Podcast Episode 285: Why Does Summer Make You Cringe? How To Successful Manage Summer as a Mom Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn Crohn: if you give something over, it might not get done the way you like it, but it’ll get done. And that’s really the most important thing. Done is better than perfect. And that means other people getting things done too.

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn here with the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker: Why, hello, hello, everybody. How are you?

JoAnn Crohn: The eyebrow dance of like, it’s a seduction dance, almost Brie. It’s like the eyebrow seduction dance. As Brie puts the pen in her mouth and is now doing a tango across the camera.

Brie Tucker: See, this is why people have to come and check out the live streamings that we

JoAnn Crohn: Yes. I have to come check out the live streaming for sure.

Brie Tucker: We’re a ball of laughs, I gotta tell ya. We take ourselves so seriously here. Not at

JoAnn Crohn: How’s my lighting for the live streaming? Do I need more lights on me or am I okay?

Brie Tucker: think you look fantastic. Do you have your lights off?

JoAnn Crohn: Yes.

Brie Tucker: I was going to say it looks darker than normal, but to me, that means it’s, it’s afternoon in Phoenix in July. So we’re trying to stay

JoAnn Crohn: we go. Trying to stay cool. Exactly. Speaking of July, oh my gosh, if you’re listening right now and you’re like, when is summer going to be over? These kids are driving me absolutely insane. Maybe you even have a countdown on your fridge or you’re counting down the days in your calendar when school starts again. We have you for this episode. We have

Brie Tucker: We have you, we know how long those like, what is the beginning of the, I used to always like have it memorized. Phineas and Ferb. There’s a hundred and something days of summer vacation and School comes along just okay. Yeah, obviously I should have looked

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. Yeah.

Brie Tucker: summer is long Summer is long, especially for moms because I feel like we always have to take the middle load that is what we’re going to battle today.

JoAnn Crohn: At least during the school year, you can share the mental load with the school a little bit. But summer? It’s all you. So stick around because we have some tips on how to make it work and their battle tested tips battle tested, meaning they are coming from real moms in the no guilt mom community.

And they work guys. So let’s go on with the show. 

[INTRO MUSIC]

Okay, Brie, let’s talk about the summer process because like, I, I don’t know if right now, if you’re listening, if you realize exactly how much you take on during the summer, it is a lot. You might be like, I’m fine, JoAnn and Brie, I’m fine. Like everything’s going okay. I’m fine. And then you’re here at night with a glass of wine, drinking it, like it’s shaking a little bit as you bring it up to your lips and like tears are falling down your face.

Brie Tucker: So like, what I remember the most about summer was, I was, so first of all, and I say remember the most, like it’s not summer right now. it is very much summer, but for JoAnn and I, it is slightly different because our kids go to a modified year round school program.

JoAnn Crohn: Who wants to move to Arizona for this one? Yes!

Brie Tucker: Public school, particularly the, uh, district our kids go to, their first day of school is, July 17th this year. so we’re actually a couple of days from starting school, but we know that we’re the anomaly. Most of you all are on summer vacation and like in the past, when my kids were younger, I worked for the school districts and I loved those jobs because I always had a job where I was a seasonal employee.

So I only worked during the school year. So that meant I had summer vacation as well. And it was always so much fun. Like come the end of May, I had all these ideas of what we were going to do all summer and everything. And I want to say like, and normally school got out around Memorial Day. I would say was probably by June 10th.

I was like, I’m done. I’m done. I’m done. I had these beautiful plans. They were all pretty, maybe even laminated. Cause you know me, color coordinated. I would buy like a, yeah. Oh yeah. I’d buy like a calendar. but you know what? by that second week I was done with the, I don’t want to do that. I’m bored. And it was all. All on me. All on me all the

JoAnn Crohn: It becomes all on you. I remember when my kids were younger. I mean, I, I had to come up with some activities for them during the summer. Now, I didn’t do everything. Because the, our public schools had a program called kids zone. And I was like, you guys are going to kid zone at least like a couple of weeks in there.

