Managing Disappointment: When FOMO Becomes Just MO

What important family event are you missing out on? All of these events, these milestones, these celebrations, they’re being canceled and postponed. And it’s not just the actual event. It’s all the fun, the excitement, all the preparation, all the anticipation.

In this episode, we find silver linings in ways to teach our kids critical life skills in adaptability and managing disappointment. We talk about why to put those perfection issues on the brakes and how to focus on creativity, silliness, and connection.

1:35 FEAR OF MISSING OUT VS. MISSING OUT

Lynn talks about all of the ritual that we are missing that mark birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, and births.

Lynn talks about how to be empathic for everyone missing out but still figure out a way to mark the celebration and give meaning to it.

3:20 MARKING MILESTONES

Lynn suggests a way to acknowledge a milestone by changing something in the house or a family behavior or privilege when social gatherings can’t take place.

6:07 THE ROLE OF FLEXIBILITY

Lynn explains why flexibility is so critical to manage anxiety. Anxiety want rigidity. Lynn challenges the commonplace advice of our need for structure right now.

These new conditions are an opportunity to increase our kids’ skills in being adaptive and managing disappointment.

7:30 MANAGING DISAPPOINTMENT

Teaching our kids that things are bigger than they are and to manage disappointment can be a positive outcome of our social isolation. Life will be filled with disappointments and learning to adapt well to it is an important skill.

10:58 THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Lynn talks about the dangers social media can play now in making a parenting competition of how families are celebrating kids birthdays, for example. She warns that social media doesn’t foster social connection, but social comparison.

14:05 PROTECT JOY AND CREATIVITY

Focusing on creativity and silliness are balms for anxious states. Indulge in the creative work of others being shared online instead.

15:02 PERFECTION ISSUES

Lynn advises those with perfection issues to realize a pandemic is no time for striving for perfection. She advises those to use it as a time to work on authenticity and vulnerability. Perfection is a joy smusher, too, and it interferes with your ability to connect.

18:44 A HUMBLING MOMENT FOR LYNN

Lynn talks about how great it is to have her two college-aged sons home from college now and how much laughter there is. I ask her to imagine these circumstances when her boys were both under the age of 8.

19:18 FACEBOOK GROUP AND NEXT EPISODES

Thanks for listening and join the Facebook group for the podcast if you’d like to submit topics for us to talk about. We’re looking at all of that stuff coming in!

We discuss upcoming topics we’re planning on family sleep, regression, and losing it in front of your kids.

Full Transcript here.

Show music is "First Little Steps" by Peter McIsaac

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