marriage counseling

51: Huge Announcements For What’s To Come

We have some exciting updates and announcements of some unbelievable things that we have been doing

51: Huge Announcements For What’s To Come

50: Stuck In The House: Student Stories About What’s Really Going On In Their Homes – Part 1

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will share a talk that they recently had with their Relationship U students on what is going on in real life today behind closed doors when couples and families are stuck together because of the COVID-19 related self quarantining.

50: Stuck In The House: Student Stories About What’s Really Going On In Their Homes – Part 1

49: Marriage And Parenting Survival And Sanity In Quarantine – Part 2

What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Stacey will share part two of her talk on how couples (and parents) can maintain their sanity during these social distancing and self-quarantining times. She will talk about what she sees as two of the most common causes of kerfuffles that are going on right now and how to solve that, and how to deal with the effects of the current pandemic on our lives. She will also dive into how to look at everything that’s going on in a way that’s empowering, as opposed to feeling like it’s all just happening to us.

One of the things one must get rid of is unreasonable expectations and control. We must all drop a lot of our levels of control right now because our desire to want things to be a certain way will only lead to misery for us and others around us. One cannot control everybody else but they can set reasonable standards for others to follow when it comes to basic things in life. When something is complicated and out of one’s control, one should just let go of it. A great example of that is homeschooling.

People have certain invisible expectations about what it should be like, but what they don’t realize is that it’s a full-time job, takes a lot of commitment, and is very stressful. Stacey will share her insights on how to really go about that and so much more, so stay tuned to learn how you can navigate this from the same place, increase the peace and harmony in your home, and decrease the kerfuffles.

Key Points Discussed: 

  • Letting go of unreasonable expectations and certain levels of control (01:34)
  • The difference between homeschooling and online schooling (04:01)
  • The stress of trying to replace a teacher and give your kids the same learning experience they get at school (06:34)
  • The temporary nature of more screen time for your kids during these challenging times (10:55)
  • Using time chunks to focus on what’s important (14:21)

Where Can I Learn More:

  • Get access to the Relationship Breakthrough Retreat – here
  • Join the 14-Day Boost – here
  • Join our Relationship Development Community – here

When Did It Air:

04/30/2020

Episode Transcript:

Stacey  0:00  

Hey relationship transformers. Welcome to the Relationship Transformers podcast. Okay, on this podcast, it is part two of how to get your sanity back during quarantine, and your marriage and your parenting. If you haven’t listened to last week’s podcast, be sure to listen to that. And in today’s podcast, I’m going to talk first about what I see as some two of the most common causes for kerfuffles that are going on right now during this quarantine time and how to solve that. And also how to deal with this and how to navigate when we kind of have a lot of extra things that have just been added to our plate. And really, how to look at that in a way that’s empowering, as opposed to feeling like all of this just happened to us, so that you can navigate this from the same place, and increase the peace and harmony in your home and decrease the kerfuffles. So let’s queue up the intro and dive into part two.

Intro  1:00  

So the big question is this, how is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, great their unshakable love and unleash passion, divorce, prove their family without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. We are Paul and Stacey Martino, and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast.

Stacey  1:34  

Now, I do want to talk about unreasonable expectations and control. And of course, I could do a three day event all on this, and we usually often do, and I highly encourage you to check in with those, but we have to drop a lot of our levels of control right now. Because, our desire to want things to be a certain way, it just is only going to lead to misery for us and everybody else. You cannot control everybody else. You can set a few standards like, “Laundry has to be done every week. Cleaning your bathroom has to be done every week. Movement has to be done each day.” But other than that, you really need to release. And, one of those things is around screen time, and around homeschooling. So let’s just talk about those two things together, because so many people have these invisible expectations about what it should be like. And then they kind of just, take on, like, “Oh, okay. I’ll homeschool for sixth grade, fourth grade, and pre-school. Oh, sure, sure. Starting tomorrow. Yeah, I’ll do that.” What? That is a full-time job people. That is three full-time jobs for three different grades. Just saying you’re gonna homeschool because the school is closed is nuts. 

