63. Overcome the Overwhelm Part 2: Connection & Co-operation

Overwhelm doesn't stay inside us, it spills into our kids, our family dynamic and our home. Part two of this two part series looks at practical ways to ease it in each of those places.
 
You'll learn 

•  Why four hugs a day matters more than we realise (Virginia Satir)
•  How to run "special time," a 10-15 minute connection tool
•  Why filling each child's cup beats comparing siblings
•  A simple dinner table practice: rose, thorn and bud
•  Three shifts for easing overwhelm at home: schedules, stuff, screens

 
Why this episode matters?
A hard moment with one child, a flare up between siblings, a house that feels a step ahead of you, none of that means you're doing anything wrong. It's just what happens when a lot of people share the same days. This episode offers a few honest, doable ideas rather than one more thing to feel behind on.
 
Small shift for big impact
This series covered a lot across both episodes, so here's the full list. Pick just one, whichever resonates most or feels easiest to actually keep up, try it for a week, and see how it goes. If it doesn't land, come back and try another.
 
From Part 1 (within ourselves):

• Bring presence into a tidy up, put a playlist on and properly sing and dance your way through it
• Twenty extra seconds at the sink each morning, noticing your hands and one thing you're grateful for

 
From Part 2 (children, family and home):

• Physical touch, aim for those four hugs a day
• Special time, ten to fifteen minutes of your child's full attention, no TV, no correcting, phone away (bedtime can carry this if a daily slot isn't realistic)
• Working together on small jobs like dishes or feeding pets
• Specific verbal encouragement, "thank you for your kindness" over a blanket "good job
• Filling each child's cup individually rather than comparing them to a sibling
• Protecting some unscheduled time each week
• A toy rotation, so tidy up is actually manageable for your kids

Take the next step
If this stirred something in you, that's what one-on-one coaching is for. Book a free 15 minute discovery call and let's talk through whether working together is the right fit. Get this small shift started today.

 
Links and resources

• Book a free 15-minute coaching discovery call with Nina: 
• Related podcast episodes
  • Episode 5 - Can Connection Really Help Your Kids Listen Better?
  • Episode 25 - Are you Getting Suck in Your Own Big Feelings?
  • Episode 28 - How to Stop Being the Referee in Sibling Fights
  • Episode 57 - How to End Screen Time Without the Meltdown
• Related blog posts
  • Blog - How to Navigate Peaceful Parenting At Home with Mindful Parenting  

Let's connect
Want more support? Follow Nina on Instagram, or sign up for tips and updates at mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au.

Have a question or parenting challenge you'd like addressed on the podcast? Send a DM or an email.

• Follow Nina on Instagram
• Website: mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au
• Email: nina@mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au

About the host
Nina Visic is a parenting coach and the voice behind Your Calm Parenting Path, helping overwhelmed parents find calm, connection and confidence through mindfulness and practical, doable strategies. Drawing on her own experience raising three boys, she shares real tools for the hard, ordinary moments of family life, not just the neat, tidy version of parenting.

Transcript

Welcome back. This is part two of a two part series on overcoming overwhelm. Last episode we went inward, looking at the overwhelm that starts within ourselves, how we relate to chores, and how we think about me time. Today we're going outward, to our children, our family, and our home. If you haven't listened to part one yet, it's worth going back to first, since today picks up right where it left off.

It tends to come in from a few directions at once, a hard moment with one child, a flare up between siblings, the sense that the house and the calendar are both a step ahead of you. None of that means you're doing anything wrong. It's just what happens when a lot of people and a lot of moving parts are sharing the same days.

Same two threads running underneath everything today. Mindfulness, choosing to focus on the present moment with kindness and curiosity. And heartfulness, the gratitude, generosity, and compassion that gives mindfulness its warmth.

Once you've found a bit more room within yourself, the next layer is our children, and this one is all about meaningful connection. Last episode, when we were talking about me time, I told you about how bedtime has become that space for me and the boys, really being present for the story and the cuddle rather than rushing to the end of the evening. That's connection too, and it's really what this whole section is about. I want to share four ways to build it, some are little tools, some are more a shift in how you show up.

