Parenting - Parenting Healthy

Parent Entrepreneurs: How To Succeed At Juggling A Business With A Family — Photo by **Ketut Subiyanto** from **Pexels**

The entrepreneurial spirit has never been so strong in the U.S., with more than 25 million Americans either running or starting their own businesses. While small businesses are important to the U.S. economy and workforce, it may seem a daunting prospect to juggle parenting with owning a business. However, as a parent, you will have already had to develop military organization skills and boundless energy reserves, which are ideal for parent entrepreneurs. Concentrating your efforts on creating structure and routine, and being intentional with your time, will help you grow your business in a way that works in harmony with your family.

Work smarter, not harder

If you are one of the 582 million entrepreneurs worldwide, and you’re also a parent, you will have far more demands on your time than the average person. To successfully juggle it all, you will need to be disciplined and focused. This means working smarter. Look for systems and processes that can be automated or run more efficiently. Automating tasks and even outsourcing and delegating less important responsibilities will give you more time to spend on the more valuable business tasks, and have more quality time to spend with your family.

Protect Your Business And Your Family

However small it is, your company should have business insurance to protect the livelihood you’ve worked so hard to build. It will help cover the costs associated with liability claims and property damage. If you have employees, you must have workers’ compensation insurance in case a worker is injured. If you don’t, then you risk facing a huge fine penalty. If you don’t have staff, you may want to consider a workers’ compensation ghost policy instead. This is an affordable type of workers’ compensation coverage designed for business owners who don’t have employees but are required to show proof of workers compensation coverage by a client or as a legal requirement of your state.

Protect Your Time

The word ‘no’ isn’t always easy to say to clients or family members. However, sometimes saying the word ‘no’ in your personal and professional life is important in achieving a healthy work and life balance. It may mean that there are times you have to decline work offers or negotiate deadlines with your client to attend a family function or just be home in time to put your children to bed. Likewise, there may be times that you have to work late or miss a family event. Try not to feel bad about it: after all, you are working to help give your family a great future.

Having children doesn’t mean you have to abandon your goals of running a business. By learning how to work smarter and protecting your business and your work and personal time, you can look forward to enjoying the best of both worlds.

Parenting

7 Ways to Teach Your Child to Deal with Trauma

January 29, 2021July 8, 2023 Erin Sluka

The term “trauma” can often feel big and scary, and while trauma is never a fun experience, there are varying degrees of trauma that people can go through, and that includes children, too. As a parent, you never want your child to experience trauma, but the fact of the matter is that any negative experience that causes a stress response in your brain can cause trauma, and those experiences could be large or small. Regardless of the kind or size of the trauma, it’s important to know stress management and coping strategies to teach your child to deal with trauma as it comes.

At the end of the day, trauma is a stress response that can take an emotional toll, and the younger that kids learn to deal with those stressors, the smoother they’ll be able to process and handle them. Not every trauma is alike, and not every person is alike, so each person will need their own strategies to find what works best for them in processing and dealing with traumatic experiences. Regardless, trauma can happen to everyone, and there are a few ways you can help your child learn to deal with it. Here are just a few of them.

Teach Mindfulness

Mindfulness is all about anchoring yourself in the present moment and the sensations around you, which can help a lot with trauma management. Often, it can introduce a feeling of safety and calm when someone is stressed or anxious, which includes trauma processing. By teaching your child mindfulness techniques, they can learn to feel present and safe as a healthy coping mechanism.

Use Meditation

Similar to mindfulness, meditation is all about calming the mind and the body to create a bit more relaxation. While meditation can be highly effective in calming someone down when they’re actively experiencing a flashback or upset, a regular meditation practice can also have widespread benefits across anyone’s quality of life. Meditation can help kids feel calmer and more collected while they process things and give them somewhere to turn when they need quiet.

Be Present With Them

Trauma can make many people feel isolated, and that includes children. This is because stress and trauma can feel disorienting and lonely, so isolating behavior is common. Just like you should be there for a friend during trauma healing, it’s important to be there and truly be present with your children to remind them that they’re safe and not alone. Sit with them, hold them if they need and fully listen to them.

Teach Them to Process

While trauma doesn’t just “go away” and processing trauma is just that — a continuous process — many experts think that the first 30 days after a traumatic event are some of the most important when it comes to processing and healing a trauma. That being said, teaching your child about processing trauma is a hard but necessary lesson. Talking about things with them and allowing them the safe space to talk about their experiences can go a long way.

Encourage Them to Explore Their Emotions

Especially when kids are young — though this stands true for all people sometimes — trauma processing can be more about the emotions than the memories or experiences. While some people feel that trauma processing should be about getting to the bottom of what the experience was, it can be about so much more for the person experiencing it. As a parent, talking about their emotions and allowing them to fully explore their feelings freely can give them the chance to understand themselves and their experiences better.

Help Them Feel Safe

Trauma and traumatic stress can often have the impact of making people feel unsafe in their environment, and this can be especially prevalent in children. One of the best ways to help your child manage trauma is to remind them that they are safe and that you will do anything to protect them when they need it. While you won’t always be there at every moment of their lives to protect them, that feeling and security can help them feel loved, supported and safe in their experiences going forward.