Now, not everybody is going to agree with me, but I’m going to share my perspective with you as to what’s reasonable, and what’s not, after working with families for as many years as I have. Now, our son actually goes to online high school. That’s his regular high school. And that choice took us about five months to make. Five months of research, figuring out how he was going to do it, what the best online high school was going to be for him, how was that going to impact Paul and I, since we both work from home, how was that going to impact his sister and everybody else that’s here? What’s going to happen for him on days when we travel or we’re not home? Like, we worked on that for five months before we were like, “Okay. This is what it is going to take for you to go through online high school. These are the requirements for you. This is what dad and I are going to be responsible for, and we’re okay with that. We’ve worked it into our schedule. We can all do this. This is how the system is going to flow.” And we worked it out and he started online high school a while ago. And so, that is like an online high school. That’s not even homeschooling, which I can’t do, and would never do, because schooling is not my unique brilliance. I never in a million years want to do that, and I don’t have the bandwidth for it because I work full time. That’s just me. 

Some people wouldn’t love to homeschool their children, this is what they want to do. That’s fantastic If that’s you, but you need to actually think it through and not let a school closure make that decision for you. Because that’s a big decision. So please understand that there’s a difference between homeschooling and online schooling. And some of you are totally wired for and phenomenal at homeschooling, you have the bandwidth for it, and you’d love to do it. Great. Then make that decision and make your decision to say okay, for and I’m going to research who’s the best of the best that teaches homeschooling? How many hours a day do our kids need to school? And that’s what I’m going to do. Some of us are not wired for that would never do that and don’t have the bandwidth for it. And then we need to say Okay, is there an online education option for my kids while they’re here now some of our schools are building that God bless their heart. Some of our schools cannot because like that is a massive undertaking to build an online educational system. So I will just say that as an example, our daughter is home, her school does not yet have any online education options. And I will tell you that we didn’t start homeschooling her because the school was closed, she’s in sixth grade should be fine, we’ll figure it out. Either they’ll extend the year or we’ll make up the time like, she’ll be fine. Just because the school closed, or we kept her out of school, even before the school closed, does not mean that I’m required to figure out what sixth grade is and how to teach her that that’s not relevant to me. Now, there are online services that you can use, which I highly recommend. Something like Khan Academy is a really, really good one. There are others that you can google search and find what is an online schooling. And if that’s a fit for you, by all means, do that with Something like a Khan Academy, you can sign your kid up for whatever grade they’re in. And then they start at a certain time, and they end at a certain time. And the online Academy takes them through the cadence of their day. With something like what we’ve done in our houses, our kids have a list of like museum tours, and then their shows for like, for 45 minutes, they take you through an entire country, and you get to learn what that country is about. We have ones for animals, and we have ones for nature. And so they’re doing educational programming during the day,

but it’s just like really super interesting watching the show, but they’re learning about something. We’re not trying to replace school, and that’s for our daughter, and then her school is going to start sending assignments, they said next week that they can do at home, which is great. That’s awesome. And if this ends up being a long term thing, we’re going to sign her up for something like a Khan Academy or something else where she can do on line in school where Somebody else is the educator. While she’s here, just thinking that you are going to replace a teacher and spend eight hours a day on taking your kids through a typical school day. There are entire administration’s that work on things like that. There are probably five to 10 teachers that impact your children in a day thinking that Oh, yeah, I guess if you’re home I’ll do that is an unreasonable expectation that you’re putting on yourself, that causes tremendous amounts of stress, because you can’t necessarily deliver on that real well. And you’re putting an unreasonable amount of stress on yourself at a time when we need to relax. I talked to one of the moms that was stressing about this the other day said to me, yeah, but like my kid is in ninth grade. And I have to make sure that he’s caught up because the year is about to end. And I said to her, oh, when is the school year ending and she’s like, well, his school year ends at the end of May so I don’t have much time. I sent to her school year ends at the end of May said Who? And she goes, Well, that’s what it is. That’s a school calendar. I’m like, why is the end of May so important that your child and what happens at the end of May? It’s like, well, that’s when School’s out. And I’m like,

