 Okay, we want to welcome everyone to this afternoon's program of our Bedford Playhouse quote-unquote virtual Playhouse My name is Dan I'm the director of development programming and I'm very very pleased to be able to introduce and present Julie Morgenstern for this Afternoon's talk. I should say as we do for all of these things For those of you who are new to zoom and are not familiar with its use if you are on a Laptop You can find at the bottom. There is a Q&A button Which will allow you to ask questions post questions at any time Julie will be taking questions towards the end And we'll try to get to as many of them as possible. If you're on your iPad or a mobile device I believe that it is towards the top of your screen and you can also you can find it there Bedford Playhouse right now Obviously given the circumstances is currently closed We do ask that at the end of today's program if you enjoyed it and you'd like to see more like it that you consider Making a donation to help us through while we're operating in the virtual world You can go to our website, which is at for playhouse.org Click on ways to give and there's it's pretty self-explanatory every amount is appreciated We know that everybody's having a tough time right now. So anything you can do. It's completely tax deductible Or you can consider maybe perhaps becoming a member. There are membership benefits such as discounts on tickets and other Benefits concessions special members only invitations We are offering this Friday. Once again a curbside concession program, which has member discounts eligible You can go on and pre-order Popcorn candy to get you through your weekend viewing at home So without any further ado, I'm going to introduce Julie and forgive me if I actually have to read her bio Because it's kind of impressive and there's no way I would ever be able to memorize it in time Julie Morgenstern is an organizing and productivity consultant New York Times best-selling author and speaker for over 30 years She's been teaching people all around the world and at all stages of life How to overcome disorganization to achieve their goals Her mission is to free each individual Make their unique contribution to the world by helping them design their own system for managing time and space That feel natural and are easy to maintain and this inside-out approach to organizing everything gives her readers listeners and clients The energy and knowledge they need to get and stay organized She has shared her experience on countless TV and radio outlets Oprah Winfrey CNN the Rachel Ray show the today show good morning America national public radio She's quoted and featured regularly in a wide variety of publications Has been in the New York Times Time magazine Waltz return old destiny in a few and we're very very very happy to have her with us So I'm going to now invite Julie to turn on her camera and microphone and turn things over to her Okay. Hi, Dan I want to see a little while. All right. Thank you everybody I'm so delighted that you've chosen to join this afternoon and I'm very excited to share some Insights and strategies that I think will help you in this very challenging time So, let's see. I'm gonna share my screen and let's get going Let's make sure that's up and We're gonna go play How's that? Okay All right, the great juggling act so Look the juggling act for parents has never been easy. Never. It's never been easy It's like the biggest job in the world and it's the one job that comes without a job manual My daughter was born. I Was shocked that there weren't time management brochures that were handed out in maternity wards with every baby That's born and there's not time management brochures in the waiting room of pediatricians offices or sent home with schools right like it's such a difficult job and We we have no sort of way to organize ourselves. It's not handed to us and now in the time of corona in the time of sudden lockdown or stay-at-home orders the job has gotten infinitely more complex And parents who are juggling this I think it's in terms of who is stuck at home. I think People who parents who are stuck at home. I think everybody would agree Have the greatest challenge of all and at this point whether we're eight weeks or ten weeks into this process You may have come up with settled into some kind of routines or some kind of systems But the whole thing was sort of set up It's sort of thrust upon us and even if you found a little bit of a rhythm I'm sure you thought this was temporary and what's happened is kind of the end of this The road just got stretched out before us to some unknown amount of time Our kids gonna like are there gonna be summer programs that we can send our kids to What's gonna happen in the fall? Are they gonna go back to school? Are they gonna go back to school one, you know in groups of like A and B one week on one week off How do you organize for that? And I think we have to be prepared honestly my prediction my thought is we have to all now prepare for a long-term hybrid Situation hybrid life that we have to be able to set our homes up To work from home if we work and also work from an office and to seamlessly flow between those We have to be able to set up to school from home and school at school and be able to flow back and forth seamlessly I think that's what we all have to prepare for for at least the next year and maybe it's a permanent change Right, we don't know but that I think is the key and not think that this is a thing that's gonna end As soon as they you know take us off pause and turn everything back on I don't think it's gonna go that way So I would like to get a feel and I hope I can sort of see all this for Who's in the room and and the first question that I have is if you could raise your hand if you have kids who are Five and under raise your hand and I Dan I would love for you to share what you see because I don't have access to the hand-raising. I don't think no problem Julius looks like we have so far eight Eight people have raised their hand Okay, eight of raise their hand for kids that are five or under what about five to ten so everybody take your hand down and Now re-raise your hand if or raise your hand anew if you have kids between five and ten like to get a feel for that and How's that because and I'll just sort of fill this time The challenges are a little different if you have kids that are preschool versus kids who are school age versus kids We're gonna talk about tweens and teens So your count there, Julie is starting to interrupt you your count