Ep. 107 - Staying Calm: Learning to Manage Stress, Teaching Kids How to Express Emotion and Co-Parenting without Communication with Dr. Alison Mitzner
Dr. Alison Mitzner is a single mom of 2 (ages 8 and 10), board-certified pediatrician, family wellness and fitness expert, and passionate supporter of parents feeling calm, confident, and healthy.
After attending medical school in Syracuse and completing her residency on Long Island, Dr. Mitzner worked at a private practice in Manhattan and is now a senior director at a major pharmaceutical company in worldwide safety and regulatory.
She is the author of the #1 Amazon best-selling book, Calm and Confident Parenting where she shares proven strategies and tools for making small changes to your mindset, routine, and habits to help parents raise their children with calm confidence.
In this episode, Dr. Alison and I chatted about…
How she structures her day to be able to fit in her full-time career, 2 kids and side hustle as a single mom
Most important aspects moms should focus on to start feeling less burnout and stress: exercise and sleep
Starting with working on yourself and learning how you deal with stressful situations
How to co-parent and keep consistency with your children when you barely communicate with the other co-parent
Teaching kids how to express their emotions so that they can learn tools to stay calm
Follow Dr. Alison Mitzner at
Website: www.dralisonmitzner.com
IG: @dralisonmitzner
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Ep. 107 - Dr. Alison Mitzner Transcript
[00:00:00] Stephanie: Welcome back to Mommy’s on a Call today. I'm excited to bring to you Dr. Alison Mitzner. Dr. Alison Mitzner is a single mom of two board certified pediatrician, family wellness and fitness expert, and passionate supporter of parents feeling calm, confident, and healthy after attending medical school in Syracuse and completing her residency on long island.
Dr. Mitzner worked at a private practice in Manhattan and is now a senior director at a major pharmaceutical company in worldwide safety and regulation. She's the author of the number one, Amazon bestselling book, calm and confident parenting, where she shares proven strategies and tools for making small changes to your mindset, routine, and habits to help parents raise their children with calm confidence.
Welcome, Alison,
[00:01:40] Dr. Alison: Hi thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:42] Stephanie: I wanted to start off by asking what is your biggest mom win of the week?
[00:01:48] Dr. Alison: Gosh, I guess so many. Well, my kids came back yesterday after from their dads. So I would say that they loved all the Hanukkah presents that I picked out for them. And the first night that was a win cause some, some years they'll be like, ah, it's fine.
It's fine. But yeah, they loved everything last night and dinner, there was. Nothing fancy at all. I, it was, I was like, we start, we had a little pizza bagels that I made and then these little, I don't even, I have a name for them. I guess. They're like pizza bites. It was a fun dinner. They just come home. It was Hanukkah.
Oh yeah.
[00:02:23] Stephanie: Well, to give the audience a little bit of context, tell me about your family structure. So what does that look like? I know you're a single mom. How old are your kids and kind of, what does that look.
[00:02:33] Dr. Alison: Sure. So I'm based in Manhattan. I have a daughter who just turned 10 and a son who's almost eight.
And yeah, I, they are very, now that they're getting older, they're very into their own individual things. So, you know, my daughter's story, she loves the theater and acting and singing and music and dancing. Probably drives her brother crazy event. And then my son's more of like sports. He says all the time, like I just love sports, all sports.
So they have all their activities and they're busy afterschool. They do their homework. I try and carve out when I do have them dinner time and that quality time. So out like dinners. So. Usually between five and seven, everyone's annoyed. If I don't text them back or they can't reach me, but yeah. So we just, it's fun.
I try and enjoy the time, you know, the quality time and kind of separate work and kid time.
[00:03:25] Stephanie: So you said you have kind of shared custody of your children. How do you structure your weeks around that? You know, when do you have your kids and how do you fit in your work? Not only are you working full time, you also have, you know, your side gig.
And so I'm curious as how do you structure your behind the scenes with your kids?
[00:03:48] Dr. Alison: The planning, a lot of planning and a lot of lists, but I really try and. Schedule the best I can, but I feel like it's, we know as a mom, right. It's always crazy. And it never stays as you plan, but scheduling the time, especially now during the pandemic, I didn't have a sitter regularly and it was just sort of me.