Says who? Why is that relevant? Is that even a reasonable decision? Why not the end of June? If we miss three weeks now, can they not do that in June? Like and who cares? Who said that they need to get out of school at a certain time, who said that school needs to end at a certain time. These are imaginary deadlines. And you’re so blinded by accepting and visible expectations that I have to make sure that I create the same teaching experience and learning experience for my kid before the end of May like that is unreasonable. And you’re making yourself and everybody else miserable, for no reason. Now, maybe not everybody loves this message and doesn’t want to hear it and that’s fine. But if you needed to hear this message, giving you permission to just take a deep breath. It’s okay. Our kids are all going to be okay. They learn a ton all year. This is a temporary hiccup, and it happened on a dime. It’s going to take us some time to figure out okay, what should we do about this school year end dates are not necessarily a relevant thing right now because everything just changed. So just relax. Give yourself some time to figure it out. Whether it’s your school that’s going to provide work for home that your kids are going to do, or an online school that you can sign up for, that’s going to allow your kids to get educated or you would like to research homeschooling and you would like to be the one to be their educator from a place of really learning how to do this. Well. Any of those are wonderful and all of those take some time. So please do not have unreasonable activity. tations for like, I work nine hours a day, I also take care of the house and the meals and somehow I have to take my kids through three, four or five, six hours of school a day. In case you weren’t doing the math, there’s not that many hours in one day for anybody. So just relax, and give yourself a break. Whether it’s I’m gonna have my kids plug into online school, or I’m gonna wait to see what the school does and give them like, learn this country and do this art class and expand your mind this way and read or write or create something, whatever is a fit for your family culture, make that decision, as long as it’s reasonable that you can actually do it and use time chunks to move people through changes and energy changes and experiences all day long. 

And the other thing is about screentime so many people are like, Oh, I don’t want my kids sitting on screens all day, I don’t want my kids sitting on video games all day. I don’t want, like, and I get that. And we actually regularly have a family policy of two hours a day of screen time. 30 minute chunks. 30 minutes on 30 minutes off, no earlier than 8am no later than 6pm. That has been our family policy for 15 years. And our kids have always honored that policy. And when they haven’t, there are consequences in our house for that. So that is the way our family runs no problem. But now there needs to be a shift. Right? So when my kids do an online class, that doesn’t count for screen time, when my kids want to do the 45 minutes This is everything you wanted to learn about Greece, that is not considered screen time for them. When my kids want to do a zoom session with their friends so that they can play a game and hang out. That is not screen time for them. Alright, so connection time, learning time. Those things are not screentime when I need to do something for two hours in my work so that I can focus. And I put on a movie for the little ones so that I can focus and they can watch TV. That’s Oh, okay. See, what happens is we try to apply this like, Oh, we shouldn’t let them sit on screens all day. You know what, this is what Disney plus was made for. It’s okay. This is a temporary situation. And if one day your kids end up watching three movies, then so be it. That is what that was going to happen that day. Now, when it becomes everyday people start to get restless and the energy doesn’t isn’t good. That’s why we use time. chunking but please stop making screentime the demon here that you also have to fight screentime in addition to everything else, like it’s okay, relax. We did a virtual live event for our students last week. So many of our students were like, what am I going to do with my kids? Right? Each session is two to three hours, what am I gonna do with my children? And I’m like, well, that’s what frozen one and frozen two is for the frozen marathon and come do what’s important for you like, it’s okay. Do we live like this every single day of the year? No, we don’t.

But these are very different times. And you need to focus on what’s important. If you have little ones, like my kids are older. And so they know when mommy and daddy go to work, unless you’re bleeding, like, Don’t interrupt us. Because we’re working. We’re focused, we have to work. As a team, you guys need to allow us to work and we’ve built up that rapport. We’ve built up systems with our children.

That’s all in the relationship development parenting courses that we have, how to be able to create that kind of family culture, but even with little ones if you need to create like, okay, I do have to do work. It’s important to create these time chunks where, like for 90 minutes, they’re gonna watch a movie or do an hour projects or do something that they can do independently. And you’re going to have focus time because if they’re always constantly coming into your room or you’re constantly trying to do work while you’re sitting with them, all of this mixing, mixing leads to misery write that down. Mixing leads to misery. 

