Abbie: Hello and welcome to the CosmoParenting Podcast brought to you by the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution. In this space, we invite you to see yourself as someone who is curious about and actively participating in creating your own meaning around parenting.
Today, we are beginning a new month and new theme, so this is our ‘Appreciate’ episode, where we introduce the theme and offer questions to reflect on that help us appreciate where we are and where we’ve been. Let’s begin.
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Abbie: This month is about structures. We can think about structure in two ways this month: (1) structures provide systematic methods of accomplishing tasks, they are things we put in place, but also (2) structure- singular- is something we can strive to create in our lives as a result. So essentially, we’re talking about structure in two different ways this month- having structures in your life can lead to structure in your life. So, little structures, and then big overarching structure.
I’m thinking of each of our monthly themes like a lens, and each month we are looking at parenting through a different one. So, how can you see your parenting through the lens of structures? is really the question that we’re asking this month. When you do look at your parenting through a structure lens, you might find yourself with an abundance or a lack of structures in your daily life. And, to be clear, I am not advocating for structure for structure’s sake. The structure you build into your family life should absolutely be based on what you and your child or children need and what works for you.
Perhaps you have a structure to how your day goes and having shared expectations between you and your child about when the day begins, or what they can do after school, or when it is time to eat dinner or go to bed- that might be really helpful for minimizing tantrums and arguments. Perhaps you create a structure by engaging in consistent and repeated activities like doing a check in at dinner once a week to talk about how the previous week went and what everyone is looking forward to in the coming week. And in this way you create rituals. Rituals and routines are great examples of meaningful structure in family life. Like everything in this podcast, it's about figuring out what works best for you. So it's about learning to be mindful and intentional.
And when you learn to be intentional about creating structure in your life, you create consistency for your children, which is huge for kids. Structures are really helpful for children who are navigating new situations every day of their lives. Think about this: if we have structures in place, like what to do if someone bullies you, or how to ask for help, or what to do if you get lost in a public area, that is huge for helping kids feel safe as they navigate new challenges. And you, as the parent, have peace of mind too, to trust that you have put a structure in place to support your child in new scenarios.
Putting structures in place is a great way to parent “on purpose.” By setting up structures to help the family function, whatever it may be, whatever works for you, and setting clear expectations in the process, you can be really intentional about what you are teaching your kids about how things work in your family and in the world.
As you start to reflect on the role of structure and structures in your life, I want to offer some questions to guide you in that reflecting. I am going to ask the questions here, but they will also be in the show notes and on the Substack, so it’s easy for you to look back and return to them throughout the week.
What structures do you have in place that help your family function in the day-to-day?
How do structures get created in your family?
What areas of your life are lacking structures that you might want to add?
Okay, those are the questions I’m leaving you with today. I invite you to spend some time in reflection, not only after this episode ends, but throughout your week thinking about these questions. And I really do encourage you to talk about them, as well, and do your reflecting with others in your life or by leaving a comment on this episode in the CosmoParenting Substack. That's a great way to do reflecting in community as well. I also want to point you toward the additional resources we have available for free at www.cosmoactivities.com. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the CosmoParenting Podcast. We are so grateful to be with you on this journey. See you next week to hear a parenting story.
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