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- Susan’s important first step to parenting during the pandemic.
- Tips for parents who had their children’s school cancelled or has limited resources.
- How can you create more productive boundaries with your children while you are at home?
- Learn about Susan’s philosophy on screen time and tips to approach managing your children’s screen time.
- Children socialize all the time when they are in school, so how can we make sure they can do this very important part of development at home?
- Parents now have the task of working from home and supervising their children. Find out Susan’s tips for handling both gracefully.
- Susan has some great strategies for creating structure for tweens and teens.
- It is a difficult and stressful time for everyone and it is important to help your children cope with change. These are some great ways you can.
- Susan has some really clever ways to prevent your children from acting out.
- Learn about the take five method method to calm your children down if they are stressed and acting out.
- Learn about a great resource for parenting and how chores are a good thing to set up with your children during this time.
- Find out about Susan’s amazing and FREE Parenting During a Pandemic Course!
- To learn more about Susan and get her Parenting During a Pandemic Course go to susanmorley.com
Wendy Myers: Hello my name is Wendy Myers of myersdetox.com welcome to the Myers Detox Podcast. Today we have a great show with Susan Morley talking about how to parent during a pandemic, and she had so many helpful tips. You know I have a 10 year old daughter Wynter and this show helped me so much. She gave me a lot of good ideas about things that I can do to just set up a routine better for discipline and how to talk to your child. Just lots of good tips on how to manage little ones, even elementary kids, tweens, and teenagers socially and emotionally during this time. Why you shouldn’t feel guilty and even can feel good about screen time. Kids are spending a lot of time on the screen while parents are working during the day.
Wendy Myers: We also talk about how best to create boundaries and family routine and rules. Super important right now. Kids need schedules. And we’ll also talk about tips on discipline. Why spanking doesn’t work, and how can a parent handle children that are angry and agitated and defiant. And access to Susan’s free parenting during a pandemic course. Really an invaluable resource for you today. And I want to tell you guys about my new podcast called the Coronavirus Support Series and Susan is a guest on that podcast as well, and I encourage you guys to go listen to that because I’m wanting to provide you guys with lots of tools right now to get you through this lockdown and this crisis. It’s unprecedented in our lifetime and very stressful for a lot of people so I wanted to do this podcast, The Coronavirus Support Series to help you guys manage all of this. It’s not about health or supplements or anything like that. It’s mostly a podcast like this with parenting, finance, stress, meditations, how to manage your emotions, starting an online business. Lots of really great practical actionable tips to help you manage. Just go check that out. It’s also available as a video series like a summit at coronavirussupportseries.com go check it out.
Wendy Myers: And Susan has a free Parenting During a Pandemic Course that she will share with you as well. So a little bit about our guest today, Susan Morley makes being a mom easier. She teaches moms how to be in control without being controlling. Susan uses her certifications in education, parenting, recovery, and Whole30 to help moms in every aspect of parenting. You can learn more about her and her work at susanmorley.com.
Wendy Myers: Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Susan Morley: Hi, thanks for having me.
Wendy Myers: So I was really excited to have you come on because to all the parents out there that are, is this really my life now? We need some help. We need some tips. So what do you recommend for parents who are now schooling their children at home?
Susan Morley: Yes. Okay. So first of all, I think we all could take a collective nice deep breath, and let it all out because we have help. We’re not actually homeschooling. I know we’re really adding a lot to our plate. We’ve got teachers and curriculum to help us and everybody’s in the same boat. So we don’t have to worry about our child falling behind or getting something wrong on a worksheet. I think we need to just really take a much more relaxed attitude. So that’s the very, very first thing before you even think about planning or scheduling, just take a deep breath and tell yourself it’s going to be okay.
Wendy Myers: Yes, yes. And so I’m really amazed at how fast Wynter, my daughter’s school, got everything online and created this Google Classroom, which I didn’t know about. So it’s really, really neat. They meet over Zoom like we’re doing right now. So it’s just really interesting how that came together so quickly, but are there any tips that you have for parents, like say if their child’s school didn’t get together an online curriculum or just canceled school for the rest of the year?