One of the beauties of having time chunk is to give yourself the gift of focus, so that you can really be effective and fill up from what you’re working on. And they’re happy to focus on a movie so please use that if that’s the only tool that works right now. Please utilize that to allow them to play a video game or watch a movie if that’s what needs to be hop on a zoom with their friends and sit for an hour and a half talking to their friends and hanging out if that’s what needs to be and then you use that time effectively be like okay, they started on their focus and focus get Your stuff done during that time chunk, and then go back and say, Okay, now it’s time for I’m gonna like put lunch together for all of us. Let’s hang out for an hour. And then I’m back to focusing, you’re on to the next thing. And use that predictable pattern to give yourself some peace and some focus and some effectiveness. And allow them to have that time, whatever it is, and if they are doing online schooling, allow that to be time chunks as well, whatever it is, but give yourself a break on how to navigate this time. 

This has never happened before. But it’s a fantastic learning experience that we can’t just live a life in reaction to every other human that lives in our home. We need to create some structure and some process. Now I know there’s going to be lots and lots and lots of questions around this and feel free to post them below. Paul and I are working on filming actually a training costs for you that we can give away for free About how to implement stuff like this, and how to navigate marriage and parenting during a quarantine time like this when you’re stuck together, and the tools and strategies for that. And we’re working on some of that, as well to try to give you some more tools and tips that you can start using. And certainly, of course, the biggest one is get into one of our programs right now. Like make that one of your time sounds like, man, I need some solutions, like solutions, like I just showed you right now, but much deeper. And for marriage specific interactions and parenting specific interactions with each child, there are solutions that you can use to lower the kerfuffles and raise the harmony. So these were just some to give you some sanity and predictability in your day. I hope this serves you. Please post in the comments below what you got from this and how you’re going to use that and if you have any questions, be sure to post them to maybe we’ll answer Through that in one of our next videos, if you want to get into one of our programs, you can start the 14 day boost that’s coming up at 14 day boost comm if you want to start the Quickstart program, you can email us at support at relationship development. org If you want to enroll in relationship view, we have a link that we can give you for that to get into the relationship Transformers Official Facebook group, the links are all there and we can help you understand the different programs. If you have not started listening to our podcast, the relationship Transformers podcast, please listen to that there’s like 40 something episodes that are available you can put them in and listen to it every single day. But this is the time to get the tools and strategies for your marriage and family. Now more than ever before, it’s so important to do that. I hope that this training has served you and until I see you again sending love everybody. Bye bye. Okay, I hope you got so much from this two part training. Remember, go back and listen to part one. One. If you miss that, you might want to listen to these again, right part one and part two. And the key is don’t just listen. start implementing take action, start being intentional about what you can take on what you will take on what’s best for your family, instead of being reactive, or using invisible assumptions and feeling like you just need to do everything. be intentional about it. Start using time chunks. Really start applying this in your regular day start showing up differently, so that you can navigate this time with increased level of sanity, but certainly increased level of peace and harmony and decreasing those kerfuffle and frustrations. Again, if we can help you with the tools and strategies to implement this and take a deeper dive. Whether you want to get into the next 14 day boost. You want to start the Quickstart program right now today. You want to enroll in relationship you and get one on one support and coaching. You want to get your ticket for relationship, breakthrough retreat, live event, whatever it is for you, like just get into our programs in our events. That’s where the tools and strategies are taught so you can take the action and until we see you again, sending love everyone.

