Darlynn: [00:00:02] Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host, Darlynn Childress. Today on the podcast I want to talk about mom guilt — specifically the type of guilt that shows up in the summer, not the school year type of guilt, because summer guilt is a little different than school year guilt.
Darlynn: [00:00:22] In the school year we feel bad, like our kids are watching a lot of TV, or we forgot permission slips, or we're not spending enough time with them. We have different kinds of guilt around the school year. But summer guilt is a little different because it's more emotional. It's like thinking, I have all this unstructured time, all this potential for connection and fun, and I'm still watching my kids melt down. I'm still watching them be grumpy, so I must be doing summer wrong.
Darlynn: [00:00:51] If you're thinking, my kids are bored and they're complaining all the time, and they're fighting and they're grumpy, you might be thinking, I must be doing something wrong. This should be easier. And because it's not easier, then something is wrong with me. I want to challenge that whole premise today, because I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to make summer perfect. And it's actually backfiring — not just on us, because we feel burned out, but also on our kids. So let's get into it.
Darlynn: [00:01:21] I think a lot of us start the summer with this lie, or maybe it's a fantasy, that summer is going to be the season where everyone is relaxed. There's going to be slower mornings, more connection, fewer schedules, more joy. And the truth is that summer can bring more of those things. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us have picked up an unspoken expectation that summer should also be smoother — that because there's no homework and no school drop-off stress, the emotional dynamic in our house is supposed to be better.
Darlynn: [00:02:01] And really, it doesn't end up that way. A lot of us still have meltdowns. We still have kids who are grumpy. We still have kids who are saying they're bored every fifteen minutes. Unstructured time actually creates more dysregulation, more big feelings, and more problems in a family. So we think this unstructured time is going to make us more relaxed, but really it tends to make us more stressed.
Darlynn: [00:02:31] We also end up spending a lot more time with our kids and we don't have as much break from them. So we end up feeling quite burned out in the summer, and then we make ourselves wrong for that. The truth is that summer is more challenging for families, and I want you to feel okay with that. That's true, and that's real.
Darlynn: [00:02:50] If that's happening to you — if you're getting to, say, the end of July and you're feeling so burned out and making yourself wrong for it — I want to normalize, first of all, that summer is more challenging. The other thing is that you are having a summer with your actual children. So meltdowns, moods, boredom, arguing — none of that is proof that something is broken in your family, or that you have ruined the summer, or that summer is a problem.
Darlynn: [00:03:20] The truth is that meltdowns, grumpy moods, and boredom are proof that your kids are kids. They're in a body, they have a nervous system, and they're having a life. That doesn't pause just because it's summer. So a kid having a hard moment on a beautiful sunny day — a beach day, a pool day, a lake day — that's not a referendum on your parenting. It's just a hard moment.
Darlynn: [00:03:51] Having a beautiful day, or a fun activity planned, or a great experience, doesn't mean your child is going to be in a great mood. Your child is always learning how to be a human, how to be a person. So even if the circumstance is great, they may still be struggling with something internally. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with them and you haven't done anything wrong. It's just part of being a kid, or being a person.
Darlynn: [00:04:20] We go through all the effort of getting the snack bag, the extra clothes, the sunblock, and all those vacation plans — going to the fair, going to the lake, going to the beach. You put in a lot of effort whenever you do an activity like that with your kids, and we're trying to make it fun. But there's another thing happening for us: we're also trying to be "good moms." I put that in quotation marks because there's a myth that there's a certain type of mom who is a good mom.
Darlynn: [00:04:51] It's a cultural idea that a mother's worth is measured by how smooth she can make her children's experience — that if the day goes well, you did a good job, and if the day goes sideways, you must have made a mistake. You messed up the schedule, you messed up the snack, you weren't calm, you didn't put the socks on properly. Remember I talked about this with Dr. Angela Close a few episodes ago — one of the things that stuck with me is how much of modern motherhood has become intensive.