My daughter, especially because my son, you know, he was like a baby at the time and I kind of had to take that one. But, uh, my, my daughter, I’m like, you’re going to kid zone. Cause I still have to work. Like I’m working from home. I still have to work. And she would complain. She’d be like, I don’t want to go to kid zone.

I just want to, I’m like, no. You’re out. You’re going to kid zone because I cannot take on that load of you say that you will playing your room and keep to yourself. We all know that doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen because it’s like they could be playing for 30 minutes and then it’s like, mom, I’m hungry. Mom, I need lunch. Mom, like.

Brie Tucker: laid

JoAnn Crohn: with me? Are you done with work yet? Yeah.

Brie Tucker: Yeah. No. Mm-Hmm. We have it figured out. We had it figured out. Why can’t they just follow what we figured out? Why can’t like life just make it work.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And it doesn’t, doesn’t work that way. And if in the perfect world, in a perfect world, let’s just say it, we would have Summer camps for kids that were affordable so that moms would not have to pick between a career and staying home to take care of their kids, staying home to take care of their kids. If that is your jam, I am all for it. I am all for it. but if it’s not, you’re making it as a financial decision, or if you’re doing it because it seems to make the most sense, which I know I hear a lot

Brie Tucker: Mm-Hmm,

JoAnn Crohn: dream world. Summer camps with affordable childcare that’s good for kids. That would be like the great thing. In the meantime, we’re going to give you this mid summer survival plan.

Brie Tucker: yes. Yes. Because We have heard from so many moms. You see it on social media. Moms are in charge of everything. So like we gave you like a little bit of our background, but I mean, like, we’ve heard mom has to sign up for camp registration. And then once camp is going, figuring out when people get to like, what day is what theme, what are we wearing?

Did we pack the sunblock? Do we pack the lunch? What time do we have to be at the bus? What time do we have to be do pickup? Oh, let me coordinate that with running these errands and doing XYZ and going

JoAnn Crohn: my gosh.

Brie Tucker: Like that’s

JoAnn Crohn: My dad

Brie Tucker: right?

JoAnn Crohn: My daughter likes to show me, you know, funny videos every night where she just collects them and saves them on Instagram and then she like makes me sit down and watch them all with her. It drives me crazy, but it’s like one of the things she wants me to do.

Brie Tucker: down and enjoy this with me.

JoAnn Crohn: Basically. but one of them she found was, what moms have to do to get their kids ready for the pool. And it shows like the mom running around the house, opening drawers, stuffing towels and bags, putting on sunscreen on the kids, like packing lunches, everything. And then it shows dad on the toilet, on his cell phone, what dads have to do.

Brie Tucker: Exactly.

JoAnn Crohn: But it’s so funny because I often, think of it, I’m like, why don’t dads see what needs to be done and do it? And there’s like two reasons, I think. So this is my , armchair theory based on facts that, you know, things I’ve read and pieced together. First reason is that because moms, they get the maternity leave when the babies are born, like the extended maternity leave. So in that extended maternity leave, and I’m not talking that much. It’s like 12 weeks, maybe at most nine weeks, sometimes six weeks.

Brie Tucker: in most places we call it maternity leave, but it’s not actual maternity leave. It’s mom saving up all of her sick days and using her FMLA.

JoAnn Crohn: Yep. That’s what I had to do as a teacher.

Brie Tucker: for your So like, and it’s crazy, right? Like, I’m just One second on my soapbox, and I promise I will hop right back down

JoAnn Crohn: have the soap box. Take the

Brie Tucker: Okay, I’m gonna stand up!

JoAnn Crohn: take the stage. Okay. Go.

Brie Tucker: heh. So, We call it maternity leave. But it’s not, and that’s also a thing that is 100% on mom’s shoulders. You, and as someone who was I, I managed large departments, mainly women. , and we worked with kids, so that just means that we had like family oriented employees.