So making sure with work, I had that time and then knowing my schedule with my kids and what I would do there's one day a week, they go to their dads and alternate weekends. And so. Often people are like, oh, you have that free time when your kids are at the dad's. And I'm like, no, I am buried, trying to shop for them or food shop or do laundry bills.
So I kind of just schedule it. I, I don't know how else to say, like, I just have to really budget that time of knowing when I can get my work done when I can get other things done. And my kid time, because. And I talk about this a lot. Like multitasking never works and I really want it when I'm with the kids be focused on the kids because they know like when you're doing other things, you know?
[00:04:51] Stephanie: So how do you carve out that time for them? How do you set up those
[00:04:54] Dr. Alison: boundaries? It's hard. It's impossible. I just, the best I can. I know what I have to get done that day and I try and get it done early enough in the day, even before they come home from school, of course that'll change if someone's sick or school or whatever, but.
I know what I have to get done. And often I'll get up early that day earlier than I normally do. If I have to do you normally get up and normally get up? We can talk about like, exercise that that's my coffee and caffeine for the day, but typically between five 30 and 5 45,
[00:05:27] Stephanie: or you always been a morning person.
[00:05:29] Dr. Alison: Yeah, I think so. I like to do my workouts in the morning for all reasons. One of things always come up later in the day gives you that energy boost for the day. It just, yeah, it starts my day. Otherwise I feel more sluggish, but yeah, I'm usually a morning person, even on the weekends. I'm probably earlier than most.
[00:05:49] Stephanie: I was going to say with your cans. Yeah. What time do they wake up?
[00:05:52] Dr. Alison: I mean, they sleep till about seven. No, I mean, during the school week six 30 on the weekends, they can sleep till like eight, which is sometimes seven 30. Right. Well, you know, the unpredictability of when you're kids, you just never know if they're going to get up early that day.
And you're like, the whole morning is totally thrown off, but that's why things that I like to get done, I try and do before. Get up or before I get to work or, and kind of knowing what I have to get done that day, that's that important or has to get done. So this way, I know I have that time leader with the kids, but it's hard.
I don't think anything ever goes as I planned. Right. Yeah, kind of. And you know, I mean the three kids, it's just, you make it work as best you can and not stress, but as long as I know the important things get done that have to get done. I mean, there are times you have to use the iPad as a babysitter, if you have to get on an urgent call or something,
[00:06:47] Stephanie: but so you can't like tag teams.
So I was always saying like, you know, when I have things to do, like I have my husband to rely on, or I have. During the pandemic was harder with childcare, but at least I have that as a single mom. Like how have you handled that? Your kids are older now, but they weren't a few years ago. And we weren't in a pandemic a few years ago.
So you were having to leave the house to go to work. Cause I assume you didn't work from home back then, you know, how did that look? Like? How did you do
[00:07:16] Dr. Alison: that? It was hard. And when I first moved out, my kids are two and four. So you did need that extra hands. And I had it a little different, like I always chose to have two part-time babysitters over a full-time nanny, because if one was ever out, I would just be lost.
Like, what would I do without that help? I had like some close friends. I mean, I, I don't even know how to describe how grateful I am for them, because there was one time I broke my hands, like months into moving here and I was like, I need to go to the ER, can I please bring my kids? Or like juggling even to do laundry and bringing them up and downstairs.
Like I just, cause he couldn't leave them alone at that age, but there are things that I just had to know. I had to have that outside support to juggle it all. You don't have someone that you can and you have to plan well in advance. I'll have a
[00:08:06] Stephanie: hard time asking for help. Do you, or how did you kind of come to that place to be able to ask
[00:08:12] Dr. Alison: for help?
I think initially, I mean the first few months, I, you just kind of know it was hard and you have to figure out who's there for you. And who's really part of you. You always have the word mom, tribe. I hate using that, but it's true. Like who's there for you no matter what or what you could do for them. Who you can count on.
But I think I, I learned pretty early on, I couldn't do myself. Like I need my sleep. I had to care of me to be that parent that could take care of my kids. And you couldn't do it all. I mean, it's just impossible. And then initially just having them with me most of the time and moving in, I knew I needed that extra hands and I don't have that much family around me close to.