Susan Morley: Yeah, so the very first thing, and really it has less to do with education and I think more to do with your children’s mental health and that is create some structure. These children need structure. If you remember back to your time in high school even, a bell rang, you could count on a bell ringing, you could count on your next class being the same thing. If there was a fire drill, you know exactly where to go and what to do. And children thrive on that. And when all that gets goes away, that causes a lot of anxiety for children. So one of the best things you can do for your child is to create structure. So I like to start with what time, how much sleep they need, which by the way, you’re going to need to add like an hour to every child’s bedtime. We need an extra hour too, because there’s so much stress. So figure out what time they need to go to bed and then maybe they wake up, you want them to wake up, teenagers at nine instead of seven like before that, sorry, but probably by nine o’clock, they need to be up and getting productive.
Susan Morley: And then just have a loose schedule but have an activity and then play, rest, tech, going outside, something and then another school type activity. Khan Academy, they have created a schedule for parents. It’s amazing, and activities for you to do. So actually, the only kind of resource you need, in my opinion is Khan Academy and it’s all free.
Wendy Myers: I love Khan Academy. I love it. I saw the guy on 60 minutes and just what he’s trying to accomplish and create. I love it so much. Yeah, that’s a great resource. Thank you. Yeah, and so I love waking up later. I’m kind of loving this because I’d have to get up at seven before. Now I can just sleep in and then Wynter gets more sleep. So I like it, but yeah, I do feel like I need to create a little bit more structure and boundaries. Do you have any tips to create more more boundaries or family routines and rules to help parents just create a better environment for their kids?
Susan Morley: Absolutely. And this is a little counterintuitive. The number one tip to figuring out what your family’s schedule should be is to ask the kids and parents, I can hear them. I can hear them right now, “I’m not doing that.”
Susan Morley: No, really, you’re going to be surprised. So I think there’s a structured way you can do it and just have a family meeting and the number… There are two rules for a family meeting. Number one, make them fun. Play some music, like the Rocky theme beforehand, pop some popcorn, so something to look forward to. So that’s number one. Rule number two, keep them short. 30 minutes at the most. Look, nobody likes a long meeting. So you have to be respectful of your kids as well. But in that family meeting, just get out a piece of paper and just say, “All right, let’s write it down, make somebody a secretary. Let’s brainstorm all the ideas of how we think our days should go Monday through Friday.” And then you have the discussion. After the family meeting, you’re not going to have everything done and buttoned down. That’s okay. Because remember, what we started with is we’re going to take a deep breath, and we’re going to relax. There is no deadline here. You say, “Okay, we’ll revisit this tomorrow.” Maybe it’s before, during or after dinner, and you continue, you just have that family meeting. I think by three family meetings in a row, you should have a pretty good idea of structure. Kids are going to create rules. They know because they’ve been in school, and if they create it, they’re way more likely to follow through and adhere to those limits and boundaries.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I mean my biggest concern is no scheduling in exercise for my child, because staying indoors for the most part really throws a wrench in just her physical health, not getting exercise. I’ve been meaning to do a yoga class with her in the morning, maybe rebounding or just doing a little something every day. And then also screen time, I have a guilt because I’m busy. I’m trying to work. I’ve got stuff I got to do. And my daughter’s spending a lot of time in front of the screen. What are some of your tips for that?
Susan Morley: Okay, so I’m going to sound like a broken record. But let’s give ourselves a collective break on the screen time just for the next month. We just all promise that we’re not going to feel guilty for last month or the coming month on screen time because we’re all just trying to figure it out. And it’s giving their brains a break from processing what’s happening. We don’t even really know what’s happening. So we’re all under a lot of stress. So first of all, give you some break.
Susan Morley: Second of all, I love your ideas, Wendy, yoga and rebounding. And I think that’s amazing. If you have a flexible schedule and you’re able to schedule in even 10 minutes, look, elementary school kids are used to 10 minutes of an activity. So just even 10 minutes of something with you, it could be cat and cow poses, and then that’s good for you because you’ve been sitting in a chair working, and then you say, okay, got to go back to work and have her go back to work. So you don’t necessarily have to schedule them in. You can just grab them and say, quick yoga break, do something. You can also say okay, let’s take a walk, those kinds of things. You can also have them do things on their own, especially if you’ve already taught them how to do certain things. But if you have a backyard or a porch, you can say, you know what, I’m going to set the timer go out there. I don’t care if you read, no devices allowed. I don’t care if you just look at the clouds for 30 minutes, but you need to go outside and just make sure they are old enough to understand they can’t leave the porch and they can’t interact with people, et cetera.