there is seven people Okay, now take your hand down last question is who in the audience has kids who are tweens and teens Let's get a feel for that Good All right, I see it's sort of the largest group so far. I did find it. It's like looks like nine people Okay, good. All right. Good So we have people and I would bet that there are people who have kids in multiple age ranges, right? You might have a preschooler plus a school age or plus a teenager All over the place. All right, so so what I'm gonna do today And then this little time we have together is I'm gonna give you some really practical strategies and tools that you can use in this environment and beyond to Lighten your workload lighten the burden To give you more confidence and more sense of control and something that you actually can carry from this point forward To better manage your time and your energy as you are dealing with this giant juggling act Okay, and that's really till your kids go off to college. That's how long this model will last But we're starting where we are So the first thing is The control panel. What is the job description of a parent? this was the thing that's been so hard to find and When I worked on time to parent one of the things that occurred to me and it was after my My daughter was out of the nest. I couldn't figure it out while I was there You're just in the day-to-day But one thing nobody talks about is that the years we are raising our kids Happen to be the prime of our own adult development years Exactly parallel to when you're raising your kids you're establishing and fueling a career a professional life That's peak time peak earning capacity You're establishing adult relationships with you know your significant other and a circle of friends and You're discovering who you are as a human. That's at the same time No one ever talks about that But it's important to recognize that as we figure out what do we need to balance our time between While raising kids and as a time management expert for many decades several decades. I don't want to over exaggerate I don't look that old One thing I learned is that job ambiguity in any role In any position in any industry is a surefire recipe for overwork Inefficiency and insecurity if we don't know what we're supposed to balance our time between How do we know where we're strong where we're weak? How do we know when our day is done? How do we wrap our day in a bow and say we've done our job and now we can take time for ourselves? It's impossible. So job clarity is number one. What is that job description? I'm going to propose a framework. This is an organizers framework based on several decades of coaching parents and families around the world What do you need? Here's a simple way to think about the balancing act No matter pre corona during corona after corona. This is a parents juggling act first To divide the job into two parts raising a human and being a human And then each of those have four components. So to raise a happy healthy human We as parents caretakers grandparents that caretakers in that kid's life We have to juggle our time between four activities. We have to provide for our kids, right? That's like working and making and managing money to pay for everything That our kids need to have a good life We also have to spend time arranging the logistics of our kids lives Where are they going to school? Oh right now? It's in our living room. But where do they go to school? What are they eating for lunch and dinner? What are we doing for the summer? You know who's cleaning the house? How do we get all of the logistics of the household working the scheduling? It's a huge job Under estimated by most people and how time-consuming and complex that is We also need to spend time relating to our kids. That's connecting to our kids one on one It's what a lot of people call the quality time Of really entering your child's world and getting to know each kid for the unique individual they are And then we have to spend time teaching our kids, right? Under normal circumstances, we have to teach our kids values and life skills So they can be successful in the world In corona time We actually our job there we are serious like Extensions to the school Making sure while they're at home that we they are being taught that we're monitoring their learning That we're coordinating all that we're like sort of teachers assistants So provide a rage relate teach that's four activities to raise a happy healthy human And that spells an acronym part as in doing your part for another person. Okay Now we as adults are responsible for our kids well-being, but we are also responsible for our own So to be a happy healthy human We also need to divide our time between four things. We have to spend time on sleep Which is you know always under assault when you're a parent from the birth of your first till the you know launch of your last But if we don't sleep We are not we don't have the energy. We don't have the brain power. We don't have the patience We don't have the wherewithal to do our part, right? Total sleep deprivation compromises everything on the left side of the screen, right? So sleep is critical in To to to even doing your part. We also need to spend time on exercise, right? Which is formal or informal movement and fitness that makes us have energy and confidence to be able to do our part And feel good in the world We have to spend time on adult love relationships with our Marriages our significant others our circle of friends our extended family Because It's very hard to nurture others when we are not nurtured ourselves Right and we have to spend time on fun and fun What I mean by fun in this case is it's on the hobbies or the passions Or the activities of pure relaxation that whenever you do them you feel like you So we're going to go in deeper in a minute on each of these but first let's just look at does anybody see the acronym in that There's also an acronym right here. It's sleep exercise love fun is self fueling yourself This is the job. These are the edges. It is not 8 000 things that we have to juggle as parents It's not infinite things. It's not two It's eight four for your kids and four for yourself so now Here's where it gets really interesting. Let's start drilling down on each side of this. So when it comes to doing your part As adults as parents we think time spent on any one of these four counts as all time in No matter what your mix of time is between these four It's all the same to us. That's our parenting time versus our self time But kids experience each type