Hey parents, can I ask you a silly question? Is your life zooming by on a wing and a prayer these days? I mean, c’mon… between…
- shuttling the little ones to football or after-school activities,
- beating the rush hour traffic without having a panic attack,
- wrangling the 80 billion things on your to-do list, AND
- remembering to order groceries so you’re not just ravenously feasting on rice crackers, peanut butter and leftover Halloween candy tonight for dinner…
Can I just say… Girl, I feel ya.
Life these days feels like it’s going lightning fast and there’s no stopping (or even slowing down) the crazy train.
Or is there?
Contents
My guest, Bernadette Noll, is going to help us slow down, reconnect, and re-find center
Author Bernadette Noll is the co-founder of Slow Family Living.
In this episode, you will learn:
- What is ‘Slow Family Living’ and what does it look like, in the everyday messiness and busyness of parenting and life?
- How ‘Slow Family Living’ can work with little ones and how it evolves as they age
- How to create a ‘Family Mission Statement’ and why it’s so important
- How a ‘Creative Family Journal’ can capture your family memories
- How to be more intentional about the things we bring in to our household – the 3 important questions to ask
As cliche as it sounds, time flies by SO FAST, and our children are only children for a such a short time.
What if you could slow down time a little? Learn how to sit and savor the tiny moments together? What we do now (while they are little) is potentially forging lifelong, loving relationships. Modeling a different way of parenting and living that I’m guessing is WAY different from how you were raised.
Just imagine what life will be like 20 or 30 years from now when our littles are all grown up and not so little anymore. What would it feel like to have rich relationships with these incredible adults. I have a feeling THAT will be one of life’s big rewards.
Let’s do this together.
#DoTheThing.
My challenge for you this week:
How can you simplify and slow down in your family life? Think of ways where you can you allow your children to feel what they feel, rather than being a ‘helicopter’ or ‘lawnmower’ parent.
Share it with me, privately or publicly, by snapping a photo of you doing the thing and tag @thesimplifiers on Instagram for added accountability and support!
Links, books and apps mentioned:
Book: Look at Us Now: A Creative Family Journal – Bernadette Noll
Book: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (A Puffin Book) – Mildred Taylor
Book: Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion – Elizabeth L Cline
Project mention: The Sibling Revelry Project
Article mention: Meet the ‘lawnmower parent,’ the new helicopter parents of 2018
Limited period freebie: Family Mission Statement Workbook
Favorite quotes from this episode:
[34:42] “There’s a beautiful touch there… for the kids to be able to say, “Look how far we’ve come,” either individually or [we] as a family.” – Mary
[37:11] “Scrapbooks tend to just show the highlights reel – the happy, the Disney world trips. I think there’s some beauty in doing it this way as well [showing the dark days too].” – Mary
[38:35] “Before anything comes in, [ask] why do we want it, how long is it going to serve us, and where’s it going to go when we’re finished with it, [because] I think kids can really understand the permanence of an object.” – Bernadette
[40:19] “Please stop buying that plastic tack [crap] and putting them in goody bags that is literally going to either a, be resented by the other parent because they’re like, ‘oh, I’ve got all this plastic crap now’ or b, go straight into the bin. [Yeah] People don’t want it. Kids don’t need it.” – Mary
[42:42] “When you do buck the trend like that, oftentimes you’re freeing everybody else from having to oblige as well.” – Bernadette
[43:35] “Really looking at our own desires, and our own pressures and figuring out why are we feeling that, and is it necessary?” – Bernadette
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About Bernadette:
Bernadette Noll is the mother of four, reuse educator, maker, co-founder of Slow Family Living, and author of 3 books: Make Stuff Together: 24 Simple Projects to Create as a Family, Slow Family Living: 75 Simple Ways to Slow Down, Connect, and Create More Joy, and Look at Us Now: A Creative Family Journal.
Bernadette’s vote for the perfect guest on The Simplifiers Podcast:
Elizabeth McGuire is a writer, photographer and mother of three. Her work captures the small moments that tell the big stories of life. Her work includes The Sibling Revelry Project.
Where Bernadette hangs out online:
Facebook: @SlowFamilyLiving
Website: slowfamilyliving.com
Instagram: @reducereuseremake
Video version of the episode
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