Susan Morley: No, thank you for bringing that up. I really think that any kind of socializing on the devices should not count against their screen time. But that should be almost unlimited. So can I just jump in with an idea that I love for lunch time, because school children, children who go to school, they’re used to socializing all day long in between classes and they have so much socializing time and now they have none, almost none. So now we have to try to make up for that. So at lunch, have lunch lunch, where if there’s an iPad and a computer and a phone, you can FaceTime with three people or you can do a Zoom, a group Zoom with your kids and now there’s good safe private ways to do it so people aren’t jumping in on your children for lunch lunch call.
Susan Morley: But you can have them have a little Zoom and they’re just going to talk over each other, but they get to see each other and they’re eating at the same time. So this isn’t adding anything to your schedule. They’re used to socializing during a meal with their friends, five days a week. So I don’t want to add too much burden on creating these Zoom dates. But if you could just throw the meeting out there to a list of parents and say we’re going to be live every weekday from 11 to 1130. Hop in if you can, or whatever the lunch time is. I think that would really help and then at dinner, you can invite grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, you can invite them to dinner, you can just FaceTime them, put an iPad on the table and they can eat their dinner while you’re eating your dinner and then you can have a family meal.
Wendy Myers: I love that idea because you know, I hadn’t really thought about doing that but my daughter’s kind of talking one on one with her friends. But they had such a great idea to just do a Zoom call and have it scheduled so people can come on if they want, they choose to in a group setting, I love that. Any other socializing tips that you can give parents to help their kids connect with other people more?
Susan Morley: So I want to just address a couple things. The latest and this could change by the time people hear this but the latest is for older children, not babies, that if they’re out in public, they wear masks and if they’re running around and breathing heavily, definitely your social distancing needs to be more than six feet. And then just walking or biking, six feet social distance. So keeping that in mind and please always check the CDC website for the latest up to date information. I think going out and walking in the neighborhood, so one thing that my neighborhood does every day at 7:30 is we do the neighborhood wave. So we all come out on our porches. And we wave and sometimes the kids bring instruments or maybe they’ll go on the street and do a dance. And then they’ll go on their porch and another kid does a dance on their porch.
Susan Morley: And so you can just, there’s a million things you can do with that. Another thing that is a good idea is just have like a group art project in front of somebody’s house with sidewalk chalk, and everybody adds something to it. I’ve seen beautiful pictures where people have used painter’s tape to create designs and shapes, and then just leave the chalk out there and let people color in a piece or a section. And then when people take a walk, they can see that. And then the other thing that we’re doing and I have one right there in my window is a bear hunt. Have you heard about doing the bear hunt?
Wendy Myers: No, no, I haven’t.
Susan Morley: Oh my gosh, it’s so adorable. So in my neighborhood, some fabulous mom said, “All right, I’m making a Google Map.” And it goes along with the children’s board book going on a bear hunt. And you all know the bear hunt. So you can go on a bear hunt in your neighborhood. So what one mom did is she created a Google Map. So if you’re tech savvy, you can do this. And you just send an email out and say, “Reply with your address if you’re going to put a bear or a stuffed animal in your window.” And so when you go for a walk with your kids down different streets, you already have a Google Map of what homes have a bear in the window. And so you can look for the bear up in the different windows while you’re taking a walk. And you could say, “Oh, that’s James’s house. Oh, that’s Sarah Jane’s house.”, and so you get to maybe not completely socialize, but you get to at least wave through windows or see their bears in the windows.
Wendy Myers: Oh, I love that. That’s so cute. I love that. And can we talk about small children so kids that not yet of school age? And how parents can manage work and supervising their little ones?
Susan Morley: Yeah, so the number one rule for this after you take a deep breath is, really let’s think about what your expectations are. Because if your expectation’s that your toddler is going to play independently for 30 minutes or more, I think you need to rethink your expectations. By three years old, a child has the developmental ability to play independently for 30 minutes. Probably a lot of three year olds today aren’t exercising that ability. And that’s fine. They can do it, but you have to get them there. So the number one is set your expectations at the proper place so that you’re not frustrated and then you end up yelling at your kids and your kid’s crying and then you feel guilty. That’s no good.