of time very differently Why and you know, I and you may relate to this yourself or just how often have you heard Parents who say I sacrificed my entire life for my kids And those kids say my parents were never there for me How often does that happen? A lot right Why is that? How is that possible? How can both things be true? They can be true Because some of these four activities are visible to our kids and some are invisible Some of these activities take place in the adult world and some take place in the child's world So now look at this matrix And you think about the job of a parent The time spent providing working making managing money takes a massive amount of time But it takes place in the adult world and under normal circumstances that time is Invisible to our kids. All they know is we're not there Right. We're off providing creating great life, but they don't see that time a range Also takes a massive amount of time and that takes place in the child's world because Either they have something to eat for dinner or don't the laundry is done or not The school supplies have been ordered or not. So they feel if we don't do the arranging But the time we spend doing it On is largely invisible to our kids. We do it while they're busy doing something else They're at school. They're busy here. We do it at night We fill in the cracks and they don't see what it takes under normal circumstances They're seeing it a little bit or a lot more now Relate and teach are the two activities that it takes to raise a kid a happy healthy kid That are visible to kids because we they see us Those are the interactions when we're relating to our kids and when we're teaching our kids We are right in front of them and that time is together But even those two are different and when you look at this matrix It's extremely illuminating to think of it this way because we Often merge those in our heads like teaching is love right and guiding is love And it is love and it can be loving but they're different. How so when we are teaching our kids We are bringing our kids into the adult world And they are the students of us When you relate to a child The job is to enter the child's world and be a student of the child To get to know the world through their eyes. What's in their heart? What's in their minds? What interests them? And to be on the receiving end of each of those feels very different If you enter the child's world or your and you're the student or They're coming into adult world and they're the student and every expert that I spoke to and I did eight years of research Into the science of human development for this book Every expert pediatrician sociologist child expert Said in order to create the conditions for teach We always should start with relate Relate before teach and if we start with teach It's very hard for kids to even listen and that's where a lot of the battles take place Which are far exacerbated now in In this environment So I know lots of parents. I've talked to so many different parents who just feel in this corona situation like oh my god I'm doing all this teaching and I'm here or I'm working from home And I'm here, but I'm not really here and I feel so guilty that I'm not spending time Connecting to my kids. We're going to figure out how to do that in a minute In this I want to just say that We all gravitate as in life in general and certainly here we gravitate toward the things that we're good at And away from the things where we're not so confident And we also as parents tend to move into kind of We either decide we're going to parent exactly as we were parented or we're going to the exact opposite And there's a self-assessment that's both in the book, but also we have one we have it online Where you can actually Answer a series of questions and they'll give you a report on where you're spending too much time where you're not spending enough time And where you're gravitating And there are archetypes that have emerged And we've had several thousand people take this online And here are the very common profiles that just come from what we grew up with or our styles as parents So there's six I'm going to do them real quick give you a little overview And you can take the self-assessment online and actually if you We're going to give you a code bedford playhouse and if you take it you'll get a report and a little Sort of summary of the key principles, but let's let's look at what they are and see if you can recognize yourself Your family or your own parents in this so there are people who gravitate toward parents High provide high teach. It's what I call Let's see if this is going to work for me here the breadwinner. That's sort of a Work you know, that's the old father knows best even though a woman can do this just as well these days You know They go to work and them anytime spent with the kids they are teaching But they're not really focused on the household logistics at all. They don't know how dinner got on the table And they are not really They're not warm and fuzzy and kids don't feel particularly like they're understood But they're taught so high provide high teach The flip side Is a high A range high relate that's very often a stay at home parent who's got the house operating so organized everything flows And they're always there with a big hug and they connect to the kids But they don't play the disciplinarian role and they may have given up a career Uh and professional aspirations in order to do that There's the high provide higher range. It's what I call the responsible doer and these are people who are get it done folks They get their job done. They're Very productive at work and at home. They keep things. They got the to-do list going But slowing down to the speed of kids is torture It's like too slow. I'm not getting to-dos then if I'm sitting here reading this book with you And then there's the opposite which is what I call the merry poppins and these are people who are amazing with kids They connect they relate they teach But maybe the kids are eating peanut butter and jelly six times a day and who cares if we don't have money in a lot of families They relate and teach In dual income families a lot of times the parents are both responsible doers and The caretaker gets the merry poppins role sometimes that happens and then the last two profiles are High-range high teach another very common stay at home parent Family manager got the house operating got the kids learning skills and chores But no time to just be and again Maybe not getting to invest in their career And then there's