There’s no doubt that women are superheroes, especially those of us who are busy moms.
Over the years, we’ve traded in our aprons for sleek blazers and heels to become the girl bosses we’ve always dreamed of. But with all of this extra girl power we’re sporting these days, many of us find ourselves struggling to find balance. As women, we know we can do it all, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be challenging sometimes. It is crucial for our well being to utilize our resources and normalize asking for help when we need it. Today, we are opening up this important conversation with Erica Thomason, wellness coach, educator, and founder of The Dynamic Child, to help us navigate the world of motherhood.
Q.
Tell us about you
A.
I am a wife to my husband of 7 years and mom to our 2 year old son. We own a company called The Dynamic Child together, which we developed in response to identifying a need in the community. We previously worked with children in a wellness education company and realized that a piece of the education puzzle was missing. Kids are not getting the skills for developing their emotional intelligence. They were getting a lot of skills to develop their intellect but weren’t thriving because they were missing their confidence and ability to relate to themselves and to others. I began researching social emotional intelligence and ways to facilitate it, and in the process went back to graduate school. Throughout my experience in graduate school, I was able to develop The Dynamic Child, which began in 2017. I created it because it’s what I needed as a child. My younger sister had learning needs growing up, and I was labeled as gifted and talented, so there was a lot of comparison happening in my family. That was really painful for my sister and that experience impacted me greatly. I’ve always worked with families and children to help them communicate and develop optimally together. Emotional wellness has always been very intriguing to me. That’s how The Dynamic Child was born, and we’ve been in business for the past 4 years. I see myself as a translator and an advocate for children. I love being able to help parents see through the lens of their children.
Q.
What does your self care routine look like as a mom?
A.
My non-negotiable every day is meditation. That’s my thing! Also I love to exercise, be in nature, go for walks, and increase those natural endorphins. I also have those things like getting my hair done, putting on a beautiful outfit, or having Brittany come over and do a full glam. I look at those things as decorations for what’s on the inside. Internal self care is what’s most important to me.
Q.
How do you cope with mom guilt?
A.
Talking and listening to advice from other moms. It’s so important to have a community of like minded mothers who parent similarly to the way that you do. When you face challenges, you’re surrounded by others who would make similar decisions, and if they’ve already been through it, you’ll feel more comfortable using their approach. You can love a friend but not love the way that they parent their children, and it makes getting parenting advice a little sticky sometimes. Having a very close partnership with my husband has also been so important, especially when balancing the duties of taking care of our son. It can be difficult to find solutions when you’re upset or overwhelmed, so I like to keep a mental list of people I can turn to in different situations so that I don’t have to battle in those moments with where I can receive support from. It helps me feel less guilty knowing that I have a good support system.
Q.
How can you still prioritize yourself after becoming a new mom without losing your identity?
A.
You have to have balance, and that looks different for every mom. For me, I found it very difficult to maintain my sense of identity when my baby was born. I’m a therapist and I anticipated that, and I had all of these plans in place to still do things for myself. My husband and I had a good schedule laid out for ourselves and divided up household responsibilities to try to get ahead of it. The reality is, when the baby shows up, there are all of these other additional concerns that you’ll have that you won’t know until you’re there. It’s really easy to lose your sense of identity, and I think that’s part of being a new mom because you’re giving so much of yourself to this new tiny human. With that being said, it’s still very important to carve out time just for you. Even if that means taking five minutes to yourself in the bathroom with the door closed or asking your husband for an extra 30 minutes in bed while he’s taking care of the baby. You have to be intentional about having time for yourself and in doing that, understanding that it’s not selfish to ask for it and it’s actually the most mature thing you can do. If you are not taking care of yourself first, you simply cannot be the best mom to your children, partner to your significant other, employee at your job, and so on. We have a natural parental instinct that makes our focus more narrowed in our child, so it’s going against the grain to fight that instinct. When you are able to achieve that and make it a priority in your life by choosing it over and over, it really does make you a better parent when you return back to your child. Let’s normalize taking care of ourselves.
Q.
What are good practices to incorporate in your daily routine to create balance?
A.
It goes back to taking care of myself no matter if it’s 10 minutes of meditation or scheduling a date night with my husband. I think a good practice is proactively carving out time for yourself whatever that looks like and keeping that promise to yourself. Any of those little things you can do to prove to yourself that you are still important.