Susan Morley: So what you need to do is train your children to play independently. And there’s a simple way to do it. You just set the timer for five minutes, tell them to be in an activity, and you’d be right back and then you gradually increase the time over time. So you’re going to have to get there. The other thing is frequent breaks. So if you’ve ever been to a preschool, the preschools have centers so you have a housekeeping center and a community helper center and a kitchen center et cetera, et cetera.
Susan Morley: Children, they learn about life and they grow so fast and the synapses in their brains all fire and connect, when they’re playing. And another thing that play does for children and adults is it is a stress reliever. So you need to set up the house in a way or your living room. And it doesn’t have to be like a preschool. Don’t look on Pinterest, because you’ll just start comparing yourself but you’ll feel bad. Just set up, this is a block area, this is an art area, et cetera. And so then you’re just going to have to help your child transition from area to area. Frequent snacks, frequent potty breaks, and frequent connection with your child will give them the reassurance that you’re just a room away or something, and that they can play independently for up to 30 minutes for a three year old, and then more and more as they get older.
Wendy Myers: Okay, fantastic. And what about tweens and teens, any tips for them and what to do with them at home?
Susan Morley: Yeah, so they’ll probably have some projects for school, and hopefully they’re independent. So I’m just going to talk about, in general, for children who just do their work. There’s a whole nother thing we can talk about for children who are struggling to do that but we’re just going to talk about the average kid for now. So these students will do the work but then they’re on TikTok for three hours. It’s hard when they’re teenagers to kind of get them all. So for teens, as you may remember, the importance of that peer relationships skyrockets. And it’s really very, very difficult for tweens and teens right now. They’re struggling. And so anything that you can do that is safe, like for me, I had a no Snapchat rule. And I probably would keep that rule even during now, well, I do with my 16 year old. I have an 18 year old also. I can’t really do anything much about that.
Wendy Myers: Because they’re an adult, right?
Susan Morley: Yeah. They’re 16 and 18 and I think she’s gonna respect my wishes. I mean, but that was back in the day. Now there are so many other apps, you just have conversations with them. And just I would talk to them and say, “Hey, how are so and so? Have you talked to so and so? What is this person doing or that person?” Just check in with them to make sure they are in contact with their friends. Suggest very gently because they don’t like to do anything we suggest. Just suggest, “Hey, did you want to have a chat or did they want to drive over and stand in the yard and wave so you all can socially distance talk? I mean, I’ll make sure I’m inside so I’m not listening, et cetera.”
Susan Morley: Offer those kind of safe opportunities to for them to connect because they really, really need that and then at night, tuck them in. I know it sounds weird because they’re teenagers but they haven’t been tucked in a lot. So go in, “Hey, good night.” They’ll probably say, “Ugh, goodnight.” You’re, “Okay.” Just be there. I think they need so much to know that we’re still there for them and that we’re available, because when they’re ready to talk, they will. So here’s one last tip for teens, get a ball, any ball, a bouncy ball, a ball of tinfoil, I don’t care, and just start tossing it back and forth. Don’t say anything, just start tossing the ball back and forth with them. They’ll start talking.
Wendy Myers: Okay, fantastic. And so what about kids and how can we help them cope with the change, this drastic change, isolation, fear and any stresses in the household because parents are dealing with a lot of new emotions and a lot of fear and stress and financial fears. How do we protect our children from that and lead them through this crisis?
Susan Morley: So I don’t know if there’s a way to protect them from all of that. What I can say is that this is an opportunity to build resilience. And so one of the keys for building resilience in children, I really love the book by Carol Dweck called Mindset. So when they get frustrated and they can’t do something, we just add the word yet to the end. I can’t tie my shoe, no, we say you can’t yet. Let’s try again tomorrow. So just constantly providing that hope and that conviction that you believe in them, that things are going to be okay is really important. So any material can read, like I said, mindset is a very good one.