Like I had women that were going on maternity leave all the time. rotating in and out. again, I would call it maternity leave, but it sure as heck wasn’t. It was a, did you add up? Did you, did you save every possible sick day you possibly could? Did you talk to HR to make sure you’re eligible for your FMLA and you filled out the paperwork so you can get that half pay while you’re gone?

JoAnn Crohn: No, it’s crazy. It’s part, so it’s that that’s soapbox ended, mic drop, mic drop. but it’s the time spent with the kids because dads only get the two weeks. And because mom spends so much time in the kids, it isn’t that essential time that she has established as the primary caregiver. And usually, by spending that time, she is able to read the kid’s signals better, especially babies when they want to get fed, when they want to get sleep.

It’s like, you know how moms can usually decipher a cry and decide exactly what the cry means? It’s because of that time that she got with the kid, learning the kid. Dads never get that and so I think that when moms then show this higher proficiency with being able to figure out what the baby needs, dads are kind of like, she’s better at this and step back. Unintentionally, they probably don’t even realize they’re doing

Brie Tucker: Maybe like a learned helplessness type thing.

JoAnn Crohn: like a learned, kind of a learned helplessness thing thinking that, Oh, she’s so much better at this. I should just let her lead the way, which we hear from a lot of men actually. And so this continues, this continues, this continues. So the kids are like eight, 10 years old, and mom is still doing all of these things. And dad is here just like on the toilet, playing the cell phone, thinking that he doesn’t do anything.

Brie Tucker: Or thinking that he’s participating as much as he needs to. She’s got this. She doesn’t need help. She doesn’t want help. Oh, oh, oh.

JoAnn Crohn: the second, the second reason I think, and this is because of a book I was reading by our future No Guilt Mom podcast guest, Dr. Tracy Dalgish, she is a couples therapist and she said in the book that in relationships, there’s usually an over functioner and an under functioner. And the over functioner is here taking care of all of the things, you know, like we usually see moms doing. So that the under functioner can just like do nothing.

And it’s a dynamic that couples get into. And so the way out of that is just recognizing the dynamic, recognizing if maybe you’re being an over functioner. I am a total over functioner. I want to take care of everything. I want to do all the things. And so, I intentionally stepped back from something.

I stepped back from planning my son’s birthday party, which was in July. I gave it completely to my husband. I gave it completely to my son too. They were in control of it. I didn’t do anything free. I didn’t call the place. I didn’t even Like send the invitation details to the moms. I am friends with for the kids. I didn’t do anything Did things go wrong? Heck? Yeah, they did they did

Brie Tucker: I’m trying so hard not to laugh because I know about a few things. Can we add what they forgot about on the invitation? Can we just add that? I

JoAnn Crohn: The time and the

Brie Tucker: I love it! Oh, I’m gonna cry.

JoAnn Crohn: here’s the thing, here’s the thing. My husband, , gave it to my son. My son started a group text with his friends. , yes, they all do have cell phones at 11. They all use them to communicate with each other. He started group text with his friends and he was going to take care of inviting them. And so my husband hears this and logically he’s like, done. Cool. Done. Not realizing how much coaching our son still needed through this whole invite process.

Brie Tucker: he was turning 11. Let’s just be clear on that. Yeah, he

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, because he’s turning 11. He was like, hey guys, can you come to my birthday party? It’s, uh, this day. And they’re like, yeah, yeah, I’ll be there, I’ll be there.

And then like a week before, we start hearing like, hey, I hear your son’s having a birthday party. Uh, what are the details on that? And that was when I went in and I talked to my son and I’m like, Hey, did you send people an address or anything? He’s like, Oh no. Should I do that?

Brie Tucker: But you see how well that was fixed with minimal? Like,

JoAnn Crohn: yeah,

Brie Tucker: really? You didn’t have to do anything before that. So anyways.

