Rethink Your Rules
Dr Jenny Hobbs is a practicing physician with ADHD, a wife, and a mom to differently wired kids. She combines candid, insightful conversations with practical tools to help you enjoy better relationships at home, at work, and with yourself.
Rethink Your Rules
Mom Choice Time: What It Is and Why You Need It
How are you and your family handling the back-to-school season? It's such a fun and exciting time, but can also be challenging, especially for those of us with neurodivergent families.
In this episode, I’m sharing a bit about how our family approaches this time of year, and offering a few tips & mindset shifts to make the transition a bit less stressful.
We’ll also explore a game-changing concept called "Mom Choice Time," inspired by a common school practice. This is a simple yet powerful way to let go of society's unspoken rules and rediscover what genuinely brings you joy. Through scheduling and honoring this personal time, you'll reconnect with your inner voice, build self-trust, and fend off burnout.
You won’t want to miss this short yet empowering episode. And be sure to put that Mom Choice Time on your calendar this week!
Mentioned in this episode
Self-Care in 10 Min or Less: 25 ideas for your Mom Choice Time
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Need help applying this to your life? Ready for more strategies like this, but personalized to YOU? Set up your free consult and let’s talk about your unique situation and how coaching can help:
https://getcoached.jennyhobbsmd.com/consult
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Everything on this podcast and website is for informational purposes only and should not be used as medical advice. Views are our own, and do not necessarily represent those of our past or present employers or colleagues.
Welcome to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD. A fresh perspective on relationships, success and happiness for high achieving moms.
Speaker 2:Hey, there it's Jenny. Welcome back to another episode of Rethink your Rules. I want to thank you first of all for spending a little time with me here at the beginning of September, which can be such a busy time for working moms. Definitely in my house it's always a really hectic and potentially stressful time, as my kids are excited but also nervous about school and I always feel like I have a lot to do to get them ready. And there's all this communication with teachers and anticipation and all of that is sort of even more intense if you have neurodivergent kids right, who may be even a little bit more overwhelmed by transition. So if you're in that boat, you know. First of all, I want you to know you're not alone. We're going to keep this episode really short and sweet and practical and before I do that, I also just want to offer to you that if you feel a little bit isolated or overwhelmed at this time of year, particularly if you do have a neurodivergent family, that is completely normal and you are not doing anything wrong. Okay, I can't emphasize that enough and I really want to just remind you that it's totally okay to do whatever you need to do that works best for you and your family, even if it's different than what other people think. And I like to bring this up in the fall, particularly because we really had to learn the hard way that for our family we cannot handle the amount of activities and extracurriculars and weekend plans and things as other families can. Particularly in the fall. It seems like the type of year where there are a lot of great sports like soccer, and there are often a lot of events kind of preparing for the start of the school year and getting to know everyone here. You know the weather is kind of pretty decent, still late into the fall, so it's people often want to plan events and activities and then you of course get into like pumpkin patch and all those things and all of that always sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:But we have discovered that for our kids just the process of getting into a new classroom and being in school every single day for five days a week is incredibly draining and exhausting, even though they often enjoy it and do well with that. They almost need, like the entire weekend to just have no expectations, no plans, to fully recover. And we, like I said, learned this the hard way where we had both of our kids in grade school and they were doing, you know, soccer on the weekends and then maybe we had, I think, maybe one trip here and there, and then I tend to work a lot of weekends because of the type of job I have, and we just realized the first year we did that that our kids were just completely burned out and it began to show and their experience at school and they were really anxious and overtired and acting out and things. Now, granted, they were a lot younger then. So, you know, as time goes by, we're kind of reevaluating and adjusting what's going to work best. But I just wanted to bring that up because, particularly if you do have younger kids or if you're kind of scratching your head and trying to figure out why you know it's not working for your kids this year, maybe consider that you. But for you and your family you may need a different pace than other people, and that's totally okay.
Speaker 2:I think in this current era of parenting there's a lot of pressure to do a lot of things. You know social media and sharing, and there's just a lot of people that are kind of like really into all the fun, exciting things you can do as a parent, which is amazing, and there's a lot of kids who can handle that. But it's also completely fine to say you know, we don't do that in our family and we just, you know we don't have to go back necessarily every Monday to school and work and tell everyone all the exciting things we did all weekend. It's totally fine if we just relaxed and hung out together and, did you know, slept in or whatever. So I just want to throw that out there. Maybe it's going to look different for you and your family, but the general concept is the same, which is look at what's working for you and your family and don't be afraid to go against the grain and say no to things or cancel things, because it works for you and your family. Let go of that people pleasing and let go of that perfectionism. It is not a race. Your kids are going to turn out great even if they don't do all the things or have all the perfect, you know, friendships lined up right away or participate in all the sports and team activities if it's not working for them. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there because I just have a feeling there may be some other families that might need to hear that right now and I just want to give you permission to do what works for you and your family.
Speaker 2:As always, it's going to be a running theme here on this podcast, but the main thing I wanted to share with you today is the concept of mom choice time, and this is a concept that I developed, inspired by my kids going to school on the spectacle school theme. Right when my kids were in kindergarten, there was a part of their day that was called choice time and it was a legit you know subject part of the day, just like math and language arts and everything else. And choice time was essentially a semi-structured playtime where the teacher would have various different choices of games or activities to do, kind of placed around the room, and the kids could sign up for them and decide who they wanted to play with and what they wanted to do, and they could move from thing to thing. And one thing that was really interesting about choice time is that the teachers will tell you it is not optional or negotiable, it's not like an afterthought, it's not just a playtime. It actually serves a really important purpose cut back on in order to fit in more and more intense academics or teaching, because the students need the choice time in order to actually fully grow and develop their brains and engage fully in the curriculum.