Susan Morley: Building that resilience for children, saying, being honest, things are really weird right now, these are some strange times and 100 years ago, something like this happened. And look, we’re here. So it wasn’t the end of the world. Things are going to change for a while, but we will not just bounce back. But our goal is that we want to be better than before. And you can ask if they’re older, what kind of things would make our family better after this? Maybe they say, “I want to keep Family Game Night.” Maybe they say, “I want us to keep eating dinners together.”
Susan Morley: So we may learn some things about our family structure and the way we were living our lives just a few months ago, that maybe they weren’t serving our family so well. So we think it’s a good time to reflect, maybe create a family mission statement since we have to relook at everything anyway, and just really say what are our values. And then the other thing is there are, you can get them on Amazon like an emotions poster. My children loved theirs for years and years and years. And it’s a poster and it has pictures of children with different facial expressions and the name of the emotion underneath, jealous, sad, happy, glad, angry, et cetera, and having that in the house and you can even, you don’t even have to buy a poster. You just take pictures of your child making different expressions with their face, and then you can take them up on the wall with the names of the emotion under it. And then you can help them identify their feelings because it really does help when we identify our feelings.
Susan Morley: For example, there are a lot of articles about grief, and I was surprised. I am having a lot of grief right now. There’s a lot that’s changing and a lot that I miss. Now children have that too. So when we can have the language, incorporate it in a very open and honest way, and then be an empathetic listener, “I hear you. That must be hard for you. How can I help you?” Those kinds of things can really, really not protect them from what’s going on, but help them thrive in spite of what’s going on.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I’ve been making sure to ask my daughter, how are you feeling right now? Are you doing okay? Kind of letting her know I’m checking in on her emotionally and talking to her about my feelings, telling her what’s going on, being very honest with her about what is happening in the world and this is a crazy time for everyone and not be fearful but we’re just being smart and staying home to protect ourselves. Just putting it in as good a perspective as I can while at the same time being honest.
Susan Morley: Yeah. And I love that you said that because when we say to our child, we just say, “How are you feeling?” Fine, right? But if we say to our child, “I was feeling a little sad today.”, and we start there, boy that really opens the door for a conversation and they might say why and you say, “I miss Thursday night with my girlfriends. I really miss them.” And then, “Have you been feeling sad about missing your friends lately?” Now, it’s easier to have that conversation because you’ve opened up first, because it’s hard to open up sometimes.
Wendy Myers: And what about kids that are agitated and angry? Your kids have a short fuse. How can a parent handle children who are angry or acting out, having tantrums or even sibling conflict?
Susan Morley: Right. Okay, so there was a woman, I forgot her name, but a woman, she’s a therapist, and she had said, “We need to really consider that when our children are acting out or are angry, it really may be grief.” the underlying emotion could be grief. So if they’re acting out short fuse, I had a client last night she called me and she said, “Man, the kids were just blowing up, and my husband and I couldn’t figure it out. We realized it was one o’clock, and we hadn’t fed them lunch yet.” So that’s where schedule can really help because they are just like plowing through work, and they hadn’t realized their lunchtime is normally 11 a.m. at school. And so these kids were operating on fumes, and of course, they were getting into fights.
Susan Morley: So once you know that they’re fed and they’ve had enough sleep and you’ve provided that structure, if they’re having a lot of blow ups, there’s a great tool called Take Five. And it’s very similar to breathing and you just take their hand and you teach this to them and you tell them you breathe up as you trace up your thumb and breathe out as you go down. And you breathe up as you go up, and you breathe down. And you do this for the whole hand and they can do it on their own fingers. And they are breathing in and out very slowly, not hyperventilating. And they are able to calm down.
Susan Morley: That really resets your brain. It engages. They don’t have much of a frontal cortex developed yet, but it really does engage that frontal part of the brain instead of that really deep part of the brain, what I call the caveman brain, and then they’re able to calm down. Then you might be able to say, “Are you hungry? Do you need a hug? Do you want to rest? They might be frustrated with a math problem. Maybe somebody on the Zoom call on the lunch bunch, called them a poopy head, and that really hurt her feelings. So that is just a way to calm them down. Now teens, I don’t know if they’re going to want to do that. But you can just tell them, “Let’s calm down.”< and you can use your hands to signal that you’re calming down. A great tip is just to sit on the floor. If your teenager is arguing with you, just sit on the floor or lie down on the floor. They’re going to look at you like you’re crazy, but they probably will stop yelling too. And the third tip is when children get loud, your voice goes down, so you end up in a whisper. And when you’re whispering, they’re having to lean in and really pay attention and they can’t make any noise if they’re to hear you. And so that’s just a super secret teacher trick that I used to use in the classroom.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, and they kind of bring their frequency down a little bit so it’s not so agitated. It’s hard to do that sometimes.