JoAnn Crohn: But part of my over functioning would have gone in and taken control of that knowing that things are going to go wrong. And so I think that is something that we as moms really, really need to notice. Like if we give something up, if we give a chore up, we got to let that go. Shit hit the fan because that is, you, you can give as many hints as you can. I did not honestly anticipate that happening else. I would have told my husband when I gave him that job. it was just something I naturally do that. I assumed everyone did and they don’t,

Brie Tucker: Yeah. No, they sure don’t.

JoAnn Crohn: don’t.

Brie Tucker: Yay!

JoAnn Crohn: to survive the summer now, now that you’re partway through right after this,

Brie Tucker: so before we get into the tips that we got from some of our listeners, I wanted to share where I personally feel like a lot of this , overfunctioning starts, at least for me, because I’m with you there, too. I’m totally an overfunctioner. I like to pull out this lovely, lovely saying from the ex husband. so I’m an overfunctioner just because that’s who I am. I think you can agree with that, right? Like, a bit

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah,

Brie Tucker: a, let me

JoAnn Crohn: you’re a bit of an over functioner. Yeah,

Brie Tucker: bit of, let me control it, please. but my, my ex husband, even before we had kids, he used to, I would say joke now. I’m not quite sure it was a joke of like, I like to keep that bar nice and low so that if I do anything, I’m exceeding expectations.

JoAnn Crohn: Every time you tell me that I want to like,

Brie Tucker: String them.

JoAnn Crohn: Yes.

Brie Tucker: Right. So like, in that case, and those, I just want to like, throw this out there and those cases you are pushed into an over function or role. Right?

JoAnn Crohn: And there is other things going on in the relationship as well. Like that’s a not a normal dynamic.

Brie Tucker: that’s not a normal over under function or type thing. So just going to throw that one out there. But because of that, I feel like there’s a lot of these stories that we end up telling ourselves either because we’re an over function or or because it’s just kind of like how society is sort of led us into these things. So. As we say them, I really want, , people, like, that are listening to this, definitely give us a hell yeah if you’re, if you’re like, yup, I tell myself that.

and these are the things that make it so that our summers are just exhausting for us as moms. The first one is, no one else cares. Oh, no one else cares if, they have something planned for this week. Nobody else cares if the kids, you know, go, they, they would be just as happy sitting in their rooms on their tablets all day long and watching TV all summer long.

No one cares. I want to throw my opinion on this one because I have a very strong opinion on this one. This might be right for like the first two days of summer vacation. I can tell you, they will care after two days of being left to their own accord. Screens are only so interesting for so long before they just get bored.

I mean, have you ever had, right? Like, have you ever had those days where, like, there was nothing to do, weather was crappy, so you were stuck indoors all day, and you guys decided to, like, watch TV? After a certain period of time, you’re just done. You are so done.

JoAnn Crohn: You have cabin fever. And I mean, if you’re in a location where like, it is not possible for kids to play outside. Hello, Arizona. Or like with a pool. But by the way, you need to be out there by the pool and watching them every single

Brie Tucker: know, right? That’s not relaxing necessarily,

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, you cannot relax out there. Yeah. I mean, It’s impossible, to just leave them to their own devices. If they’re younger, older kids, like it’s nice. You get to step back a little, but there’s still a lot of work involved with older kids, even teenagers. They need to be driven places. they want you to go get them things. they need to go get like.

It’s back to school shopping, clothes shopping, vacation preparation. Like everything comes up with these teens, which you don’t expect when you go into it. Like I would say my life is like probably just as busy now as it was when they were kids, you know, but They do care. Now on the other side of things, I know a person, who plans out the family schedule minute by minute, whenever her family comes into town, minute by minute.

And it drives them all insane because there is no free time built in. So it’s not to say like you have to have every minute of your day planned for. They do care, they do like to do things once in a while, but at the same time, don’t feel like you have to do it all for them. Take care of everything.