the opposite of that which is what I call the best friend and this is kind of a work hard play hard parent Works really hard comes home plays has a great time connecting to the kids But is not really involved in in dinner or chores and is not going to be a disciplinarian because they don't spend enough time With the kids as is so take a minute And maybe in the chat you could put a little anybody have any comments on do you see yourself? Do you see your household? Do you see your parents? Does this explain your own childhood a little bit? Let me see if I can get to the chat box here and sort of see any comments that you guys have Here we go chat Responsible doer here Yeah, can you see yourself anybody can feel free to like throw what you think you are up into the board? It's kind of interesting and are there good combo couples. Let me answer that question. It's a really good question So a lot of times that is what happens. You have these combo couples where you know, you've got a responsible doer and a married poppins Or a breadwinner and a hearth maker a family manager and a best friend and You just sort of fall into those roles and you may play them well in my experience and through lots of interviews with couples with kids and with experts the truth is The parent each parent Actually real like a lot of times on those things Parents kind of resent that they don't get to play the roles that they don't play so If somebody in is the family manager and they're home all day with the kids for example Doing all the logistics and then they're the disciplinary in there. They don't get to be the good guy And then their opposite the best friend is working and then gets to be the good guy or the good girl and there's a little bit of Feeling cheated that you don't get to relate or you don't get to provide or you don't get to Teach or you don't feel confident that you're You teach your kids anything that and so there's I think couples actually individuals really want to at least touch all four and the truth is kids want Kids don't want one parent Who doesn't understand them who only teaches them if you go to the breadwinner for example Though the kids get all four things they really don't want a parent Who's only working and only disciplining or only teaching but doesn't really ever understand them So the truth is you should be aware if you have strengths But also make sure there's a couple that you cross pollinate and give everybody a chance to touch all four Good Alrighty so the unlocks on this if you What I have found is Are on relate And arrange and self-care. This is where people get stuck the most parents get stuck. So relate Even not in corona times honestly is the hardest thing for parents to do Can't relate to kids at every age and stage We always feel guilty that we're not spending enough time with our kids So in the research that I did for the book The eight years of research I had one question Which is how much time and attention do kids need? To feel loved and secure Because isn't that like the ultimate question if we know how much time and attention kids needed for that We'd know where the edge is and that I'm an organizer. I'm not a child development expert So I needed to go to the experts for that and it was hard to find the answer, but I found it and it's extremely liberating And really makes sense So here's the answer eight years of research children thrive on short bursts of like five to 15 minutes at a time Of truly undivided attention Delivered consistently Not big blocks of time delivered occasionally short bursts Why short bursts most experts say kids have short attention spans, right? So most experts say to calculate About a minute for each age of life. I want you to think about that for a minute That means a one-year-old has a one-minute attention span for that like True connecting before their eyes shift to the next shiny object And a five-year-old if you're gonna like have a deep conversation with their five-year-old that lasts five minutes And then they're off to the next game or something And a teenager like 15 year old 15 minutes right, so If you think about that this is for these like and the consistency means it's built into the fabric of the day It's not that you have to add this time. You just change the nature of the time You're already spending with your kids And if you take each transition point It's each reconnection point with your kid in the day when they first wake up If you go off to work, even if it's in the house before you leave and separate That's a transition point when you come back into the room or you're done work either for lunch or the end of the day You reconnect. That's a transition point Family dinner time transition bedtime. Those are like five very common Transitions in the day if you spend the first five minutes one minute 10 minutes of each reconnection point and transition point with your kids in the day in the relate then Together but apart time is not only natural. It's healthy and they're prepared for it And I've seen this work over and over and it's the opposite of the way we work We are all work first plays second people Teach when we're done, then we can have quality time wake up through your chores get ready Then we can have quality time and the experts say flip it Wake up. Hey, how'd you sleep? Did you have any dreams? You're ready for the day, right? Always First moments is where it counts and make them brief and make them regular And that becomes the foundation that satisfy kids So that's relate and it is as essential and nutrient to human development as food and sunshine. The science is Exploding with discovery of the importance of that and I'm sure many of you have read about social emotional development But this is the time management angle on that which is it's just these short pulses regularly in the fabric of the day All right, let's keep going. So that's relate We can talk more if you have questions about that Okay So We're going to be in this for the long haul I was talking about sort of a hybrid situation that we have to be prepared for a flow back and forth between work at home Work at work school at home school at work daycare at home daycare out someone there someone not Whatever systems you've set up over the last two months I want you to not which was very reactive very sudden a lot of trial and error I want everybody to like take a beat and now think permanent How do I reconceptualize this home? Into really clear zones that designate very distinct spaces for work Whether that's a sink. That's another question. I'm