Limit Stressors and Teach Them to Do the Same

Trauma can also cause anxiety in many people, and as a parent, one thing you can control is the stress exposure your child experiences and teach them about stress management. Children don’t need stress in their lives, and limiting things like overactive schedules and tense situations can help them keep the calm and happy existence they deserve to have.

Managing Trauma Together

Trauma is an unfortunate reality of human life, and while you can’t protect your child from ever experiencing it, you can teach them strategies and coping mechanisms to deal with it in a healthy and productive way. Often, processing trauma is about feeling the emotions, keeping calm and being present. You can teach your child to do all of those things, and who knows? You may learn something new along the way.

Healthy Living, Parenting

Learn how to manage emotions with Upside Delivered curated boxes for kids

January 28, 2021July 8, 2023 Erin Sluka

I am on my summer break and in a few weeks, we start another school year. Whether at school or in the home, social emotional health is such an important topic for the students and adults! Learning to manage emotions can be helped with simple tools like books and gifts. This brings me to this fantastic box called, The UPside Delivered. This is your toolkit, especially for a year like this.

The UPside Delivered are curated boxes for children ages 5-10 years-old were developed by two licensed mental health professionals and educators. They are meant to manage emotions and create calm. Your box has items and guides so you will understand the why and how to use the items in the box.

There are 3 boxes to choose from:

The Begin Box (what I have): This box connects thoughts, behaviors and feelings. The box has Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) lessons for parents and five to seven items. Learn that if we change our thoughts, we can change how we feel. If you order multiple months, this will be your first box.

Standard Subscription Box: These are four boxes that you will receive quarterly: The Begin Box, The Find Your Feelings Box, The Move Your Mood Box, and a Create Your Calm Box.

COVID Coping Box for Kids: This box includes strategies for both adults and children, along with several items for a child to use when coping with different and difficult emotions, including a gratitude journal and worry dolls.

We don’t get a textbook on social-emotional learning as parents so we need all the appropriate help we can get. These boxes are a great tool for us to use as parents to check in with your kids or give some at-home support to learn how to manage emotions.

Visit the UPside Delivered to choose a box that is right for you or send as a gift.

Children's Books, Coronovirus 2020, Education, Parenting

5 Books that Will Help Your Child Transition Back to In-School Learning

December 30, 2020December 30, 2020 Erin Sluka

If you have school-aged children they have had the longest break from the school building ever and learning for them drastically changed suddenly last spring. I know some school remained in-person, but here in Was. state and other areas schools have yet to open since March.

Kindergarteners as a virtual learner are heading to a classroom soon for the first time ever or as a secondary student trying to keep grades afloat in a change into independent learning before they were ready, going back will be an adjustment.

I found some books to help your child transition back to in-school learning. You will want to start reading now to open the discussion about going back, schedule changes and socializing again on the playground with new classmates. These books are great for older siblings to read to younger siblings so all ages are discussing the changes together.

Change is impossible to avoid because it happens ALL the time! In this book, the author speaks on how to cope with and embrace life’s changes by recounting personal stories and asking kids pointed questions.

One of my FAVORITE children’s book Authors’ write for A Kids Book About. If you have not seen these books I highly recommend all of their titles on many common and new topics for kids. For heading back into the classroom I recommend A Kids Book About Change. Buy on Amazon

*An Invisible String made of love. Even though you can’t see it with your eyes, you can feel it deep in your heart, and know that you are always connected to the ones you love.* Does everybody have an Invisible String?

This book is so fantastic! The Invisible String is most popularly known as a best book for loss and grief, it is a great book to have on hand if an unexpected loss does occur in your family. However, it also is a great read for separation anxiety as it touches on the same need to feel connection when apart no matter how ‘apart’ they are. This is great for the child heading off to school for the very first time. Buy on Amazon.

The story is about Kate, a sporty and happy girl who uses her strong mind to tackle her daily challenges with a positive attitude.

My Strong Mind: A Story About Developing Mental Strength is a great book for so many situations to have on hand. For back to school, your child will be eager to start the new change off with a more positive mindset. When anxieties and worries start it’s time to use that brain power to work through change and new situations. Buy on Amazon.

Children love being able to make all the choices for this Superhero-in-Training and control the outcome of the book, while parents and teachers love the lessons the book teaches!

What Should Danny Do? School Day (The Power to Choose Series) brings problems forward. This is a fun read for kids that may have had to be out of structure as they have juggled at-home learning, working parents, siblings home all day. Now your child has to head back to class, sit still, make smart decisions around new kids and Teachers. This book is 7 stories in one and a great conversation book where your child and you can discuss ways Danny’s day should end given his situations he finds himself in. Buy on Amazon.

More and more places are requiring they or the adults around them wear masks, including their schools and pre-schools. This book adds some silliness and laughs around mask wearing to help young children see masks as something funny and not scary.

Many children have not been out and about as much or everyday and going back for many kids will still be while masked. If you have avoided public due to mask wearing anxiety with your child and now they may have to wear one back to school for a bit, this book is a must! Remember to Smile is a silly book that also introduces your child to many heroes and people that have to wear masks in their jobs and other situations making it less scary! Buy on Amazon.