Brie Tucker: Right. And I think, like, that’s I just feel like we get stuck planning things sometimes because we’re telling ourselves that no one else will do it. It has to be, like, I I have to do it because nobody else even cares if they sit on their screens all day. Or if the kids eat nothing but junk food all the time. Like, they do. I promise you. They will. But that’s just, yes. So that’s one. So which I think you actually led us perfectly into the second point, which is if I don’t do it, nobody else will. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: that might be true. Like what I was saying before with like over functioners and under functioners and dads like in this learned helplessness behavior, if you are already way, like your kids are older, like, I don’t know, anything above four or five really. And dad’s at work all day and you’re the primary caregiver and the default parent, the she fault parent. Yeah. No one else might like you might have to do it, but there’s a way around that because You could just, delegate, delegate it completely. If you want someone else to plan something else for them, for example, a birthday party, like I have my story about, or maybe you see a program that your kids can register for pretty soon.

You don’t have to be the one to do that. You could be like, drop it in your partner’s lap and be like, Hey, I really need your help with this. Can you take the time to register them for this? And then you’re off. Or be like, Hey, could you research? Programs to register them for, and then register them.

Brie Tucker: Right. Okay. All right. So I’m going to argue that I do not agree that if you don’t do it, no one else will. I don’t agree that it has to fall on mom’s shoulders. And I’m going to share why I think that right after this. Okay. Here’s my thing. I feel like as humans, we tend to go to the path of least resistance, right? why would I think as, let’s say, as the other parent in the household, why would I think I have to plan stuff when I know that my partner will? And like you said, part of it does fall on the whole, like, if my partner is the one who’s home with the kids. While I’m at work, why would I plan things for them to do? and you gave some wonderful examples of how They can help even if they’re not home,

JoAnn Crohn: Or you’re going to be the one driving and I don’t know your schedule, so it’s just better if you schedule it anyways.

Brie Tucker: right? Oh my God. Yes. Oh, that would drive me nuts. So, so that is true. But here’s my thing that I, here’s, here’s my shtick with it. It tends to continue even through the weekend, right? think back to like when you’re for you and I, since we have older kids, think back to when our kids were early elementary or even younger, we were still in charge of them even on the weekends when our spouses were there, probably right.

We were still in charge of the family schedule, They showed up to where they needed to go and yeah, like, you know spouses I think that I’m gonna say dad’s sorry, and I’m not trying to pick on dad’s I truly am NOT

JoAnn Crohn: We’re just going with the general thing that happens. The tendency, the trend.

Brie Tucker: yeah, the trend. There you go. I like the trend. So like, Dad might throw in like a, hey, let’s all go to breakfast. And then he’ll pick out a place, he’ll coordinate it, you guys all get in the car, you drive, you go, you eat, you come back. You might be lucky enough to have that. But everything else still does fall on Mom.

Oh, we’ve got a birthday party to go to on Saturday. Oh, we do? What time? And you’re the keeper of all of it. You don’t have to be. Like I would, I wish I could have gone back to my younger self and said during the summer, like, don’t plan crap for the weekends and for weeknights you do your job. you are doing your duty from seven in the morning or actually back then. God, what time they get up in the mornings? 5 AM from 5 AM until five. Yeah. Until 5 PM. Like other people can pick up stuff. Maybe I ask my kids, grandparents, like, will you take the kids for a day for a sleepover or something? but putting more on your spouse because they can.

JoAnn Crohn: They can. And sometimes they need to be told very explicitly what you want them to do. And I’m not saying micromanage piece by piece. but with the breakfast example, what used to happen to me is like, Oh yeah, let’s go out for breakfast. Where do you want to go? And I’m like, and so like, I turn and tell my husband and I’m like, totally cool.

