Ep #49: Become a Better Parent This Holiday Season

Welcome to Real World Peaceful Parenting, a podcast for parents that are tired of yelling, threatening, and punishing their kids. Join mom and master certified parent coach Lisa Smith as she gives you actionable step-by-step strategies that’ll help you transform your household from chaos to cooperation. Let’s dive in.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to today’s episode. I am so excited to be with you here today. As we head into the Christian holiday season and other holiday seasons that you may celebrate, I can’t help but think about advent calendars. Do you or your kids have an advent calendar?

When I was growing up, they just had the little ones with the pictures behind the doors. Now it’s amazing what you can get in advent calendars. There are Lego Star Wars advent calendars and connoisseur advent calendars. Beauty product calendars. Calendars with different flavors of gin, coffee advent calendars. There is Voluspa, the candle company that I love sells a candle advent calendar. Oh my goodness. The list goes on and on and on. I just love seeing all the advent calendars out there.

Now when I was a little kid, I never had an advent calendar. So each year I make sure my son has one. We’ve been doing this since he was about two. Each year come December 1^st, he looks forward to the 24 days of chocolates in his advent calendars. Even at 17 years old, he looks forward to it and he gets a kick out of opening each little window in the morning and enjoying the little bite of chocolate treat that is his daily advent treat and countdown to the big December 25^th.

If you had an advent calendar, let me ask you. Do you remember the excitement of racing downstairs in the morning to open that little door and see what the new day brought you? If you’ve never had one, just think of the excitement you feel before a special day or a celebration. Like a wedding or a Christmas party or a holiday party or a shower or day one of vacation. Just the excitement and anticipation alone can be wonderful. Yeah?

Well with every advent calendar door, it marks a new day. A new beginning. That’s really the joy of the advent calendar. It’s the countdown to the big day, but also it can mark a new day or a new beginning. What I want to encourage you to do is to give yourself a new door and a new  beginning each day as a parent.

As you know, the mantra of Real World Peaceful Parenting is, what is it? Yep. You’re right. It’s progress, not perfection. As I’ve shared with you before, my goal everyday is to be a little bit better parent than I was yesterday. My goal is never to be perfect. My goal is never to be better than anyone else. My goal is never to raise the bar so far out of reach that it’s not possible. The mantra of Real World Peaceful Parenting that we share here together is progress, not perfection. The goal is to be a little bit better of a parent today than I was yesterday.

What I know is if everyday you get a little bit better, you add that up over the lifetime of your child. It makes a ginormous difference. It creates connection and cooperation. That, my friends, is the only standard I hold myself to as a parent. To be a little bit better today than yesterday.

We’re human. We’re having human to human relationships. With that comes the absolute certainty, the guarantee, the 100% promise that we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to discover a new loophole that’s taken our child over the line of what’s okay. We’re going to find a new limiting belief. We’re going to experience a new trigger.

We’re going to blow up from time to time. We’re going to storm alongside our kids. We’re going to lose our shiz. As I said recently to a group that I was coaching, even Mr. Rogers lost his shiz every now and then. I’m absolute certain of it. We’re human. We’re having human to human relationships. That comes with the absolute certainty that we’re going to make mistakes.

As intentional parents who are approaching this parenting journey thoughtfully, we sometimes get a bit enlightened. Sometimes we use that enlightenment against ourselves. We have a fantasy or we think we know how the gig should be. When it’s not like that, we get frustrated with ourselves. When we hold ourselves to too high of a standard or we expect perfection or we expect to never storm or get upset or lose our shiz, we get frustrated with ourselves. That makes it really hard to win at this thing called parenting.

When you’re not the parent you think you should be, give yourself a chance of a new start. Right in that moment have a do over, have a redo, open a new window in the advent calendar and give yourself the chance of a new start. You can begin straight away. You don’t even have to wait until the next day to open the little cardboard door and pull out the chocolate in the shape of the Christmas stocking. You can start again wherever you need to, as many times as you need to.

Instead of needing to be the perfect enlightened parent, you can choose to lower the bar. When we choose to be a better parent today than we were yesterday, I found that it sets us up for more success, more self-forgiveness, more empathy. Many moms and dads and grandparents and foster parents and people in charge and people raising kids that I’ve worked with have discovered the exact same thing.

When the only goal is to be a better parent today than yesterday, it sets us up for more success and more forgiveness and more empathy. Ironically then that’s what we end up modelling for our kids. More success, more forgiveness, more empathy. So good, right?

I want you to try it out, especially right now this time of year. We’re heading into the holiday season in some parts of the world, in some areas. We’re heading into the end of the year. In some places around the world, winter’s coming and it’s getting dark and there’s a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of back order. Some of you are working harder than ever because your company can’t find extra people. So it’s intense and stressful and busy. That’s the perfect time to adapt the mantra of being a better parent today than yesterday, of setting that goal. Of embracing progress, not perfection.

So this holiday season if you’re celebrating an upcoming holiday of any kind, give yourself and your kids the priceless gift of opening a new door and a new beginning each day, each time you need to start over by adapting the Real World Peaceful Parenting mantra of progress, not perfection. Set your goal, your intention to simply be let me be a better parent today than I was yesterday. So good, right? You’ve got this. I know you do. I know you do. I’ll hold space for you until you get there.

Because we are heading into a busy time, I’d love to share a free gift with you. In the link below in the show notes, you can click on the peaceful parent holiday guide. This is a guide that I want to give you as a gift from me to you, from me to your family. Inside the guide you’re going to see tips and ideas and support to help you stay further grounded and peaceful during the upcoming holiday season. We can all use a little extra support and help and ideas right now.

So consider this my holiday gift, no matter what holiday you celebrate, from me to you. Be sure to click on the links in the show notes, and you’ll be able to download your peaceful parent holiday guide. I wish you all the best as we head into the last few weeks of the year, as we turn the page to the New Year. Until we meet again, I’m wishing you peaceful parenting.

Thanks for listening to Real World Peaceful Parenting. If you want more info on how you can transform your parenting, visit thepeacefulparent.com. See you soon.