Outro  19:17  

Are you ready to catapult your relationship to the next level? Would you love to do that in just three days? Well, Relationship Breakthrough Retreat tickets are open. This is our live three-day event. We only do this event once a year. It’s a three-day live immersion experience with me and Paul, where you get to have your relationship breakthrough within those three days. This is not a couple’s event. Your partner does not need to come to this event. There are no couples work going on. It’s a fun, high energy, life changing, impactful immersion experience, where your relationships will catapult forward within those three days. It is not to be missed. Check out RelationshipBreakthroughRetreat.com for information and tickets

49: Marriage And Parenting Survival And Sanity In Quarantine – Part 2

48: Marriage And Parenting Survival And Sanity In Quarantine – Part 1

What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Stacey will talk about how couples can maintain their sanity during these social distancing and self-quarantining times where parents have to be at home all day every day with their kids. She recently did training with their RelationshipU students on the same subject and it had immediate phenomenal results for those who applied the tools and strategies they learned in their households. Right now families are having a hard time being quarantined at home, and parents are having to navigate things that they’re not used to navigating. That is making frustrations and kerfuffles arise much more frequently and it’s causing more harm than good.

Parents always have an uphill task of raising their kids while also working and making sure everything runs smoothly, and a lot of the times they take on too many things at the same time because they feel it’s their responsibility to do so. Running a household, for example, is a full-time job all on its own, and it can be quite taxing. Especially if the parent responsible also has to work a regular job to make ends meet. The first step to gaining some sanity is to look at all the things one takes on every day and dropping those that can be done by someone else.

Stacey will talk about living a life in reaction and living a life by design, and how living a life by design is the only way to regain sanity, joy, and happiness in any household during these difficult times. Stay tuned as she shares some tools and strategies for reducing kerfuffles and increasing harmony during the current quarantine (and any other time you and your family find yourselves stuck together) to help you navigate everything as best as possible.

Key Points Discussed: 

  • The importance of being reasonable about what can and cannot be done simultaneously (03:31)
  • The frustrations of not being able to escape the craziness-relief pattern (06:38)
  • The great opportunity the self-quarantine is creating (08:44)
  • How to create sanity and predictability in your days (09:43)
  • Creating a plan of how you’re all going to operate together as a team (11:10)
  • How time chunking can help in doing things more effectively and harmoniously (12:10)

Where Can I Learn More:

  • Get access to the Relationship Breakthrough Retreat – here
  • Join the 14-Day Boost – here
  • Join our Relationship Development Community – here

When Did It Air:

04/24/2020

Episode Transcript:

Stacey 0:00
Hey relationship transformers. Welcome to the relationship Transformers podcast. Sorry, it’s been a couple of weeks without a podcast, but I’m really excited to bring you this week and next week’s podcast. It’s a two parter. I did a training on how to like get sane and get your sanity back during quarantine when your spouse and your kids are stuck in the house with you every minute with no end in sight. I know frustrations can rise, and kerfuffles can be on the rise, and patients can be short. And so, I did this training and I wanted to share it with you. It’s in two parts. And this week, we’re going to talk about how to use strategies and tools to be able to bring the sanity back when you have everybody kind of living on top of each other, and a lot of things that we don’t usually navigate we have to navigate and… I… when I did this training, so many people posted that they implemented it that day, and saw peace and harmony coming back to their household that day. Like really, really amazing. So, I’m sharing that today in part one. And then next week in part two, I’m going to share another set of tools and strategies, the second part of this training with you to give you some more tools and strategies for reducing kerfuffles, and increasing harmony during quarantine, or whenever you’re kind of stuck together kind of thing, to help you navigate this time. So let’s cue up the intro and then we will dive into part one.

Intro 1:40
So the big question is this, how is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, great their unshakable love and unleash passion, divorce, prove their family without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. We are Paul and Stacey Martino, and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast.

Stacey 2:14
Hi there. It’s Stacey. I wanted to make you this video to talk about how to be sane, everybody at home during this time. So, a couple things, and I had just done this for our Relationship U students, and I wanted to come in and do a quick video for you. Because, what happens for a lot of us is, we kind of just take on the mountain, like especially as moms and dads, we kind of just like, “Oh, I’ll do that. I’ll do that”, like everything comes down to us, and when it comes to like, you know, running the house and taking care of the kids, and also working a job, like first of all, I just want to say, and this may not be popular for everybody, and if it’s not for you, you can ignore it, but if it resonates for you, I just want to say this out loud. Running a household, which means all the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the grocery shopping, the ironing, and all of that, is a full time job. Taking care of children, is a full time job. And working is another job. So, for many of us now, we’re up to three jobs. Right? Taking care of a household, taking care of children, and working. And now, with children not being in school, it’s like, “Oh, sure. I’ll… I guess we’re homeschooling as of Monday. So, ah, hello. That’s four jobs.