I want you to decide it. I want you to make all the arrangements and just, you know, tell me where I need to be. And that’s like, because I don’t know why, like, it just must be a dynamic in our relationship where I took over for so long that I didn’t realize how much pressure I was putting on myself and how many decisions I was creating for myself that could have easily be handled by someone else. And a lot of times, like. I don’t care where we’re eating. I mean, if I cared where we’re eating, sure, I’d want to say it, but I’m like, just get food in their bellies. So they’re not grumpy and I’m good.

Brie Tucker: Honestly, like the only days I really care about where we’re eating, besides when I was pregnant and I had hella like cravings. I would say like, was my birthday and Mother’s Day. Those are the only two days that I really care. Cause I’m like, you know what? This is 100 percent all about me. So we’re going to eat where mom wants to eat.

Yeah. So again, like, if you don’t do it, , cause that, we’re telling ourselves, if I don’t do it, nobody else will. And you know what? You may have. no, you likely will have. Sometimes we’re when you stop doing it. your partner is like, Oh, I guess we’re not doing anything.

and nothing happens. And maybe you’re bored out of your mind. If you’re anything like me, like I cannot sit still that would drive. So like, that was a problem I had. And my family dynamic was that my husband and my oldest were perfectly happy being homebodies. I would get itchy. Like I would get like restless legs syndrome.

I swear, except it was restless home syndrome. Like I could not sit at home. I had to get up and go do something. And my daughter was just like me. So fine, fine. If your spouse doesn’t plan anything with the kids and you have restless body syndrome and you can’t stand sitting around the house any longer, or, or let’s just be honest, everyone’s driving you bananas.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah.

Brie Tucker: That’s when you look at your spouse and you’re like, peace out. I’m going to go run an errand.

JoAnn Crohn: I always, I always like to think of it as, and this is a bit of like tough love for you listening out there. the person who has the need needs to make the plan. If you have a need, like you had the restless, like syndrome you had, like you couldn’t sit still. You knew that you were the one who had to take care of that. That wasn’t like your spouse’s responsibility.

Brie Tucker: wasn’t their priority. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: It wasn’t their priority. However, if your kids had that need. That’s both of your priorities right there. And sometimes it’s a thing to make it visible to your spouse. And sometimes that’s. Going, peace out. I’m going to run out for a few hours. And then you’re like, I don’t do that.

What are you saying? No, not anymore. But something, you know, sometimes like it’s just making the invisible visible is, , something that I, I like to think of. And then this last thought process, before we get to the tips, the whole, no one else can do it. They don’t know how, and that is a roadblock. It’s sometimes a roadblock. and it’s hard. It’s like twofold because sometimes like, yeah, they don’t know how, but they could easily figure it out and they might do it a different way than you would tackle the situation for sure. the way that I have handled this with my husband is I’m like, Hey, like, here’s the goal.

Here’s what needs to happen. Like, uh, I don’t know the birthday party. Needs to get planned or we need to think of something to do for a dinner tonight. So the goal would be dinner tonight and then I’d be like, do you need any suggestions or tips or help or anything? Are you good? And usually it was like I’m good and he’ll do it and he might not do it exactly the way I do it Like if it’s coordinating a family dinner He probably will send out that text last minute to the family to see if they’re all available And then we will go somewhere nearby that’s not anything like that I would term as special. It’d be like Thirsty Lion. Or like, you know,

Brie Tucker: Do you, do you think he might do that last minute as like a subliminal way of like, nobody will show up.

JoAnn Crohn: no. I think honestly he doesn’t think about it until the last minute. I

Brie Tucker: like, sometimes I do that. I will admit that. Sometimes I give like a last minute notification to, some people of like, Maybe they won’t be able to go then, and I can be like, I tried

JoAnn Crohn: I, ohhh, oh, Brie. Hopefully none of those people are listening.

Brie Tucker: I, I don’t think so. And if they’re then, but anyway. Mm-Hmm.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, I mean, it, So there’s that thought process too, if you give something over, it might not get done the way you like it, but it’ll get done. And that’s really the most important thing. Done is better than perfect. And that means other people getting things done too.