Susan Morley: Yes, that’s why we have to take a deep breath.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And I’ve been thinking about, because I do these little meditations and listen to these guided meditations with calming music and Wynter, my daughter is about 10 now, so it’s kind of a time, right now is a perfect time to start doing those with your child together, to start teaching them some tools for calming themselves down and meditation and start thinking in that mindset to give them that tools that they need, when they’re feeling anxious.
Susan Morley: Yes, yes. And that’s why I like this because they can do this under a desk during a test when they go back to school. They can do that before a performance or you can do it very quietly to train yourself, to calm down, to control that breathing and meditation is awesome.
Wendy Myers: Yes, yes. I love it. And so how are parents contributing to the problem? So when their kids are acting out, when they are upset or they’re yelling at their parent, I mean many times, they may be modeling their parent’s behavior, their parent’s personality. So what can parents do differently?
Susan Morley: Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think I would have three things. Number one, we need to have a plan. I’ve already said that. That’s so important. Have a plan and the proper expectations. So that’s one. Number two, something I call mom in the mirror. For sure, we need to look at the mom in the mirror. How’s my voice? Am I coming in the living room, “What’s going on? Why don’t you just go up?” If I’m coming into a room like that, they’re going to respond the exact same way. Emotions are contagious. So really keep that in mind. So check yourself.
Susan Morley: The third thing is, if we hadn’t set up before this pandemic, if we hadn’t set up appropriate boundaries and limits, if we hadn’t taught our children that, then they’re not going to understand that it’s not okay to interrupt, or walk in a room without knocking. And they’re not going to understand that they have to wait for things. So you may have to go back and teach them some things that, frankly, maybe you let slide before, but now you really have to tighten it up. So setting those limits and boundaries. Don’t yell at them about it. You haven’t taught them yet, right? So you just teach them, listen, I used to let you interrupt. You’re now seven years old. You’re not going to interrupt me anymore. If you need me, and you can see that I’m busy, you may stand at my door. When it’s open, you just stand there and you wait for me to do like this and invite you in.
Susan Morley: You just teach them whatever skill. And then after you teach them, you can’t just tell them once and think they have it. They’re children. And so you need to then say, “Okay, let’s practice.” And then you say, “Okay, let’s switch, you be me sitting at my desk, and I’ll be you at the door.” And you practice and you practice and you teach and you role play. And now you can have an appropriate expectation that they’ll remember. If they forget, we’re not going to yell at them. We’re going to say, “There’s a special way I taught you how to come in if you need me.” They’ll remember and then they’ll do it.
Wendy Myers: Do you have any tips for discipline? So I know a lot of parents are at home with their kids, they feel guilty. Maybe they’re not spending enough time with them. And a lot of parents just out of habit parent out of guilt, give into their kids when they’re crying and whatnot. Do you have any tips for discipline during this time?
Susan Morley: Yeah, so number one probably goes without saying, but I always like to say it, we know for sure now, today, spanking is just not effective. And you can have a lot of opinions about it. But I can tell you for sure. It just is not effective. There are many better ways to give discipline. So we’ll get that out of the way. Yelling, here’s the thing about yelling at your kids. It’s a stress relief for you and your kids pay the price. So I’m not saying I never yell because I’m human, but I’m much better than I used to be, much, much, much and my kids are older, so the more in control of ourselves we can be, the better, so just don’t do I don’t want to get guilt trips, just saying your kids are paying the price for your stress relief.
Susan Morley: So the way to avoid a lot of having to give consequences or handle misbehavior or give discipline is because of the pre work of discipline, which is like I said, creating some structure and setting the rules, have the family meeting, create some family rules, get them involved. And so that’s going to get you 90% of where you want to be. And then kids are kids. They’re going to misbehave.