kind of you could put in a little chat like How many like just type in are you a stay-at-home parent? Do you work part-time? Do you work full-time? You can put that in the chat and I'll kind of keep a A little view because I want to sort of tailor my comments to the group so Whatever configuration your household has full-time work or part-time work two full-time working parents A full-time and a part-time a full-time and a stay-at-home. Whatever that is We have to reconceptualize our homes For the long haul that there are just every person who works Needs their own workspace shared workspaces don't work not for the long haul and Ideally with the door Ideally, you know with good light you want to think through What's a great permanent work from home setup where I can have Files and resources and my computer and I'm not sharing anything. Maybe I'm not even sharing a printer It's just my space The same is true for school or daycare Distinct where school in your house Reconceptualizes You don't want every room in the house to have these multi functions and so Figure out where school and daycare is so the kids even know when they're at school and when they are At playtime or when they're in family time and make sure That you design and preserve Certain areas of your house that are 100 pure relaxation Never a laptop No cell phones ideally that no work takes place. Why is this so important? It's important for so many reasons one as you guys have already experienced without Distinctions in your space and distinct what distinctions in your schedule The days work and home blur into each other and it's all one big blob When we move physically and we have these physical triggers. Oh, I'm at work. Oh, I'm at home with the family Oh, I'm at school. Oh, I'm in after school play time It changes the way we we pull on different parts of our brain We we tighten up we focus at work or school. We relax when we're at home You need to be able to do that in your own house And it also enables everybody to respect what each other are up to If you see somebody in school, you don't go and start playing with them If they're doing school on the couch in the family room and also watch movies on the couch How do you know what they're doing? Same thing with you and think about these pure relaxation spots that you preserve that You can physically just go now. How many people have a comfort corner in their house. This is a great question This is one of the things that sort of emerged throughout the last couple months With everything happening under one roof and I've been sort of recommending this and people have found that figured this out on their own But do you have a spot? That's a comfort corner, which is If anybody in the house is feeling overwhelmed or you're feeling overwhelmed or overloaded, everybody knows That's the spot to just that person is an overload right now. Let's either leave them alone Or let's go and just give them a hug Or I have people who live alone who have created a comfort corner when they're overwhelmed By the logistics by the the mental strain or even the emotional strain It's a great thing to have in your house Jennifer, where do you what's your what's your spot? Very curious No luxury for okay patty. You said no luxury for separate spaces. I can kind of address some of that Um, and how do you adapt to apartment living? Yeah, so sometimes you do have to have dual function spaces because your space is just not conducive to all of that separation You know the luxury of it, but what do you do? Let's say the dining room table is either both school and dining or work and dining Then what you need is to create a very modular setup or all of the supplies for school or all the supplies for work Are in bins and boxes Just no more than three that you can like pull everything off a shelf set up school or work And at the end of school at the end of the workday everything goes back Gets right back into the credenza right back onto the bookshelf right into the nearby closet So you need to be able to flip the spaces quickly If it's a dual function space it should not stay work all day and all night Because it just it's like calling at you in the corners of your eye And it's hard to relax. You can't escape it same thing with school So you can um Use organizers and containers and bins to to do that. All right. Are we doing on time? Good Another thing I think the biggest unlock in the whole eight quadrant thing I found over the years the biggest unlock Is a range a range as I said Is a far more complex time-consuming job than anyone ever anticipated And now during corona Any piece of that that we were able to outsource has been taken away And what it is it's kind of forcing mechanism to realize how unevenly the labor of logistics Actually has been in your household and maybe when everybody went off to school and work. It was annoying mildly to moderately to extremely annoying, but you could deal with it now with no outsourcing It's a tipping point for most people But I think it's a great forcing mechanism to change the divvying up of the of the chores I believe family logistics Belong to the family not to one person And we very often and honestly women there's so many studies that women Even with husbands who Are really contributing and really stepping up and really sharing Women still take the lion's share study show of family logistics Organizing it divvying it up becoming the nag and it's a breaking point For most women and and it's a source of so much strain and in corona. It's gotten worse So family logistics belong to everybody. This is a perfect opportunity to reset Not just during corona But beyond so First of all, why do it? Why redivvy up these chores and break whatever pattern you have established Here's all the benefits kids who participate in chores study after study Far more successful by every single measure from income to marriage happiness to social lives to career paths Kids who participate in chores more more successful in adulthood Um, here's another interesting study dads who share chores Actually bolster their daughter's career aspirations And this is an amazing study done at the university of british columbia So seeing dad do chores actually helps women Aspire to much greater careers And finally and this is the clincher Couples who share chores have more sex More connected as a couple As many people will say the most romantic thing that you can do is share the dishes Do the and start with just doing the dishes together every day Even in a working and stay-at-home parent relationship. That's