Darlynn: [00:05:30] This idea that a good mother is endlessly available, endlessly resourceful, and able to engineer her children's emotional experience so that they don't have bad feelings, don't have hard feelings. And then you add summer into that, with this idea that we have to have curated photos of families on vacation looking blissed out. It's easy to internalize: if I were doing this right, my kids would be happy right now. But being happy is not what childhood is. It's not even what being a person is.
Darlynn: [00:06:00] Kids are going to be bored, they're going to be grumpy, they're going to fight with their siblings. None of that means you failed to create the conditions for a good summer. It means you have children, and children have big, unregulated nervous systems that are still under construction. Your kids aren't done growing. Their bodies aren't done growing, which means their nervous systems aren't done learning to regulate.
Darlynn: [00:06:30] I want you to think about good enough — the good enough mom, or the good enough summer. I want you to start lowering your expectations a little bit. Instead of thinking about things being perfect, or even great, I want you to start thinking about things being good enough. Can this summer be good enough? Can this car ride to camp be good enough? Your children don't need you to create some perfect experience.
Darlynn: [00:07:00] What they actually need from you is to be present with them when they have a struggle, when they have a hard moment. They're looking for support from you, for emotional guidance and practical guidance. They're looking for modeling of how to pivot when you're having a rough day or a rough experience. Your kids aren't looking for you to bulldoze the path and make it perfect and idyllic.
Darlynn: [00:07:39] Well, actually, maybe they are wanting that. But let me tell you — even if your kids want you to make their life easy and perfect, if you try to do it, first, you're going to feel super bad, because it's not possible. And second, you're not helping your kids grow in their own ability to self-regulate, self-soothe, and self-manage — to pivot from hard moments, to overcome uncomfortable circumstances like boredom, frustration, or sadness.
Darlynn: [00:08:09] So your job as a parent is not to create a frictionless childhood. Your job is to be there to help your children when the friction comes. When your kid is bored on the porch and you don't swoop in with an activity, you're not being a bad mom. When your kids argue over whose turn it is on the trampoline and you let them work it out instead of playing referee, that's not neglect — it's what they're supposed to do.
Darlynn: [00:08:49] Your kids are supposed to have hard days, hard moments, and conflict, and you're not there to smooth it out. I want to make sure you're not feeling like your job is to smooth out all the rough edges in your kid's life and create a picture-perfect summer, a picture-perfect childhood, a picture-perfect life.
Darlynn: [00:09:08] When you do that — if you prevent boredom, if you diffuse every mood before it lands, if you solve all their sibling conflict, if you keep the whole day emotionally tidy — you're not protecting your kid. You're quietly teaching them that they can't handle their own experience without you managing it for them.
Darlynn: [00:09:28] Think about it from your kid's perspective. If every time they're bored you produce an activity, they don't learn that they're capable of generating their own ideas. If every time they're grumpy you rush to fix the mood, they don't learn that their moods will pass and that they don't require rescuing. If every sibling squabble gets adult-refereed, and you always work through every problem for them, they don't learn how to compromise and work together and create solutions on their own over time.
Darlynn: [00:10:07] If kids grow up in an environment that's over-managed, your kid might end up not trusting their own ability to cope. They may look outside of themselves for someone to fix that discomfort, instead of looking inward and finding their own resources. I know you want your kids to grow up to be emotionally healthy — and that means they get to have hard times, boredom, frustration, annoyance, and you telling them no. They are entitled to frustration and to struggle.
Darlynn: [00:10:47] Because with you as their mom, as their parent, you're going to help them overcome that struggle. And it's in that overcoming, in that tension, that friction of struggling through, that growth happens. That's where they actually build something within them — where they learn confidence, emotional regulation, and emotional resilience. When you are just good enough, when you create a slightly messy, occasionally grumpy summer, that's actually helping your children grow and develop.
Darlynn: [00:11:28] So here's how I'd reframe a few things for you. If you're in burnout, if you're feeling really discouraged, if you're kind of done and feeling bad about yourself, I want you to think about a couple of turnarounds. The first is around meltdowns.