Susan Morley: So I say, don’t address it in the moment. If it’s Monday through Friday, and it’s a work day, don’t address it right then. What are you going to do? Have a screaming match right before your Zoom call? No, then that’s not going to work. So let’s say your little boy, Jim Bob, was playing Legos in your office, but now you need that space for a Zoom call. So you told Jim Bob, “Jim Bob, I’ve got a Zoom call in 15 minutes, I want you to come here, I want you to pick up all these Legos, put them in the basket in the corner. I’ll be back in five minutes to see that it’s done.” So you have 15 minutes before your call, you’ve given him five minutes, and that gives you 10 minutes to handle it. You come back in your office, the Legos are still there. You can call him back in and try to force him to do it and you get all upset and have a screaming match or by the way, you’re not going to throw them away, because they’re expensive. Don’t throw away those Legos.
Wendy Myers: Those, for a plastic are a fortune.
Susan Morley: I know, so don’t throw them away. You’re just going to pick them up and you’re going to put them in the basket. I know you don’t want to hear that. I know parents are like, “Ah, but I told him. He didn’t do what I told him to.” Remember this, all good things come to those who wait. Okay, so now it pays to be a grown up and have a fully developed frontal cortex.
Susan Morley: After your Zoom call, maybe after dinner, you would normally play tickle monster or do something extra fun with Jim Bob. He’s going to ask for it. Maybe it’s Wednesday and you have ice cream every Wednesday. You’re going to say, “I’m so sorry, we’re not doing that today. In fact, you’re going straight to bed.” And Jim Bob’s going to ask like, “What’s going on? Why not? You’re going to say, “I’m really glad you asked me. At 3:45 today, I asked you to pick up all your Legos or I told you to because I had a Zoom call at four o’clock. I told you, I’d be back in five minutes. And when I came back, the Legos were there. So I did your job. And my reward for doing your job is that I get two scoops of ice cream after dinner tonight instead of one, and you’re going to go to bed early, because you didn’t listen to mommy.”
Susan Morley: Now, is bedtime going to be a joy? No. But there’s no Zoom call laughter. And you can manage that. And you can still be super sweet at bedtime, and you can still give him his bedtime story. You’re just putting him to bed earlier. You’re not going to punish him or guilt or shame him for not listening. He’s already had his consequence and then the next day is a brand new day. It’s all forgotten and forgiven. Because we need to make sure our children understand that even though they misbehave and make mistakes, they will always be loved. And they will always have a place in our home no matter what. And so giving them that sense of security is going to be Really important especially now, because they don’t really have any other outlets.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s also really important to learn about child development, and what expectations to have emotionally and otherwise with children at different ages and stages so that you do have realistic expectations and don’t get as angry like just knowing that kids really don’t have a lot of control over their emotions until they’re seven or eight. Perhaps that part of their brain isn’t developed, just things like that. They don’t have as much impulse control thinking about the consequences of their action as much as say, an adult or a teenager. And I think knowing that can help you to not be as frustrated with them. Are there any books you can recommend on that subject?
Susan Morley: Yeah, thank you. That was such a good point. And it’s very, very important. My client last night was like, “God, I’m dealing with a four year old and a six year old.” They can’t entertain themselves for an hour at a time. She just, she’s not a preschool teacher. She’s not used to having them in a structured environment. She’s just used to having them on the weekends when it’s all fun, fun, fun. So give yourselves a break. You’re not supposed to know this. So I would go to the Academy of Pediatrics. They’re the association, I’m messing up the name, I apologize. Just Google it. It will come up. It’s the American Academy of Pediatrics. There you go.
Susan Morley: And they have and I’m not going to get the website right because there’s two very similar but it’s healthy kids. And it’s I think it’s dot org, but you can find it from the Academy of Pediatrics website. That is going to be your go to resource because they have so many awesome links, very simple pages about what to expect at different ages and stages. Remember, it’s a guideline. Some kids are going to be really developed in one area and not developed in another. My firstborn, she never crawled. She went straight to walking. But she walked very late. Second born walked very early, talked very late. So every child is different. So it’s not a hard and fast. It speaks in generalities, but it will give you an idea of what you should be able to expect. And I have a great list I give to my clients about chores. Yes, your three year old can do chores. Toddlers are low to the ground, it’s easy for them to dust the baseboards, there’s a lot of pollen flying around. You might want your baseboards dusted and so there are chores that all the children should be doing and participating in and that keeps them busy. It makes them feel like an important part of the family, and no, you’re not going to pay them. It’s just what we do as part of our family.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I’ve managed to do that. I’ve been meaning to make like maybe a poster with some star things. I remember being super motivated by those little gold stars and creating like a list of chores. And having her, my child do them every day or whether it’s like their homework assignments or extracurricular or typing club and then all the chores also that she needs to complete every day. So she just has a nice little guide about what she needs to complete every day.