Speaker 2:I'm not an educator. I don't understand all the details, but I do know that they emphasized over and over that that is important time and while it looks like, you know, sort of silly, pointless playtime, there is a point to it and there are things that they're learning, even if it's not explicitly stated right. They're learning implicitly through the games they're playing, you know, even doing things like math and communication. But they're also, of course, learning social, emotional skills and they are allowing their brains to be creative and free for a bit, which then allows them to be better at focusing and learning when they are engaged with other types of subjects.
Speaker 2:And I started to ask myself how often do I, as a busy working mom, give myself choice time like this, like true choice time, to actually do what feels good and sounds good to me at that moment and not feel bad about it and actually consider it a legitimate part of my day? And I realized it was pretty rare for me to ever do that and the more women I've talked to, both my friends and my clients and colleagues, I think it's. It's extremely rare for us to give ourselves true choice time. Now we can often tell ourselves that we have free time or relaxation time or vacations and things like that, but I would say, for the most part, if you you have time that's free and you're choosing what to do with it, you're a grown adult, you are choosing it right.
Speaker 2:Typically, what's driving the choice of how you spend that time is one or more of our unspoken rules. So, for example, things like us feeling like we need to do things perfectly, or us feeling like we need to please someone or get their approval or avoid them being mad at us, or the need to check all the things off our list so we can feel good that we accomplished everything, or the need to use our time in the way that's quote-unquote, best or right. So the way that's maybe the most efficient, or the way that is the most in line with the schedule we set for ourselves, or the way that makes the most money in the shortest amount of time whatever we define as like the best, most right way to it, or the thing that makes us the best mom or gives our kids the healthiest meal for that night right All these things are kind of jumbling around in our mind, determining what we think we want to do with our time. And don't get me wrong, none of those are bad things to want to do with your time. They're not bad things to choose to do and being motivated by these rules and wanting to be excellent and successful and all that is not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:In fact, for many of us, the reason that we operate based on these rules so often is because they've been what helped us find success and build this life that we have, and they served us very well and we do not want to just throw them out and stop following them. Right, there would be a lot of consequences that we wouldn't like about that. But what's important to remember is that if those rules are the metrics by which you're deciding how to spend your time, if those are influencing how you're spending your time, then that's not truly your own personal choice. Time where you're asking what do I want to do and doing it just because you want to, okay, you're. You're justifying what you want to do by saying it also achieves this rule or that rule or this goal.
Speaker 2:And just remember that those rules and goals are fundamentally external to you, and sometimes, as adult women, we've spent so many years allowing those rules to determine what we do and don't do that we've actually forgotten what our inner voice sounds like and how to listen to that instinct that tells us what's working for us and what's not, because it's kind of always been shortcut by us consulting these rules and following those rules, and while that may work for us in some situations, over time especially as you start to get into your 40s and you have more challenges with your kids and things Typically these rules will not always serve you the way that they have in the past, and so it's really important to get back in touch with that inner voice in order to be able to show up as the mom that you want and the colleague that you want at work and to avoid feeling completely burned out. You know, when you hear women talking about my life looks great on. Show up as the mom that you want and the colleague that you want at work, and to avoid feeling completely burned out. You know, when you hear women talking about my life looks great on the outside, but it doesn't feel good on the inside or I feel like a failure everywhere. This often really comes from this root of not being able to trust yourself and have your own back and take care of yourself.
Speaker 2:Mom choice time is the quickest and simplest way I know to start getting back in touch with that inner voice, so it doesn't have to be this big, complicated thing. You know, I like to think about all the reasons behind it, but you can ignore everything I just said and simply schedule some mom choice time on your calendar and your only goal is to ask yourself what sounds fun, what do I want to do at this time? And do what you think of and honor it. And I want you to notice when these rules kind of pop up and you find your brain offering you good, logical reasons to do things and I just want you to pause and say, okay, but is that actually what I want to do, or am I thinking I should do it, or I need to do it because of the rules? And you can still follow the rules if you want to.
Speaker 2:The power is in recognizing it and owning it, so that you're being honest with yourself and you're getting to know your true self better and understand what that inner voice sounds like. That's your number one goal and as you do that more and more. There will be a moment where you decide to do something because your inner child, that inner voice, wants to do it, because it's fun and it doesn't follow the rules and it's going to feel really uncomfortable. But when you do that, what you do is you get practice in having your own back, even when it feels really uncomfortable, and you realize that nobody dies, and you get through it. And every time you do that in a small way with your 10 minutes of mom choice time that you have scheduled in. That builds your skillset so that when something big comes up and you feel uncertain or conflicted, you are going to be better at noticing and honoring what you need because you have all this practice.
Speaker 2:So I really want to encourage you to give this a try. One thing that can help with this choice time is to have a list of options to consider, just like in the classroom for my kids there's usually a list on the board of the activities they can pick from for choice time. I do have a download with some ideas of things that you can use, which I will put in the show notes 25 ideas you can do in 10 minutes or less, and you can choose from that list, kind of have that as an option, or you can create your own based on what you like, or you can just play it by ear in the moment. That's totally fine. But let me know what comes up for you when you try this out and I hope you have an amazing start to the school year. Bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD. Would you like to learn more about how to apply this to your own life through personalized coaching with Jenny? Visit us on the web at JennyHobbsMDcom to schedule a free consultation. If you found value in what you heard today, please consider subscribing to the podcast and giving us a five-star rating so we can reach even more women like you.