Darlynn: [00:11:47] A meltdown is not a sign that you've done anything wrong, or that there's anything wrong with your kid. It's their nervous system releasing some pressure. So your job isn't to prevent meltdowns or fix them instantaneously — it's to stay steady nearby, let them move through that big-feeling cycle, and help them come back to baseline. You are not failing if your kid melts down.
Darlynn: [00:12:17] Meltdowns and big-feeling cycles don't mean you've failed. They mean your child is having a hard moment. And I'll tell you right now that in the summer, your kid is going to have more meltdowns, because the schedule is different, the structure is different, sleep is different, how they eat is different. That's just a reality. Your kids are going to have more big feelings, more meltdowns. So if you normalize that — if you think, okay, this is normal, nothing's wrong — that's your first turnaround.
Darlynn: [00:12:46] The second is: my job is to help my child manage this emotion, not to try to fix it or get them out of it. Now, obviously, sometimes you need to do a well-timed snack or a distraction — those parenting tricks. That's fine. There's a trend right now where you say a certain word or phrase as a distraction when a kid is having a meltdown. I'm not against distraction, because sometimes we just have to shift their mood.
Darlynn: [00:13:15] I don't want you to feel that you're a bad mom, or that something has gone wrong, when your kid has a meltdown. I want you to feel like it's normal, that you can handle it, that they can handle it, and that there's no problem. Grumpy moods — I also want to normalize that grumpy moods don't always have to have an explanation, and you don't have to create a solution for them either.
Darlynn: [00:13:46] Sometimes kids are grumpy. Sometimes I'm grumpy, sometimes you're grumpy. Sometimes it has to do with something going on, and other times it's just kind of a funk, and that's okay. I think sometimes when our kids are in a grumpy mood, we make it seem like they're depressed, or that we've done something wrong, or they're not liked at school, or they're going to grow up to be a bad kid or be unliked. Really, grumpy moods just happen, and you can wait for them to pass.
Darlynn: [00:14:16] The other thing that happens a lot is boredom. So we have meltdowns, grumpy moods, and boredom. When your kid says "I'm bored," a lot of us have an instinct to offer a solution — we see ourselves like camp counselors, especially in the summer. I want you to hold that instinct back. Avoid jumping right in when your kid is bored, and let them sit in that struggle a little bit.
Darlynn: [00:14:46] You can say, "Yeah, boredom is normal. That's okay. It's okay to be bored. I think you can handle it. I'm not worried about you. I'm pretty sure you can figure this one out." Boredom is like an on-ramp to creativity and self-direction. If you smooth it over all the time with well-timed TV, well-timed snacks, well-timed activities — if you run your home like a preschool or a summer camp — your child misses the opportunity of being in that boredom, being in that discomfort, and then getting to the other side of it and finding something satisfying to do.
Darlynn: [00:15:26] So don't be afraid of boredom. Don't try to fix boredom. Try to normalize it as much as you can. What happens is your kids will eventually get to the point where they may genuinely want you to give them some ideas. If you let them struggle a little bit and get to the end of their discomfort around boredom, they may be ready to pivot.
Darlynn: [00:15:56] So you can offer, "Hey, do you want to go outside and collect some rocks and paint them?" Or, "Do you want to sit and read a book with me?" Or, "I'm happy to play tic-tac-toe with you." Some sort of activity like that, or you can offer them an idea, like, "Why don't you go do a stuffed animal party?" Or, "Why don't I give you a big box from a delivery — you can paint it and make a little house for yourself."
Darlynn: [00:16:16] You probably have good ideas as a parent, but try not to rush into those ideas until your child seems really over the discomfort of the boredom and is ready for your solution. The last thing I want to talk about is arguing. If you have more than one child in your family, sibling conflict is inevitable. It is not evidence that your kids don't like each other, or that there's some major problem in your family.