So, please just First of all, see it with clear eyes and be reasonable. That is too many full time jobs for any human to take on. So please just have a reasonable perspective about what can and cannot be done and what is reasonable to take on right now. Okay. So if you need to do some things to help yourself, be sane and calm and peaceful and Happy and have your household the same calm, peaceful and happy during this time too. I want to give you some strategies and tools that you can implement today to have things start running smoother, reduce kerfuffles and increase harmony now, when it comes to relationship and relating to your spouse, your kids, we have loads and loads of tools and strategies for that. Please join our relationship Transformers Facebook group, where we do a lot of training we have a lot of conversations going on and then get into one of our programs like that’s not an optional piece right now. You need the tools for how to relate in your marriage and with your parenting. Now more than ever, don’t wait if you haven’t done our booth get into our booth if you haven’t done our quickstart do that if you are hanging by a thread or if one of you is considering you know if you’re unhappy and possibly talking about divorce or separation. Please join our relationship you program before doing something Like that. So when it comes to all that I’ll do more videos on that. We have programs for that. What I want to talk about today are some strategies and tools that you can implement right now.

To help create more harmony and happiness now, with what everyone’s navigating during these times when you are with your partner and your kids more often and more minutes than you’re used to, the first thing I want to share with you is a dynamic that has probably been invisible to you. And I want to make it visible so that you can actually utilize this and understand part of the dynamic that’s going on. What I see most often and I’ve been doing this so many years, I just this is a pattern that’s very, very clear to me and I see this most often is we wake up in the morning, and it’s like, there’s a little bit of chaos. And there might be anything from like, Ah, that didn’t go so well to Wow, someone had a meltdown. And then they go off to school, somebody goes off to work, or we go to work, and we take a minute we’re like oh, my god. Okay, now We can focus, and we focus, we do our productive work, we fill back up with things that make us happy. And then they come home from school or somebody comes home from work, and a certain level of chaos and dizziness and bickering or fighting goes on. And it’s like anything from, you know, that was okay. Or that wasn’t so bad to somebody who had a total meltdown, or a fight or whatever it was. And then people go to sleep. And then we get like, Oh, God, thank God, we get a break. And we take care of ourselves, or we get things done that we want to do, we focus, and then we go to sleep.

And then we get up the next morning, and the pattern starts all over again. And we kind of go through years and then decades, with this pattern. It gets crazy. We get some relief. It gets crazy. We get some relief. We wake up the next day and do it again. We never actually solve it. We just escape it. And what I want to talk to you about today Just first of all understanding, so strategy number one, you’re not getting the escape that you used to get, your kids are not getting the escape, your partner is not getting the escape, you’re not getting the escape. And so it just keeps building and building and building and building where people just say like, I can’t take it anymore. And I just want you to understand this is a very real dynamic. It’s actually not any different than what was going on. Before you guys were all stuck at home. It’s just that now you’re not getting an escape from it. And you’re seeing this is what is the dynamic. This is why you must take the time now, to get one of our courses, start listening to it every single day, start implementing the new tools, because the only thing that was allowing you to coast before was that you guys were able to escape. But now you don’t have that and so the frustration start to build the tension starts to build the upset and the happiness starts to build This is the time start listening to one of our programs, start watching one of our programs and start making some changes so that each and every day you can actually solve some of what’s going on before the next day starts, it rises it rises, but you use the tools you start to solve that great let’s go into the next day. And you can stop this elevation of frustrations and stress by implementing real tools so this is a real dynamic it’s why so many of our our program students our relationship view students our relationship grants, swimmers have been sharing posts like oh my gosh, thank God I did this work before this happened. I don’t know how I would have survived the old me without these tools. Like it’s intense and were able to thrive and be so happy right now.

