silliness, and connection.1:35 FEAR OF MISSING OUT VS. MISSING OUTLynn talks about all of the ritual that we are missing that mark birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, and births.Lynn talks about how to be empathic for everyone missing out but still figure out a way to mark the celebration and give meaning to it.3:20 MARKING MILESTONESLynn suggests a way to acknowledge a milestone by changing something in the house or a family behavior or privilege when social gatherings can’t take place.6:07 THE ROLE OF FLEXIBILITYLynn explains why flexibility is so critical to manage anxiety. Anxiety want rigidity. Lynn challenges the commonplace advice of our need for structure right now.These new conditions are an opportunity to increase our kids’ skills in being adaptive and managing disappointment.7:30 MANAGING DISAPPOINTMENTTeaching our kids that things are bigger than they are and to manage disappointment can be a positive outcome of our social isolation. Life will be filled with disappointments and learning to adapt well to it is an important skill.10:58 THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIALynn talks about the dangers social media can play now in making a parenting competition of how families are celebrating kids birthdays, for example. She warns that social media doesn’t foster social connection, but social comparison.14:05 PROTECT JOY AND CREATIVITYFocusing on creativity and silliness are balms for anxious states. Indulge in the creative work of others being shared online instead.15:02 PERFECTION ISSUESLynn advises those with perfection issues to realize a pandemic is no time for striving for perfection. She advises those to use it as a time to work on authenticity and vulnerability. Perfection is a joy smusher, too, and it interferes with your ability to connect.18:44 A HUMBLING MOMENT FOR LYNNLynn talks about how great it is to have her two college-aged sons home from college now and how much laughter there is. I ask her to imagine these circumstances when her boys were both under the age of 8.19:18 FACEBOOK GROUP AND NEXT EPISODESThanks for listening and join the Facebook group for the podcast if you’d like to submit topics for us to talk about. We’re looking at all of that stuff coming in!We discuss upcoming topics we’re planning on family sleep, regression, and losing it in front of your kids.Full Transcript here.Show music is "First Little Steps" by Peter McIsaac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

0:05 THE STUCK-IN-THE-HOUSE PARENTWe’ve got stay-at-home parents; we’ve got working full-time parents. We have entered into a new category of parenting. This is the stuck-in-the-house parent.This is our first episode ofA Mom’s Retreat podcast with Lynn Lyons (my sister-in-law). This podcast has stepped in to take the place of in person parenting retreats we began in the fall.Lynn explains why we feel like we are riding a new emotional rollercoaster, and why we feel so exhausted, as our brains are working overtime to absorb our new life conditions. She compares this time’s mental and emotional drain to having a newborn at home for the first time.3:27 CATASTROPHIC LANGUAGE Lynn asks that we pay attention to the undeniable anxiety we feel and to avoid patterns of catastrophic language in front of our children.4:47 DAVID BARLOW She references David Barlow who defined anxiety as an overestimation of a problem and an underestimation of your resources to deal with it but shares we are in the opposite of an underestimation of the problem with an overestimation of our resources.6:13 CATASTROPHIC PARENTINGLynn validates that we have reason to be worried. We have reason to feel uncertain, we have reason to feel as if we’re off our kilter a little bit.Lynn gives guidance on communicating uncertainty reasonably and catastrophically with our children.8:09 KEEPING YOUR COOL AND THE POWER OF SILLINESS Lynn talks about taking a reset or a reboot. She explains what she means be learning to be vanilla ice cream for your kids.Silliness and doing things that are unexpected are a great way to shift the emotional tone in your family. Lynn gives examples of how consciously injecting play can rebalance both parents and comfort children and gives examples how.Lynn talks about her own childhood memories of her parents doing the twist in the kitchen to At the Hop albums.15:15 SLOWING DOWN IN SOCIAL DISTANCING We talk about the gifts that can come from this chapter with more time together at home when children’s schedules are lighter. Lynn encourages us to fill this time as a family with more play in a way that doesn’t feel like an additional chore for parents.Lynn’s book Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents has several examples at the end of every chapter of ways to be silly, inject surprise, and make family time more playful as a practice.She discusses the power of external connection among our family and friends to stave of the anxious and depressive patterns we are vulnerable to right now by stating in an internal state.18:06 OUTROSo, thanks for joining us on this first episode of A Mom’s Retreat. You are not alone in this. Join us next episode as we discuss the milestones we are missing.We are all in this together. The purpose of this is for us to feel connected, validated, and supported.RobinProducer of A Mom’s RetreatA full transcript is available on our website.Our show music is “First Little Steps” by Peter McIsaac. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, This is Lynn Lyons, and I’m a psychotherapist focusing on anxiety and families. I’ve been in practice for close to 30 years and have traveled the world speaking to thousands of parents about how to best manage anxiety. Even prior to 2020’s unprecedented events, anxiety has been impacting more and more families. Now, we all face uncertainty that fuels worry.  As parents, we’ll need to up our game in order to raise resilient children and navigate what’s ahead of us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices