Birthday Parties & Parent Overwhelm: boundaries, peer pressure & children’s feelings

This Transcript has been edited for readability

Parent Overwhelm

I have not been able to record an episode in what feels like forever. Um, as you know, I was sick for quite a bit there, but I was also selling a house, buying a house. One of my kids broke their elbow and then broke their cast.

It wasn't their fault, but that still required a couple of hospital visits. One of my other kids got a concussion. We embraced isky play, and so sometimes these things happen, but on top of what's supposed to happen everyday, there's been a lot of extra layers, and if I ever thought I was overwhelmed by email, buying and selling a house adds a whole new dimension.

Let me tell you. That is like email overload.

Okay? So I don't have a bunch of . Prerecorded episodes, uh, ahead of time. So that's the other reason that I haven't been here. I do hope to get back to it, but it, it'll probably be a little bit hit or miss for the next little while. I have a couple guests on the roster, but people are just overwhelmed.

Everyone I talk to is really overwhelmed.

I think part of knowing what the mental sort of load of parenthood looks like, being aware of that I think has actually increased our stress because we are aware of something that we don't have that much control over, and that makes it a bit trickier. Um, that layered with some of the things that are going on beyond our control or outside of our realm, but are still deeply impacting us, that is weighing on a lot of people.

I just, I feel like the world is on a bit of axis spinning right now and everyone, I haven't talked to anybody who's like, yes, things are amazing. I feel great. I have not talked to a single person who, um, has shared that with me. And, and most of the mothers specifically that I speak to are, are beyond capacity, beyond capacity. And I can definitely see myself being in that space a bit where I'm just like, whoa, there's a lot.

Three Pillars to Guide Parents

Which is kind of what I wanna talk about today. I wanna talk about one of my pillars, right? So I have my three pillars, kindness of self, kindness to others, and kindness to the planet. And when people hear kindness to the planet, they automatically assume I'm talking about sustainability and recycling and sort of being good to the planet, which is, yes, of course, a really important component of kindness to the planet, but it's also about our choices as parents and how maybe those choices are impacting our ability to hold boundaries and limits, our ability to navigate big feelings of things like disappointment and frustration and annoyance.

So I think one of the things that I really sort of wanna delve into is that third pillar as we head into a season that is typically built around lots of consumption, lots of gift giving and receiving, lots of gatherings, lots of a lot of things. And knowing that we're already overwhelmed heading into this season, I think is kind of a tipping point for some people.

And, uh, I know I find myself a bit in that category. So one of the things I wanna talk about is, a reflection on something I've heard a few times. It's been asked of me, and that's this idea that like what if we're doing things differently than everybody else? Or what if I want to help my children understand that we do things differently?

Teaching Children to Be Unique

And I, I think that the thing that's tricky there is people are deeply committed to this idea of being unique and sort of self-identifying and all the things that come along with. The idea of fostering independence and independent thinking, they're less confident when they see the consequences of it, right?

They're less cons, they're less confident when they see that choosing your own path leads to children that face a lot of disappointment, a lot of frustration, a lot of self-doubt. So there's these big feelings that come up. So, although we feel super empowered to believe we're, you know, . Strong, independent, unique thinkers.

Birthday Parties and Equality

When it really plays out it, it becomes more complex. And I'm gonna use the example of birthday parties. So the idea of, you know, first of all, the idea that everybody needs to be invited to birthday parties because that's equality. And there's some interesting layers there to talk about. Does that actually embrace equality or does it actually encourage more inequality?

The idea that if we're inviting everyone can they then invite us back, and what's the pressure on that when you have a classroom with 30 kids? Right? I, I felt that was a deeply pressured situation because I know that's not really what friendship looks like, and I'm gonna do a whole other thing on my concepts of friendship, because I think we really force the idea of friendship on kids in a really unhealthy way. This idea that you must be friends with everybody is very different than, we must be inclusive. We must think of equity, we must think of, you know, kindness. Not just being niceness as like placating.

Kids have lost so much

So I think there's some actually problematic elements here, this has been said to me multiple times, so I think it's worth, worth mentioning. People want to make different choices. So the question might be like, Hey, we're having a big birthday party for the first time because of lockdowns and all those things. We kind of avoided it till this point, and now I feel like I sort of need to catch up. I need to give my kid an experience that they have missed out on.

Okay, first of all, we can't make up for missed experiences, so let's, let's pause there with that first sort of thought, we can't make up for lost time. Let's just make up for moving forward, creating memories. Forward because when we're trying to make up for lost time, I think that's one of the reasons a lot of people are exhausted right now. We are exhausted because you're trying to do life now and make up for two to three years of life previously you can't. It's like sleep. You can't catch up on sleep. You can only make better sleep choices moving forward. This idea that like what's lost is done. So let's start with a new fresh page. Let's start our new fresh page here.

So first of all, people in their minds are saying, well, I have to do this thing because my child missed out so I need to do something that maybe I'm questioning a value that I question. An ideal that I question, and I've heard this come up with birthday parties. This idea that like, well, I need to have it be bigger and better, or I normally didn't want to, I was sort of trying to move away from the like big destination birthday parties, but now I feel like I need to because they didn't have any, or kids who are getting multiple invitations in one day and the parents were like, we gotta make them all work because they didn't go to any parties for three years.

Children and Big Feelings

Um. So all of this is complexity, but what I, what I actually hear when I look in, when I dig in is I don't want my child to feel disappointed that they have to pick one. I don't want my child to think that they missed out because they're comparing them to another person, right? So it's interesting when we start to think about like, what is our values and what is our goals and why are we compromising them? What is it that we're compromising? And in a lot of cases, when we dig into that next layer. The compromise is actually around preventing disappointment, preventing comparison. It's not because we genuinely are like really excited to have the big birthday party or to have the destination or the thing. I mean, we can apply this to lots of examples. I'm just using birthday parties 'cause it's the one I've heard the most recently. Um, we don't wanna do that because it's, we're trying to avoid our kids experiencing some really uncomfortable feelings.

Now, disappointment is a, is a feeling that I've seen sort of on a bigger trajectory. We really try to, like, we think we're supporting disappointment, but really we're avoiding it. Really, we're creating scenarios where kids are not getting very good at experiencing, experiencing disappointment because they're not getting good practice at it when they're really young, because the truth is, disappointment doesn't come out in a way that's like always palatable to us, to our brains, to our thinking, right?

Fixing Disappointment

So we'll sometimes do things to be like, please don't whine. I'm gonna do this thing to fix this. Please don't throw a big tantrum in the store, so I'm gonna do this things that you don't do that right. When we start to adapt our responses, because we can't handle the behavior related to the feeling. What we're actually doing is unintentionally reinforcing exactly what we're trying to stop from happening.

The other thing we're unintentionally doing is our kids aren't getting good at handling disappointment, frustration, annoyance, because we always fix it. We fix it by either giving in, we fix it by making a big deal out of it. We, we do a lot of fixing and the, those fixing situations or behaviors come out as a lot of different things.

Right? There's, I can't tell you one exact way. That was one of those reasons I sort of dig in with families. Sort of one-on-One is how are you fixing your child's disappointment and how someone else is fixing their child's disappointment might look like two different things. It's, but the challenge is we're not really redirecting those disappointed feelings into, you know, useful tools or redirecting the behavior that we're not enjoying to behavior that would be more acceptable, right? So this idea that what we're actually doing is reinforcing the disappointment reactions instead of changing the reactions to something else, to a tool, to stepping back, to breathing, to whatever the case may be. And again, these are all things that take time to build and learn.

But the reality is when we give in and fix the disappointment, fix the disappointment, fix the disappointment, or avoid it all together, all that we're doing is creating kids who can't handle disappointment. And so one of the things that we're sort of looking at when we're talking about things like a birthday party and doing things because they missed out or doing things again, is it really resonating with our values?

Getting Intentional with Children About Life Lessons

Like when we really dig in, are we doing it for the right reasons or are we doing it because we don't want our child to miss out? And really what are they missing out on? Right? What are we missing out on? Are we teaching our kids to be too busy? Are we teaching our kids not to prioritize? Are we teaching our kids not to value friendship?

Are we teaching our kids how to be authentically inclusive? Not we have to do this because this is what everybody's doing. How can we be authentically inclusive? And how are we treating teaching, sort of, you know, genuine kindness?

What to do about Loot Bags!

Okay. So how does this relate to kindness to the planet? So a question that was asked. Was, I don't know what to do about loot bags I think they're the most ridiculous thing ever, sort of, and everybody gave some very practical examples, you know, do granola bars and do whatever and all these things. I. And sort of I piped up and said, or don't do them at all. It's okay to not do them.

And sort of people were like, yes. What if the party itself is the experience? Why have we gotten into a place where the only way that we validate a memory for a child is by having something physical? And that physical thing is usually not great for the planet, not great for the mindset, right? So this idea of like, when we're thinking about sustainability and we're thinking about choices, and we're thinking about overwhelm, we're thinking about obligations. If you're having a party, whether it's at your house, where you've invited people in, that's mental energy and financial energy, or you're hosting it somewhere else, again, financial energy, mental energy, like all of these things require different types of energy and space and money.

Using Kindness to the Planet as a Parenting Tool

Um, so that, that is what the experience should be. We shouldn't have to signify the memory with a thing. The memory is the thing, right? So one of the pieces that came out though in this conversation was, yes, I'm totally on board with this, but I'm gonna tell you it doesn't work super well because your kids, they're gonna be upset and they're gonna ask, and kids at the party are gonna ask, they're gonna be like, why? Why didn't I get a loot bag? Or, where are the loot bags? Right? Or they'll be like, so-and-so gives loot bags and I didn't give loot bags, so I'm not the good friend here.

This is where my pillar, kindness to the planet can really be a very valuable and helpful tool in parenting. So when we build up our awareness around the planet, kids can really get on board. They're really on board with being sustainable and making good choices for the planet, and doing those kinds of things like they're really invested from their school, from maybe the conversations you have.