Brie Tucker: right? Like, okay. I love that because like, it, let’s be honest, again, most of the time if we think that nobody else can do it, we’re thinking our husband cannot do it. Our partner cannot do it. Chances are good they have a job. They do that job every day, in and out. They are perfectly

JoAnn Crohn: do it. They figure,

Brie Tucker: right?

JoAnn Crohn: they figure it out there. They coordinate with people there. They do all, they have the skills.

Brie Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. and kids, our kids, a lot of times they don’t do things because we don’t give them the opportunity to do them. But I can guarantee you that they do rise to the occasion. The more opportunities they are given to do it like you and I, we’ve done that with our kids over the years. We’ve given them more and more, and granted, I’m not great at it.

I certainly still take control of things way more than they probably should, but giving them that ability to do stuff more often with the boundaries, it has seemed to have worked. I will still even at this point, like when this summer started, I have, two teens, one teen who is 15 and can’t drive and she is famous or has been famous for coming to me and being like, I want to go to so and so’s place today, or I want to go to the mall today, or I have this plan today, or I have this plan tomorrow, or in two days, I’m going to do XYZ. Did you notice that there’s no can I’s in those

JoAnn Crohn: can I it’s like mom. Here’s what i’m doing and you’re my chauffeur

Brie Tucker: Are you free? Whatever. Because again, like we, you and I get that a lot from our kids. Well, not, not a ton. Cause again, like I’m telling you, it works, but we get it enough because we work from home and before summer started, like I gave my daughter boundaries.

I’m like, listen, you have chores that have to be done and you have work over the summer and you have like one summer class she took so that she could get ahead. And one of her like things that she was taking. So I was like, okay, so those are the three things that you have to get done before you ever make plans to do anything else.

And she’s like, yeah, totally got it. Great. And I’m like, and as far as I’m concerned, if those three things are done by Sunday night, you have free rain for the week, but you have to find rides if it’s outside of Tuesday or Thursday. I was like, I can give you rides on Tuesday and Thursday, between the hours of 2 and 6, anything after that, you’re figuring out rides on your own. And there was a little bit of like, ugh, ugh, ugh,

JoAnn Crohn: That’s what I was gonna mention. I would like to give the no guilt mom like It’s almost like a guilt alert. You’re ready the burp

Brie Tucker: It’s coming! It’s coming! It’s coming!

JoAnn Crohn: when you start setting boundaries with your kids, when you start getting into these situations where you’re pushing them to do stuff that they don’t necessarily want to do, but need to have done, you’re going to get some conflict. You’re going to get some pushback. You’re going to get some feelings involved. my daughter is very, like, she recognizes my feelings now,

Brie Tucker: But it took time to get there.

JoAnn Crohn: When we started this, there was a lot of like, uh, uh, and a lot of quiet, like big, quiet, treatments she gave

Brie Tucker: Or that you’re not fair. You’re not being fair!

JoAnn Crohn: You take my brother everywhere he wants to go. You’re not, it took a lot of conversations and it was just conversations where waiting for it to cool down and then coming back with each other and being like, Hey, it really hurts me when, you get mad at me or like you don’t say thank you or you don’t give me the heads up When you want me to take you somewhere and then like you give me the silent treatment That hurts that hurts.

So repeating that over and over and over again it does click it really does but you’re gonna go through a lot of hurt emotions and a lot of Conflict and a lot now when I have a repeatable problem And there’s a conversation where there’s definite conflict and uncomfortable feelings and they get mad at me.

I’m like, Oh, this problem is going to get solved soon because now, like we really hit it. If those emotions come out, that is the brunt of the issue right there. and I’ve seen that it does happen that way. That’s the precursor to a getting fixed.