Darlynn: [00:16:46] I don't want you to be thinking that anything has gone wrong because your kids argue or fight a lot. Now, of course I want your kids to be safe, and I want them to learn how to be in relationship with each other. That's a major benefit of having a sibling — you learn to negotiate, advocate for yourself, and repair with someone if you've hurt them. That relationship your kids have is actually very good for them.
Darlynn: [00:17:15] But if you're constantly intervening, you may be taking that opportunity away from them, and they may not be getting the benefit of having a sibling. So what I want you to think about is that what I'm actually asking you to do is less — and I think that should be encouraging. Instead of trying to do more this summer, I want you to think about being able to do less.
Darlynn: [00:17:46] I want you to intervene less, referee less, solve problems less, plan less. If you're really out of bounds in your family — if you're feeling that your family is really overwhelmed and overstimulated, which happens a lot, especially this last week or two of July — that's the time to set up some boundaries. Put the kids to bed early, get back to less dessert, less sweets, less activity, and rein it in a little bit.
Darlynn: [00:18:26] Create a kind of container for that nervous system so it gets a little bit boundaried and isn't so out of bounds. So if you're starting to feel like your family's out of bounds, I do want you to set up some structure and get back to some of your old routines. But I don't want you to feel like you have to plan more activities or do more problem-solving.
Darlynn: [00:18:45] Your job this summer, and all the time, is not to make things picture-perfect. Your job is to be that steady, warm presence in your children's life — to be there to help them instead of smoothing everything out. I want you to help them build the skills and tools they need in order to grow up to be resilient. You can do that by not making everything perfect, by not problem-solving or pre-problem-solving, and by not over-functioning or overthinking everything.
Darlynn: [00:19:24] In reality, your child needs a little less planning. Now, practically, when the guilt shows up — if you notice yourself thinking, "I should have prevented this," or "I should have done something better," or "shoot, I missed this cue, I didn't pay attention" — instead of beating yourself up about that, that's your cue to offer yourself some compassion.
Darlynn: [00:19:44] Let yourself know: summer is hard. I've been at this for several weeks. This is way more time as a family than we're used to. This is way more time that my kids are spending together. There's a lot of friction. We've been outside of our routine, outside of our structure, and all of this is normal.
Darlynn: [00:20:14] Giving yourself a dose of compassion and normalizing the struggle will help you feel less guilty. You can also sell yourself on the idea that conflict is good, boredom is good, friction is good. It doesn't mean anything's gone wrong — it actually means you're doing the job you need to do, which is to create a little bit of struggle for your kids. You don't actually need to create it; it's just inevitable. What I want you to do is stop preventing all of that struggle.
Darlynn: [00:20:44] So here's what I want you to take away from this. As I've been saying, meltdowns, grumpy moods, boredom, and arguments are not signs that you're failing at summer. They're signs that summer is doing exactly what it's meant to do — messy, imperfect, and supporting your children in their development. Your job has never been to engineer a friction-free childhood, to make your kid's childhood perfect or problem-free.
Darlynn: [00:21:05] I know you want to trauma-proof your kids, and I get that. But discomfort is not traumatic. Boredom is not traumatic. Disappointment is not traumatic. So this week, I'd love to invite you to think about a good enough summer, and normalize that for yourself. What would it look like to have a good enough summer? Look back at the last six or seven weeks and ask yourself: has this been a good enough summer?
Darlynn: [00:21:44] Can I get myself off the hook? Can I take the pressure off of me? I would love to see you take the pressure off yourself and create a good enough summer, and be a good enough mother — which I know you are, because you're listening to this podcast. You're taking the time to grow as a parent, to connect with your kids, to overcome your own trauma, and to set boundaries and follow through on them.
Darlynn: [00:22:14] All of those things are in the Connected Parenting Process, and I know you're taking them seriously. You're doing them. I want you to give yourself a lot of credit and remind yourself that nothing has gone wrong. If your kids are unhappy, that actually probably means something is going right.
Darlynn: [00:22:33] All right, I hope you have a great week, and I will talk to you next time. Happy summer.