Now when we extend this to more social situations, you'd be amazed how kids will get on board, right? So when we start to build up our awareness of what is kindness to the planet and what does that mean beyond recycling, beyond, right? When we're talking about things like food waste or packaging waste, or things we don't really use, or things that are one-time use or you know, like a loot bag, for example, when we've been doing some work around what is kindness to the planet.

And a great book to have this conversation with is When We Are Kind by Monique Grey Smith, for example. She's got a great sort of kindness to self kindness to others, kindness to the planet theme in her book. So you can have a great conversation around a book with that. But this idea that when we build up an awareness, then we can have what I call a front loaded conversation with our children.

Hey, you know what? We're starting to be really deeply committed to kindness to the planet. As a part of that, this year, we're not gonna give loot bags at your birthday party. Instead, we're gonna have the birthday party be the experience. That's gonna be our gift. Our gift to your friends is the party, right?

And there's Fiver parties and there's no gift parties. In my experience, no gifts doesn't tend to work. You tend to get things you didn't ask for because people don't truly feel like they can do that. So I've heard of Fiver parties where people will give like $5 towards a gift. We at one point did an Echoage party where like people contribute and the money gets divided half to the child and half to charity.

That was a great experience 'cause then you can buy something that is more sort of in line with what your child might be interested in, but you're also supporting a charity. Um, but this idea that what we wanna build into kids is we're gonna do things differently. And here's why. Kids are more on board.

And then again, in the moment, you can also have a solid answer, right? Hey, where's the loot bags? How come there's a, you know what? Our gift to you was this awesome party. Did you have a good time? Right? Flipping the narrative to talk about . The time. Again, one of the things that I found really interesting was the, the concern, the worry was not about commitment to the planet and not commitment. Not about the commitment to like, yes, we don't wanna do loot bags. The concern was, I'm afraid my child's gonna be disappointed, or my, I'm afraid my child's peers are gonna compare or complain. Yes, that is going to happen. But here's the thing, if we as parents constantly change the narrative or curb the things to avoid that disappointment, to avoid that frustration, to avoid our kids don't get good at it.

Building Skills for Disappointment

One and two, when we're protecting them from disappointment and boredom, sorry, disappointment and frustration, annoyance comparison. When we're not helping them build those skills, when they hit their teen years and beyond, they really can't handle very mundane things that happen on the regular, because comparison, as they say, comparison is the thief of joy, but comparison in the preteen, teen years is endless.

It is nonstop everything is a comparison. So if you are not good at that skill because you haven't, you've been protected all along the way because how your feelings came out was not comfortable, was annoying, was frustrating. It was a bit ugh, right? . Unfortunately, the byproduct of that is I'm not very good at handling my feelings of disappointment, of comparison, the frustration of annoyance, and I'm not really actually very good at putting boundaries, and I'm actually really not very good at authentically understanding that I'm okay to stand out on my own.

I'm okay to look different and talk different and be different and be unique because what I've actually learned is I don't wanna be unique and different because we're gonna compare . Our birthday party, loot bag awesomeness with other people's birthday party loot bag, and we're gonna compare the destination for their birthday party and we're gonna all of these things by stepping back and being like, Hey, what is the skill I wanna build and how do I wanna build it?

All of those things come down to. I kind of gotta be okay with facilitating some really uncomfortable feelings.

So I just wanna talk today briefly about kindness to the planet and how kindness to the planet can really help you shape your conversations, especially when you're really struggling with like values and the like group mentality that everyone's doing it and I'm not doing it or I wanna do things differently, but I feel really uncomfortable 'cause I think my child's gonna miss out, or I think there's gonna be some comparison or I think...

one of the things that kindness of the planet can do is it can help you shape conversations with your child around something really tangible, really grounded, but can also let you do a little check in with yourself to be like, what am I protecting my children from? What do I want to contribute to?

Building Confidence and Boundaries with Children

What do I not want to contribute to? Do I want some very, you know, solid boundaries and confidence around being unique, and making you know individual choices As a family, do I want to have a child who can be resilient and face adversity and disappointment and annoyance and frustration, and how am I authentically guiding conversations around kindness, not niceness and kindness as a form of sort of inclusion and equity versus equality, which is just everybody's doing it because that's what everybody does.

Well, that was some big thoughts today for my first back in this seat. Um, I've got some amazing guests coming up, but I just this topic has come up a lot and I'm seeing so much overwhelm heading into the holiday season that I thought it might be helpful to be like, it's okay to tread your own path. It's okay to do things differently. There are so many different ways to frame conversations.

I'm happy to help you. This is something I do all the time in my one-on-One work is I kind of dig into you and your family. What are your values? What are your needs? How can I support you with treading your path? Because I can tell you behind the scenes you are probably not alone. Just group mentality is powerful, powerful stuff, and group mentality tends to take over things, even when potentially all the people in the group don't actually enjoy or believe what they're doing. They just don't wanna be different.

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