Brie Tucker: So the beginning of the summer, and I remind you guys, we do not have a long summer here in Phoenix in terms of like, no school summer. Just to be clear, not temperature summer, that, that goes on for freaking ever, but

JoAnn Crohn: is a CrossFit gym here in Phoenix called Endless Summer, and I’m like, why did you name it that? Like, no one wants an Endless

Brie Tucker: You not here in Phoenix. Good God. No, but I mean, like, so like we had this conversation in May and I would say by like mid June, it was done. It occasionally popped up where it’d be like, Hey, I want to go do this tomorrow. And I would kind of look at her and she’d be like, are you, are, is it possible that you can do this?

I know it’s outside of the boundaries we’d set. If you say no. I understand because it’s outside of like what we had set and I’m like, great, awesome. That’s all I ask for is that that be it loud and that look and sometimes I can do stuff and accommodate and because of that she also does the same for me.

I’ll ask her to do stuff outside of what we talked about and there’s like no whining, no complaining, like, okay, yeah, sure. Cause she knows that it’s a respect thing coming back and forth, but it was a process. It was a process. So I’m just saying, giving them boundaries, giving them deadlines, being clear and the articulation, not just saying, Hey, I want you to start coming up with your own activities and let me know what you come up with. Like

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah.

Brie Tucker: going to know like the invitations they’re going to know to invite people, but they’re not going to know what to put on the invitation.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, exactly. Well, we want to give you some tips

Brie Tucker: yes. What are some tips from our people?

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. Let’s shout out these people who gave some great tips on the no guilt mom Facebook page about how to survive the summer. Jillian says you can let go of that notion to have the best summer ever. Like just explode that phrase everywhere.

And I would like to tack on also the phrase that you only have 18 summers with your kids. Let’s explode that one as well, because it’s just not true.

You’re like, it’s only thinking that like once they leave, they’ll leave you for good. They don’t. If you do this, like the way that we are teaching you how to make a relationship with your kids, you will have a wonderful quality relationship for the end of time.

Brie Tucker: Most of us do not want our kids to disappear as soon as they turn 18. We would like to continue to have a relationship with them. Just saying. Becky had a great one that we did too, a lot when my kids were little. She says that we listen to audio books in the car. Whenever we go almost anywhere, it keeps the fighting to a minimum.

And if we have a lot of errands, mostly curbside pickups, they don’t complain when they’re going because they’re listening to a story the whole time. I love that. I really do. We used to do the magic tree house a lot like that.

JoAnn Crohn: Ooh, I didn’t realize magic tree house had that we would, we do like rotating through song choices. So we’re big into music. Brittany says that the same routine for the school year will not work. During the summer. And so stop trying to fit your kids into that same routine.

You’re going to need a new routine for the summer. So I’m thinking mid summer now, you probably realize that, but if you’re still trying,

Brie Tucker: Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: that, go and tweak that

Brie Tucker: And I love this. This one is from Edith, who is a long time balance member. And I love just the first sentence. We’ll tell you she’s a balance member. Make sure you figure out what you want or need as well. Right? Like, bam, right there. The kids will have their wishes ready. No doubt. But make sure that you have what you need as well.

So like for her, she has one where like on days that they’re having breakfast, the kitchen is closed for two hours for lunchtime. They can’t keep coming in and asking for food. cause she’s like, I need that break. I need the endless snacks to stop.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And I want to end with one, that we have not touched on at all. That’s a really, really great comment. Tammy’s she says, don’t compare. I always feel I should be doing everything and going everywhere, but neither me or my kids have that kind of energy. And so the year she stopped trying to have an activity a day and dropped the one hour screen time limit. That’s when her stress levels

Brie Tucker: And I bet her blood pressure did too.

JoAnn Crohn: Yes, indeed. Indeed. So we hope you are doing well this summer so far. We hope this gave you a little bit of a break because I know the hardest thing is you tend to beat yourself up a lot for what you do as a mom and as a parent. and I hope that this helps you release a little bit of that guilt so that you can go more to having fun and enjoying your kids and figuring out exactly what you want. So remember, the best mom is a happy mom, take care of you, we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.