But I never would have been if I hadn’t done this program. That’s why you need the tools. That’s why you need the strategies. So strategy one is understand the dynamic that you’re not getting an escape right now. And I would say that’s happening for your own good because This is what was going on before. It’s just we ignored it because life is so busy and we always get another day. This is a great opportunity. There’s so much opportunity right now, a lot of your schedule has been cleared. And I’m going to teach you in a minute how to get more time in your day. This is the time to do the relationship development work so you can solve some of the kerfuffles that come up in your marriage and in your parenting so that you can increase harmony and decrease kerfuffles. So that’s point number one. Now the second thing is let’s talk about your sanity. So many people right now again, talk about like life by default. Oh, I guess we’ll just do that too. That’s life by default life by design is what can we do? What can we do? Well, what can we do to be happy?

And the strategy I want to give you here is about how to create sanity and predictability in your days when your kids are not in school and nobody’s leaving the house for work. It is not a perpetual Saturday, every day. We cannot Live in perpetual, it’s Saturday. Nobody has anything on the schedule to do, it becomes insanity we just don’t do well. Humans do well with structure and predictability, especially when there’s more than one human in a team. And so, in order to create sanity, we need to create some structure and predictability. I will just say that we’re a few weeks into this here of everybody being home. And Saturday and Sunday are very, very different in my house than Monday through Friday. It’s different for Paul and I, we work Monday through Friday, and it’s different for the kids. They have a different cadence Monday through Friday than they do Saturday and Sunday. And that gives everybody predictability and a way that they can flow through the week where everybody can get the time that they need. It is so critical that everybody have personal time during this everybody’s home and that comes down to are you Living a life in reaction, or you living a life by design a life that reaction is like, when everything comes at you and you’re like, Oh, you want to watch this, oh, you want to eat that?

Oh, you wanted and you’re constantly reacting to what everybody else wants a life by design is you sit down and you create a plan of how you’re all going to operate together as a team. You know, no sports team ever shows up at the first game, never having met before, never having decided who’s going to be in what position, never having practiced. Otherwise, it would be a total shit show. And so it’s the same thing in our households. We can’t just show up each day being like, okay, I wonder what’s going to happen now. And I’ll just react to it. It ends up creating tons of stress and tons of chaos, both for you and for your kids. And then we end up barking at them in a way that we’re not happy about. They’re not happy about and the same thing with your spouse. So one of the tools I want to teach you right now is to use time chunking. So time tracking is where there are blocks in the day. Time tracks, either a 90 minute time chunk or a 30 minute time chunk, and you set up your day from the time your kids wake up until the time they go to bed in these time chunks.

Now we did this the weekend before we had decided to take our kids out of school at a certain point, and we knew they weren’t going to be going to school on Monday. And so we sat down that weekend and said, Okay, here are the time chunks for the day. Here’s a list of 40 things that you can pick. For any given day. Let’s start making the blocks of what you want to do and what you want to do when and what we did was we set a timer in our kitchen using like the Alexa timer or something else. And the timer dings every 90 minutes. So everybody switches their activity. So there are certain time chunks that are electronics time chunks if it’s playing a game or watching a movie. There are others that are more academic like they might be reading or doing. We have a list of like museum tours that are free right now. We’re art classes that are free right now. We’re music lessons that are free online or something like that. Or it might be craft time. It might be outdoor walking, trampolining, soccer, whatever they’re doing. Or it might be doing their laundry or picking up their room.

