Fighting Children, Teleseminars, Dinner....Oh MY!

So what do fighting children, teleseminars and dinner have in common?  A motivated mama who is determined to make it all happen!  The past two weeks have been quite challenging, but every task was a necessary part of the whole. 

I recently began the "Blueprint Tele-seminar Series-Helping Women take their Dreams to the Next Level."   These calls are held in the evening, and I normally conduct them at home.  As a household, we have created behavior guidelines for when mommy is "on a call." The children know not to disturb, who to take their issues to, etc...  But I must say that this past week's call was quite eventful, smile...  It turned out that I was left home alone with the 9 and 6 year old during this telecall.  HAH!  One heated disagreement escalated to an argument and in turn became a throw down.  If you can picture this-I'm standing there, the phone in one hand, talking to the audience about how to reach their Greatness and hand refereeing a children's boxing match with the other.  HILARIOUS!  I finally signaled "enough," moving my right hand sharply across my neck, I gestured that they zip their lip and all other communication was done with a paper and pen.  As I share this post, I'm amazed at how I got through the call with such great results. 

Then of course because the day was so busy, I didn't prepare dinner ahead of time, and my call went overtime.  Just lovely.  Now I had hungry, fussy and sleepy children who were up past their bedtime!  Give mom a metal :)  I comforted them with little reassuring notes that the teleseminar would be over soon, and they would have all of my attention, and I would fix them dinner.  Well, that highly anticipated moment finally came.  I bid my audience a good night, thanked them for joining the call and hung up.  But no time to take a breath.  I quickly regained the children's confidence in me by whisking them into the kitchen to help prepare a fun meal of their choice.  They were quite surprised and happy. 

We all ate, talked about their conflict and prepared for bed.  All was peaceful by the time everyone else came home. 

I made light of this subject, because we can make it a learning experience and even after four children, I'm still learning how to deal with certain situations.  But I encounter moms everyday who have a great deal of challenges and guilt around working while home and away from home, because they feel they're neglecting their family.  We also deal with overwhelm and lack of creative solutions, causing frustration, burn out and disappointment.

These are some tips I offer to my moms:

1. Find healthy and creative ways to release the guilt.  We don't come with Mom Manuals, and we learn as we move forward.  The more we hold on to guilt, the less authentic and joyful we become.  Our children feel it, and we create unwanted tension within them as well.  They look for ways to appease us or act out in response to what they are feeling. 

2. Create agreements with yourself and your family. Honor your agreements and hold them to honoring theirs.  As mothers, it's so important to set the tone and to set boundaries for ourselves.  We love our children but I've learned that when they are old enough to gain a sense of themselves, we've lost ourselves and can't support them in their growth.

3.  Create a Schedule and Prioritize: In the world of a mom, schedules can become a joke, but if you are to ever regain control of your time, it's important to create a structure for yourself and others.  Slowly but surely, with lots of firmness and love-it can happen!

4.  Prepare ahead of time as much as possible: Do what you can to create a chaos-free environment.  Even though you can't totally escape it, there are some aspects that we can avoid.

5. Be flexible and creative:  Our lives are not straight, perfect and narrow lines, and so often we hold ourselves to such high standards.  Allow for mistakes, correction, learning, growth, fun, laughs and joy. 

I'd love to hear what works for you, maybe it'll help a mom who stumbles across this post at a time they need it most! 

My best to you and yours!

LaTalya Palmer-Lewis, Your Transformational Life Coach and Mommy Motivator!