fine Start with the dishes and It's time to connect. It says we're in this together Um, and then if you're going to divvy up the chores I have a game that I do with uh Uh, family is that's very revealing and it's called putting all your cards on the table And you can just take A stack of three by five cards The thing about the chores is that they're invisible What it takes to run a household is invisible to everybody Including the person who takes the line share of the work. You just do it unconsciously So you have to make the invisible visible and you every card gets one of the chores Order food Unpack it disinfect it You know Do the laundry fold the laundry all of the chores And you can sit around as a family with this game And you pull up a chore and you say who does this and you put it in front of the person who does it And you literally lay out the cards and you get an instant visual picture Of the distribution of labor and it is profoundly illuminating and once that's done You can renegotiate renegade navigate as a family and redivvy up the chores You may even decide there's certain ones that we outsource right now. What are we going to do about it? We share those or divide those and as soon as we can we're going to outsource those again So it's a great great tool. All right Um, so that's all the part side. I want to drill down a little bit on self And then I'm going to open it up to questions very soon Um, so every every time people take the self-assessment Uh, every study that we've done in survey we've done parents tend to Spend more time to vote more time in the part than the self side. We tend to Sacrifice self-care to be there for our kids But we can't right because we Overestimate our ability to perform well at work or with our families When we're on an empty tank and I think that Actually, let me ask this also in the chat just a minute to get a little input What keeps you from spending enough time on self-care? What stops us? From spending time on self-care when we are parents guilt Yep, you feel like any time that you uh Take for yourself. You're stealing it from your job or your kids Chores there it is. Jennifer said non-stop chores unequal distribution of labor Which is why I talked about that first Redivvy up that labor you have every motivation to do it. It's going to open up so much time for self-care Um Work plus guilt there's always something more important to do we think that it's not the most important right And priorities you always put yourself last and we think as parents like sacrificing ourselves Is kind of the noble thing to do but it's really not because If you can unlock that arrange And you recognize that The relating time is these shorter bursts. It actually opens up space And you are a human and the way we operate here Is one of the most important lessons we teach our kids, right? They learn from what they watch if we are not sleeping if we are not exercising If we are not cultivating our adult love relationships And if we don't have any kind of hobbies that define us at all Kids grow up Watching that model Right, so you need to do it really in the interest model for your kids exercise Model for your kids adult love relationships and caretaking Um hobbies Let's see what Jennifer says everyone is so used to you caretaking that it feels to them that I'm distancing when I take care of self Changing this good All right, so now one is guilt and all the emotions and all the patterns we've talked about that a bit I can justify it But there's another really big unlock that I realized when I was working on this book and I did this research on kids And I was like what else gets in our way I think it's our approach to self-care So throughout Most of your life, I mean if you had your kids in your mid 20s to mid 30s That means 25 to 35 years of your life self-care looked like big blocks of time Exercise was 90 minutes three times a week love date night was hours on end you could spend You know Hours over bottles of wine with friends well into the night you could spend all day on the weekends on your hobbies You could sleep as late as you wanted big blocks Once we become parents. We don't realize we have to change We don't get those kind of big blocks and then we're so defeated. We're like if I can't exercise three times a week for 90 minutes Why bother at all? Love is only date night on saturday nights. We can't get a sitter. There's no date night If I can't do nine hours on my hobbies, why do it at all? So here's the here's the unlock It's the exact same principle of how we nurture kids Short bursts delivered regularly with sleep is the one exception. We'll talk about that. We need our seven to nine hours a night You need to be a ninja about that But even if you're sleep deprived you need to learn to rest in 20 minute doses or less One to 20 minute doses of exercise Delivered into the fabric of your day One to 20 minute Love connections with your spouse check in with each other three or five times a day Just how you doing how the meeting go would you have for lunch? What's going on over there and really be focused on each other Right 20 minutes at the end of the night not to talk logistics But to just connect with each other If that's all you can do and you do it and you're fully focused It actually fuels the relationship fun You don't need a five hour version of your hobby find at 10 to 20 minutes If you want to learn to play the guitar you can do that in like eight minutes a night Fine And if you change the texture You can nurture yourself With the sick integrating the fabric of your day just as you can with your kids No difference change your approach And it will lift you it will strengthen you and you will constantly be fueling up Even as you were taking care of everybody else That plus sharing the workload And you guys are golden and you actually can manage the juggling act You can manage the juggling act. These are the the keys I'm going to leave you with three simple strategies techniques or skills that Help you move between these eight quadrants because they are very different from each other and switching gears. That's not easy Right. It's hard to switch from like work mode to family mode Self mode kid mode to couple mode couple mode to self time. How do you do it? three three skills Can't be a perfectionist But it's not just don't be a perfectionist be a selective perfectionism And in the book I talk about I have a whole chapter on How to control perfectionism by changing the way you think about it I'm thinking of three versions of anything that