There are time chunks for all of that. And so what happens is they put their time chunk schedule together. And once a week, we just sit down on the weekend before the week starts. And we talk about, okay, do you need anyone else on this team for any of your time chunks? And if they do, like they’re like, Oh, we wanted to go out and walk on the greenbelt for one of our time chunks. And so grace said that Jake was like, Oh, I would do that too. Okay, that requires a driver. So you guys need to plan that time chunks so that it just lines up together. And with a driver, one of us who can drive you, but the other time chunks are totally independent. You don’t need anybody else to participate in any of those. So structure them any way you want. This way. I’m not dictating you have to do Academic now or you have to do movie time now or you have to do exercise. Now you are dictating when you’re going to do things. The only things you need to collaborate on are things that involve other people on this team. And so we gave them the autonomy to say, okay, and they have a list that’s actually hung up in our kitchen, like, every single day, there needs to be movement time, whether that’s walking or, or dancing, or trampoline or whatever, we need to move our bodies. And if weather permitting every single day, there needs to be some outdoor time. And then twice a week, there needs to be laundry time, once a week, there needs to be wiping down the bathroom time. And three times a week, there needs to be you know, some other time. So there’s a list of like, these are the required chunks of the week. It’s very minimal because you don’t want to dictate too much of what someone else is doing, or that’s not really leading that’s just demanding. So they know like there’s a minimum but they can slide that time. trunk in wherever they feel happy if they want to do their laundry Wednesday morning, they should do their laundry and my kids are old enough to do that do their laundry Wednesday morning. If they’re like, No, I’m gonna do it Friday night before bed, then do it Friday night before bed. I don’t have to control that. But using time chunks, there’s predictability. And we never have this thing where like, I left you at nine o’clock this morning and you are watching movies in front of the TV. I came down at four o’clock in the evening and you were still watching movies in front of the TV. So they’re moving, they’re doing things and the time chunking helps them not to be so bored. And not to be like kind of get that energy where they’re like, they got what they wanted. They’ve been on video games all day and they’re like, Oh, I’m so unhappy because they’ve been sitting right all day. So the time chunking is one of those strategies. That really really works.

Okay, awesome. I hope you got a ton out of this episode. This was part one of a two parter. So your directive, your action steps from this is start implementing, start implementing this now into your days to get your sanity back and have some flow to your home and, and all the people in it. And then next week in part two, we’re gonna talk about now how do we navigate when we have so many other things on our plate? How do we navigate that in a way that reduces kerfuffle and increases harmony, I’m gonna talk about a couple of things that are creating some of the most kerfuffles that I’ve seen, and the strategies for how to solve that. So I will see you in next week’s podcast for part two.

Outro 16:43
Hey, would you like to get big results in your relationships in just 10 seconds a day? If so, then subscribe to our daily inspiration for relationship Transformers or the D.I.R.T at MartinoPodcast.com/Dirt

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

48: Marriage And Parenting Survival And Sanity In Quarantine – Part 1

47: The PIVOT…Not Going to Jamaica…

In this episode, Stacey will share a recording that she made to talk about pivoting instead of canceling their Breakthrough in Paradise live event in Jamaica, the decision that they made to pivot the event, what they will be doing instead, and how they made that decision in confidence and not fear

47: The PIVOT…Not Going to Jamaica…

46: I’m Not The One That Needs To Change

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about a common point of view that most people in a relationship have that negatively affects their relationships without their knowing

46: I’m Not The One That Needs To Change

45: How Can I Get Them To See That….

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about a dynamic where someone in a relationship gets stuck in the false belief that their way is the right way and that their partner’s way is all wrong, and they will share all the action steps we can use to free ourselves from that dynamic for the betterment of our relationships and marriages.

45: How Can I Get Them To See That….

44: Is He Just Being An ASS?

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about a very common complaint that they get from women about how their husbands are too blunt and mean in their conversations, and how that triggers or embarrasses them.

44: Is He Just Being An ASS?

43: Give Him The Answers To The Test

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about the invisible expectations that women have of their partners and the harm they cause their relationships.

43: Give Him The Answers To The Test

42: Taking Sides

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about taking sides, a topic that is fundamental to what we think of when we think of relationship struggles.

42: Taking Sides

41: Our Driving Kerfuffle (Fighting In The Car)

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about a persistent and repetitive kerfuffle that they used to have often in the car when Paul was driving

41: Our Driving Kerfuffle (Fighting In The Car)

40: Relationship Development Parenting Part 2 – The Misery of Parenting

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will do part two of the two-part series on relationship development parenting, and talk about the misery of parenting.

40: Relationship Development Parenting Part 2 – The Misery of Parenting

Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms and Conditions