Q.
How can I ground myself when I am feeling overwhelmed or out of control?
A.
What I always recommend to my clients is a tool that helps with emotional regulation. You can use it when you’re feeling any kind of big intense emotion to calm yourself back down and feel grounded. One of my favorite ways to do that is to put a name to the feeling that you’re experiencing. It’s a great tactic created by Dr. Daniel Siegel who wrote The Whole Brain Child. This works for every single person whether you’re big or small. Name it to tame it. You can tell yourself I’m angry because… I’m stressed because… and so on. Saying these emotion adjectives to yourself are all ways that help you tame the emotion. When we put a label to what we are feeling, the emotion doesn’t have to gain intensity to get attention. Those emotions just want to be recognized and then the emotion feels that the message has been received and your body doesn’t have to continue sending the signal.
Q.
What can we do to make it more socially acceptable to accept help for your children?
A.
It really comes down to other parents sharing their experiences with each other. The more we have these conversations out loud and be vulnerable with each other, the more we can help each other. It’s difficult to talk to others about our struggles because it’s difficult to do it with ourselves. What we don’t know for ourselves we can’t teach to others. The more we put words to our emotions and verbalize it out loud with each other, the more we feel validated doing it.
Q.
How can I introduce the idea of therapy to my child in a healthy way?
A.
Therapy should be like regularly scheduled maintenance like everything else we do for our bodies. You go to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned, you go to the doctor for check ups. Why would we not have regularly scheduled maintenance for our brains? Our brains control everything and are in control of our well being. If we can normalize that, it won’t be a big conversation for our children. It’s just something that we do regularly. It comes from the top down, and if you are modeling that for your child as a normal and healthy thing, that’s how they’ll perceive it. The attitudes and the norms in our society are shifting and therapy is starting to feel less taboo because of it. If we continue in that direction, this youngest generation won’t feel ashamed of therapy. Their therapist will just be another part of their personal wellness team like their doctor or dentist. It’s been great to see public figures like Simone Biles prioritizing their mental health because it only normalizes it more for the rest of society.
Q.
How can we promote body positivity amongst our children?
A.
If you as a parent have negative body image issues, your child is receiving those messages. Even if you think you’re hiding it or you think they don’t see, they are. The way we can promote body positivity is by healing our own body image issues. They watch the way you eat, the way you feel and talk about your body, and other people’s bodies. Children are fluent in non verbal communication. They can feel your feelings without words. They internalize your emotions and it becomes their way of viewing the world as they grow and learn.
Q.
How can we as parents identify stress in our children?
A.
School is starting and Covid is still a very big deal. Children especially now may have a really hard time transitioning back to going to school in person. I anticipate seeing more stress related behaviors as we navigate through this change. As a parent, you should look for any kind of drastic change in your child’s behavior to identify stress. For example, if they’re not sleeping the way they used to, their eating behaviors change, or they don’t want to do things they’re usually excited about, these are all red flags. For teenagers, it can look like style of dress, suddenly hanging out with different friends, or grades start slipping. In younger children, you could see things like hoarding food or toys to try to control their environment. When you start to see these kinds of behaviors, you can talk to your child. Name it to tame it. Acknowledge that you see what’s going on and that you’ve noticed a change in their behavior. This communicates that they are seen and heard and cared about. If they are not able to open up to you, let them know it’s ok if they don’t want to talk right now, but you’ll be there when they’re ready. If it continues on, the problems are persisting, and you’re finding it difficult to communicate, that’s when you can reach out for professional help. If you can get help early when you start to see the signs, it’s so much easier to navigate. Know your resources so that you don’t have to panic when you’re in the middle of a difficult situation.
Q.
How can we create a better support system among moms where we can all have a safe space?
A.
I use this space with The Dynamic Child for parents to have a safe place to talk about their feelings and gather resources for how to care for themselves during the different challenges of parenting. Parents should be able to consciously create a community that’s supportive to their lifestyle so that they can be the best version of themselves. Finding other people that feel the same way that you do is such an amazing resource to have.
If you are needing extra parental guidance and support, please visit The Dynamic Child
www.thedynamicchild.com