you're about to do the maximum the minimum and the moderate And then pick which one is right for that day or that moment It's not about no screen time every parent feels so guilty about all the screen time our kids are on You're buying yourself peace of mind. That's fine It's not no screen time It's synchronized screen time as a family where everybody's on screens at the same time And everyone is off screens at that same time And if you simply synchronize it maybe park all the devices at the front door like a Japanese house with shoes That's where our devices go That opens up space for synchronized together time as well as synchronized Screen time. That's it that that'll help and finally making mindful transitions and this is something that I think pre and certainly during and post corona If we just take a moment it's so hard to switch gears between these eight quadrants And if you just take a pause before you cross any threshold You're leaving your office. You're coming to the family before you cross the threshold You set your intention for the other side of that door I'm not carrying work over the threshold. I'm leaving work behind I am going to come out for 15 minutes or one hour whatever it is My intention is to show my family how excited I am that they are here and they're in my house When we live together and we get to talk And when you go into your office same thing leave whatever happened at the household hectic morning And walk into your office set your intention to be focused All right That is three skills to managing the juggling act very specific to the parenting years And that's the model that's your roadmap and this roadmap will help you now I think this has been a time and opportunity that is that is a real forcing mechanism to recognize what our patterns have been and actually make changes And you know self-care is critical to you know immunity You have more reason than ever to to figure out the self-care and work together as a family and a couple To make sure that you are do both all doing your part and fueling yourself In small bursts and you can actually make this work All right. I want to open up for questions Okay, uh, julie. I'd just like to say that if anybody would just please submit their question to the q&a So we can keep them organized. That'd be very helpful We had one before that when you posted the common profiles the various profiles that you've named is that um, is there an online survey that people can go to to sort of Identify themselves if they if they would like to Yes So there is I'll just put this up So you can go to my website julie morgan stern.com And go to find the time to parent book page And there's a button that says take the time to parent self-assessment If you take that and you put in the code bedford playhouse You will get a report And also will email you a single page sheet that has the quadrants on it So you have like a one-pager to put on your refrigerator or whatever A little bit about the 20 minutes of self-care and the short bursts of attention So you can uh go online and take it. It'll give you the instant report and then you'll get the one page Okay, um, we have another question, uh from angela who says please explain Perfectionalism aspect more you can The perfectionism Yeah, so perfectionism perfectionism is black and white thinking that and it's very paralyzing Perfectionists basically think there's only two versions of anything It's either amazing. I did an incredible job It was the most amazing thing or it was a disaster and I can never show my face on this town again Or to this family and I'm ashamed of what I just did And that's very paralyzing on one hand and it's also extremely time consuming And if you're a perfectionist about everything even with eight moving between eight things You're not going to you're going to get stuck in a quadrant because it's until it's perfect. You can't leave So you need to loosen that up Max mod men changes black and white thinking to shades of gray so before you do any task Mindlessly especially anything you think could really gobble up a lot of time right down on a piece of paper What's the maximum I could do right now? What's the minimum and what's the moderate? I will give you the perfect classic example. It's your kid's birthday And this is sort of not corona exactly, but you'll all relate to this It's your kid's birthday and you need to make a cake for them You can make a handmade cake in the shape of their favorite cartoon characters three dimensional Beautiful it can take you hours to figure it out and do you could get a sheet cake And put some candles in it or you could get a box that's minimum maximum minimum Or moderate would be you get a cake mix and you add some chocolate chips and you bake But you got that assist What's the max the men in the mod and depending on the day depending on what else is going around You can choose the level that's appropriate for that moment and the time of corona that has to apply to school work Has to apply to the cleaning standards has to apply to everything max mod men. It's very liberating All right, another question from Lisa. Uh, can you offer tips? Or increasing relate time with a teenager who wants to be alone in her room for much of the day and night Yeah, that's a great question. So i'm going to give you um An example straight from a client I have a couple that i've been coaching for many many years professional working parents Who were very you know, they had family dinner and they family game time They were great until their daughter turned 13 And when their daughter turned 13, she was like did not when she was having a lot of trouble Also a lot of anxiety a lot of social trouble a lot of school issues. She was always kind of stressed out Which is very common for adolescents these days And her mom said she's so difficult and she doesn't want to spend any time with us anymore And I think I should quit my job Because I need to be there for her and I said before you quit your job Let's look at the quadrants and I showed her the quadrants and she was like, uh She said, you know, we feel so bad about how much she's struggling that every minute we spend with her We're trying to coach her. We're trying to help her. We're trying to teach her and let her know Listen, this time will pass. Don't take that. Don't worry about who's getting more likes on social media and they were always teaching and they um Decided she and her husband to stop and that they would spend 70 of their time with their daughter only relating Not trying to guide teach coach