Susan Morley: Yeah, so the simpler the better. Really, the simpler, the better. And as far as stickers, I am fine with them just so they can mark that they’ve done it. I’m not a fan of a lot of reward. We need to give feedback to our children continually. I appreciate the way you did such a good job on wiping the counter. We’re not going to have a party just because they wiped the counter but just saying thank you. It looks so good. Oh, so nice starting to cook dinner with a clean counter, oh how nice. Just those kinds of things. That’s enough praise. That’s really heartfelt and sincere, not just made up because you feel like you have to praise your kid. But yeah, keep it simple with the chores and make it part of everybody pitches in.
Wendy Myers: Fantastic. Well, Susan, thank you so much for this conversation. I know that’s going to help so many parents out there looking for answers and you have a whole course on parenting. Can you talk about that and where to find that?
Susan Morley: I do. Really I threw it together so quickly and it’s surprisingly well organized. It must have been divine, I don’t know what happened, but I’m very excited about it. It’s called Parenting During a Pandemic. And it’s part of my Mom’s Tribe membership, but it’s absolutely free. It’s completely free because I know that so many parents are going to need resources. And I’d seen so many Pinterest and on Facebook and I did this and I did that. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, I can’t compete. Who has the time?” Some moms have the time and you know what? Bless you because you’re the ones who say, “I’m going to the store. Did you need anything? And you are so important.”
Susan Morley: And I love my moms on the street who have time and they are so generous, so thank you. But for those moms who really are feeling overwhelmed, and they don’t feel crafty, and they just want the most simple, easiest way, this is who my audience really is, simple, practical, and you can bounce around to see what lessons works for you and I’m adding new content so far every week.
Wendy Myers: Fantastic. And so where can we find that?
Susan Morley: Oh, yeah. So if you go to, that would be great. So if you go to, you can just go to my website, susanmorley.com so that’s S-U-S-A-N. Morley is M-O-R-L-E-Y dot com. As soon as you go on there, there’ll be a pop up. You can’t miss it. I made it very obvious. And so you can just click on it and sign up right there. That’s the easiest way to sign up. And again, it’s 100% free. So have your friends go on there and tell me if you find any typos because I did this. I didn’t have anybody proofread it. And if you have a question like, I really wish I knew what to do with my kid who, let me know. I’ll create a lesson for you because I’ve got one tips and tricks. It’s just kind of like a grab bag or potpourri of suggestions. I’ll put it in there.
Wendy Myers: Okay, fantastic. Well, Susan, thank you so much for coming on the show and imparting your wisdom to all the desperate parents out there looking for answers and trying to just make it through this but I think that the silver lining of this is I feel so much closer to my daughter, and I’m really cherishing this time to get to spend with her. I think many of us are being forced to spend more time with our children and it’s been really lovely getting to know my child more and we’re feeling a lot closer, a lot more connected, a lot less stressed and hectic. Now getting into school and back and all the activities and all this stuff, it’s been really a blessing in disguise.
Susan Morley: And you know, I’ll close on this note. I think it might be a good idea maybe at night or at dinner time to not force it and not too often. Everyone will just say, “Is there anything Positive that you recognize since all this has changed?”, and get your family’s feedback on that because that is such a great practice to have that gratitude there. It’s a great antidote to grumpiness, too. So that’s a great idea. Thank you for bringing that up and listen, if you’re not really feeling grateful and able to see the silver lining some days, that’s okay too. Yeah.
Wendy Myers: Well Susan, thanks for coming on.
Susan Morley: Thank you.
Wendy Myers: And everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to the Coronavirus Support Series. We have so many more amazing guests coming on. Tune in. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen.