The first is physical touch, which matters more than we tend to give it credit for. Family therapist Virginia Satir said we need four hugs a day just to survive, eight to maintain ourselves, and twelve to actually grow. That number alone says something about how much our kids are running on this day to day, probably more than we realise on a busy one. There's heartfulness in it too, a hug is a small moment of warmth for the person in front of you, not just something to tick off on the way past.

The second is special time, and this one comes up so often in my work with families that I want to walk you through it properly rather than just mention it.

Special time is simply a short block of one on one time where your child gets your full, undivided attention and gets to choose exactly what happens in it. It sounds small, but the effect on kids tends to be bigger than the ten or fifteen minutes would suggest. It tells them, without you having to say it, that they matter enough to have your full attention, no multitasking, no half listening. That sense of being truly seen is what settles kids down, and over time it tends to mean fewer of those attention seeking moments through the rest of the day, because the tank's already been filled rather than running on empty.

Here's how it works. You announce that special time is happening, right now, just the two of you. Set a timer, ten or fifteen minutes is plenty. Then let your child lead completely, you follow rather than direct. This isn't the moment for the TV or reading together, it works best as something active they're leading, a game, some pretend play, building something. Resist the urge to judge or evaluate what they're doing, this isn't the moment to teach or correct anything, it's the moment to simply be with them. Phone away, fully there. And when the timer goes off, special time ends cleanly, so it stays a predictable little container your child can count on, rather than something that drags on or fizzles out. It's a well known tool in family and play work, I can't take credit for the idea itself, but I've seen how much weight it carries even in just ten minutes a day.

Now, It doesn't need to look the same every day either. Some families rotate it, one child gets special time today, another tomorrow. Others turn it into something bigger, a proper date out with one parent each week, just the two of them. Whatever makes it easiest to actually keep doing is the right version, we don't want this becoming one more thing on the to do list that quietly falls away.

In theory it's lovely, and with three busy boys in our house, finding a dedicated slot for each of them most days isn't always realistic for us. What's worked better here is treating bedtime as that special time instead. Making sure each boy gets a proper amount of story, cuddle, and talking, without rushing through it to get to the next thing or to the end of the evening, gives us that same one on one window without needing to carve out anything extra. And there's gratitude built into it too, I still take a moment most nights before I leave the room to notice something about that particular child.

The third is working together, which builds connection in a way that's easy to underestimate. Rinsing dishes, washing potatoes, feeding the pets, sweeping the floor together. These small shared jobs end up doing more for the relationship than you'd expect, simply because you're standing there together, doing something ordinary side by side.

And the fourth is verbal encouragement, the specific, heartfelt kind rather than a blanket good job. Thank you for your kindness. I really appreciate how hard you tried for that. Your imagination is awesome. This is heartfulness again, compassion and warmth aimed outward at the people we love most, and something specific and true seems to land differently than praise that could apply to anyone.

Zoom out to the whole family, and the goal becomes building a culture of cooperation rather than competition between siblings.

The one that's made the biggest difference for us is filling each child's cup individually rather than comparing them to each other. It sounds obvious, but it's surprisingly easy to slip into without meaning to, especially on a tired day when you just want everyone to behave the same way at the same time. Even praise can do it. Telling one child how well they packed away their toys, in front of a sibling who's still deep in the mess, can land as comparison even though you were only talking to one of them.

One tool worth trying is rose, thorn and bud at the dinner table, everyone sharing something good, something hard, and something they're looking forward to. It's a way for kids to see you reflecting too, a bit of heartfulness right there in the everyday routine, rather than just being asked to open up while you stay the one holding everyone else's feelings.

One small thing that's made a real difference for us is language. We talk about ourselves as a team, a "let's go team" kind of energy when something needs doing or when someone's having a hard day, so whatever we're facing feels like something we're in together rather than one person's problem to sort out alone.

If unkindness happens, step in directly rather than letting it slide. If sibling conflict is a live issue in your house, there's a full episode on this in the show notes worth a listen.

The last layer is your home and your daily life, and I want to share three ways to bring a bit more ease here, your schedules, your stuff, and your screens. Let's walk through each one, because a small change in any of them tends to ripple further than you'd expect.