coddle anything and if she's her daughter had a meltdown just like I so get so frustrated when that happens too and just Relate with no pressure and that really helped a lot Um, and the second thing is sometimes you just have to go into their world And not try to get them into yours. So if she Likes to do video games, then maybe you go and you just Enter her world of video games and play with her but ask like find out what Delights her what frustrates her what interests her? What is it about this? That's what entering your child's world is don't look for your own enjoyment of the task Or activity they're doing Go in and look at the activity through your kids eyes and learn to notice without judgment What interests them excites them baffles them Challenges them and that's relating make sure you're just trying to be Looking at it through her eyes and not for your own enjoyment Okay, next question next question from Allison. What about college students who have their courses to do And are also so disappointed about not being able to be at school Man, that is so so so tough Um, I think it's so many different things going on there and college students. I mean, it's really difficult and sad Um, I would absolutely look when we go to college. We also are trying to learn how to manage our time I would really try to help them contain The school time add the structure add the spaces add a schedule um, and help them build in constructive time for decompression And you know, we're getting to the point where maybe they can have a relatively socially distant walk with a friend who's six or ten feet away um, and just try the three dimensions of any human contact feel very different and uh fuel our souls in a way that doing everything through a screen does not so it's tough and counseling I mean, I would take advantage of any kind of counseling that the school is offering Uh, or mental health stuff that the state is offering To just give kids an outlet because they're dealing with a lot Uh, what do you suggest uh families and dual working parents do when the shades of gray are not matched by the employer During these tough work from home times. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing a ton of uh Work from home manager remote team seminars through this whole period For companies and this is a gigantic issue if companies are just like Transferred the way we work before to now and people are often working Even longer hours, right from the time you wake up till the time you go to sleep You feel you have to always be on I have a conversation a one-on-one conversation And talk to your boss Talk to your teammates and try to synchronize One of the best things that you can do is if it's not already happening With remote teams everybody knows what's going on with the other one managers are really worried But have a conversation and maybe you have one or two daily huddles a day Which is like you set the deliverables for the day in the morning You talk to your boss you talk to your team and then there's an end of day huddle And as long as the work is done How you got it done when you got it done is less important But I think it's time to start having these conversations companies just don't they're not even being They were caught as off-guard as everybody else was Some of them are really most are having trouble turning the ocean liner into We can't have people working 14 hours a day from home So Or contact us and we'll talk to them about doing a webinar You've been doing a lot for a very like high intense companies You know a lot of financial firms and that are just non-stop And that doesn't translate when you're working from home All right, uh julie. This is uh, yeah, this is our last one. Um Can parents use their understanding of this framework to reevaluate their relationship with their own parents? 100% 100% can do that And I will tell you a really interesting story. Um I had I did a workshop a seminar time to parent seminar With a group and there was a woman who saw this and said oh my god. Is it too late? Like I have been a high provide higher range not really relating. I now have a 15 year old doesn't want to spend any time with me I wish I had known this earlier. Is it too late? And I Said well, I don't know what your relationship is with your parents and she said oh well my dad was the best friend My mom was the arrange teach And every time this is a 30 year old woman every time I call my parents my Mom picks up the phone. I tighten up because she's like How's this going? How's your weight? How's the house? Are you doing this? She's like right away starts, you know asking her daughter a million questions are and then when Her mom passes the phone to her dad and her dad goes. Hey, honey. How you doing? She said I just start crying because like I could just release he so gets me I can be myself And I said if tomorrow You called your house your parents house and your mom picked up and she said hey, honey. How are you? How would you react and she said It's all I want I said if it's not too late for you at 38 It is not too late for you with your son at 15 We are our parent child relationship is for our lifetime and it is never too late to hit reset And you can start even without explanation tomorrow change it up start by relating Divvy up the housework have a family meeting and say we fell into this pattern I help contribute But it doesn't work. Let's redo it every day is a fresh day And I think it can help you also fill in if your parents aren't around anymore For those gaps and fill in those gaps for yourself and maybe you have to relate to you If you didn't get related to as a kid A very powerful framework. It's all just being a human And I think we can use it in every single direction All right, julie. Thank you very much. This was really great For everybody who's tuned in julie's book is available From multiple outlets if you're interested in picking it up We will also be sending around this information. It's on the screen right now If you registered and are attending so that you have it as a resource Julie, thank you again. This is thank you everybody for asking us questions. We really appreciate it And we hope you'll you'll come back at some point and do this again Yeah, Dan. Thank you so much. It was great for everybody to come do stay in touch You can come and I also do an instagram live every day at six o'clock sort of end of day wrap up That's free people can come to that Um and sign up for a newsletter. All right. Thank you so much everyone. Thanks. Stay well everybody else. Yeah easy