The first is schedules. A packed calendar creates its own kind of overwhelm, even when every single thing on it is worthwhile. One shift is protecting some genuinely unscheduled time each week, even just an afternoon, where nothing is booked and nobody has to be anywhere. I have a friend who never, ever books anything in for a Sunday, that's her family time, full stop, and nothing gets to encroach on it. That unscheduled time isn't only about giving yourself a break either, it's usually where the best play happens, the kind that doesn't need us to organise or entertain it. A gap in the day doesn't need something structured in it to count as a good use of the time.

When the boys were smaller and I needed to get out of the house most days just to keep everyone sane, I made that easier on myself by picking one park and going back to it again and again, rather than trying to find somewhere new each time. Everyone knew that's just where we went. No researching a new playground, no deciding on the spot, just a familiar place we could show up to without thinking about it.

For as long as we could manage it, we also kept all three boys' activities on the same day of the week rather than spread across different days, which meant the rest of the week stayed clear and I always knew exactly what each day held. That's got trickier now they're older and their interests have properly gone in different directions, so it's not as tidy a system as it used to be. I don't have a neat fix for that one yet, we're just working it out as we go, the way most of this stuff seems to go once kids get older.

Another shift is getting comfortable saying no to things that sound good in theory but would tip an already full week over the edge. And where you can, batch the errands and admin into one block instead of letting them bleed into every day, so the rest of the week has some breathing room.

I'm protective of my own time too, my fitness classes and my running, and I schedule those on the days the boys don't have activities, so I'm not running from one thing to the next trying to squeeze myself in around everyone else.

The second is stuff, and this one goes beyond just the kids' toys, it's the clothes filling drawers you have to wrestle shut, the kitchen drawer with three garlic crushers because you can never find the one you already own. Clutter is quietly exhausting, partly because more stuff means more decisions, and more decisions means more mental load, for you and for them.

It's worth thinking about it from the kids' side too, not just ours. A room with too many toys out is genuinely harder for a child to tidy, there's simply more to sort and more decisions about where each thing goes, so it's no wonder it doesn't happen without a fight or without us finishing it for them. Fewer toys out at any one time means they can actually manage putting them away themselves, which means less of it lands back on you at the end of the day.

A toy rotation, where only a portion of the toys are out and the rest are stored away, helps with exactly that, tidy up gets faster, play gets more focused, and the whole thing feels more within a child's reach to manage on their own. The same logic holds for wardrobes, and honestly for the kitchen too. Going through it every few months and passing things on keeps the volume manageable without it becoming a big production.

At home we've got three wheelie bins tucked under the stairs, one for clothes to recycle, one for the op shop, and one for toys to pass on. Once a bin fills up, it goes, no big sorting session needed, just a steady way of keeping things moving out of the house instead of piling up.

And the third is screens, which deserves its own conversation more than a quick mention here. If ending screen time without a meltdown is a daily battle in your house, there's a full episode dedicated to exactly that, the warnings, the transitions, and what actually helps in that moment, linked in the show notes. I won't repeat all of it here, but it's worth a listen if this is where your day gets hardest.

You don't need to tackle your schedule, your stuff, and your screens all in the same week. Pick whichever one is causing the most friction right now and start there.

[WRAP UP]

So that's the rest of it. Connection with our children, cooperation as a family, and a bit more ease in our home and daily life.

Between these two episodes there's a lot on the table, chores, me time, connection, family culture, schedules, stuff, and screens. Every one of those is listed in the show notes, so you don't need to hold it all in your head or scroll back through the episode trying to remember what was said.

For your small shift, big impact this week, pick just one, from either episode, or from that list in the show notes. Whichever resonated with you the most, or felt like the easiest to actually try, or gave you a sense that it might create a bit more space. Try it for a week and see how it goes. If it doesn't land, go back to the list and pick something else. If it does, you can build on it, or leave it there and try something new next. A change you can actually keep up matters more than trying to overhaul everything at once.

If any of this stirred something in you, if you found yourself nodding along thinking, I need more of this, that's what my one on one coaching is there for. And if you think you might need a bit more support than you can find on your own right now, book a free discovery call and we can talk through where you're at, and whether working together is the right fit.

You'll find the link on my website, mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au, or send me a message. I'd love to hear where you're at.

Thanks for listening today. Be kind to yourself this week 🧡 I'll see you next time on Your Calm Parenting Path.