In the city. Um, at least at that time, either, you
[00:08:59] Stephanie: just said something interesting. You said, you know, I needed to like focus on me and that a lot of moms, it's hard for them to get to that point, to put themselves in a place where they can like work on themselves, where they can take care of themselves. I hate saying self care these days, because I feel like that.
So over done, but it's also so needed. And so how did you get to that point where, you know, you focused on you and what do you do for yourself besides say working out daily, that's kind of for your own mental and mindset sanity.
[00:09:33] Dr. Alison: I learned, and this is why I wrote about it early on, and for my own personal.
Experiences and injuries that I had ever. I learned all about, like you said, self care and alternative medicine, all these things that I needed to learn. To focus on myself at the time that I, at the time, I thought it was the worst thing ever. Now I'm grateful for it because it's changed my life of who I am as a person and those around me and for my kids, because it forces me to see the impact of taking care of yourself first.
And I still do that today for my parenting. I would see how, if I didn't sleep, when you sleep, you're more anxious or you're more impatient or you snap more at your kids or you eat worse. And then if you eat worse, you're more sluggish. They're all intertwined. So just over the years, I've seen in every aspect of my life, I still have that impacted both positively and negatively.
So I just knew if I wasn't getting enough sleep or if I was trying to do it all, or I just, I couldn't be that parent that I wanted to be sort of.
[00:10:31] Stephanie: Coming out of the pandemic. I'm mentally exhausted, physically exhausted too. But I guess what are some baby steps that like, someone like me could take to start down that road of feeling better?
You know, what are some everyday habits that you can start just like baby steps, because, you know, we all say we want to work out great, but that's like a bigger thing. What are some of the things that, you know, have helped you become more, also calm and confident, but also mentally less exhausted.
[00:11:00] Dr. Alison: There's so many.
Like you hear about sleep, diet, nutrition, exercise self-care but that's different for everyone. So for me, exercise is huge. I mean, I'd say that's one of my biggest, because it impacts everything physically, mentally, emotionally, and I mean, there's so many, I think sleep, I think. Sleep the same time. Try to as much as you can, the same time every night and getting enough quality sleep is so important.
I mean, it's hard when you first have kids and young kids coming in your situation too. And I'm all for naps now ever since having kids, but ensuring at least good night's sleep. It's such a huge impact. On your emotional health as well. So I think that's like so important, um, where people kind of put that back if they just have so much to do.
But I feel like if you get a good night's sleep, well, I know this too. We know that quality sleep you'll actually get more done the next day. Right. You'll feel more rested. And what else?
[00:11:57] Stephanie: I mean, I love the name of your book. Common competent parent. So like most of us are not very calm, maybe confident, but not very calm.
What are some of the, like, Your biggest takeaways, I guess, from the buck or from what you do or what you've seen happen. And especially now, because I mean, after all of this, we lose our temper. We lose whatever we've been with our kids way too much, even now that they're back in school. It's been a load.
That's been on parents for a long time. Wait, how did you start down the journey of being, I guess, calm and anythings that like, we can start doing to really implement that because I'm big on reparenting yourself. I've noticed that like there's all of these parenting tips on like how to parent, but the problem is if you don't change yourself, And your parenting, isn't going to change.
Like you can implement all the tools and tactics and all of that, but if you don't focus on yourself, you can't really change. And so I'm curious, how do you become more calm? Because I feel like becoming more calm. What's the word for it? Like it models to your kids and it creates a better atmosphere and environment
[00:13:06] Dr. Alison: at home.
Well, exactly. When you say role modeling for your kids, that's why starting with yourself. Cause they're watching. They learn by watching us as their role model. So they're saying you react to stressful situations in a more, less anxious way or more calmly. They learn to do that when they're forced to. And it's about learning how to deal with your emotions and your emotional health.
So how you deal with stressful situations. Isn't easy and right. We're all gonna have stress in some stresses. Good. And it motivates us, but other times, rather than snapper, rather on how we're going to deal with certain situations. So I don't know, there's different. All of these things impacted, and that's why it ended up in such the book.
But I would say.
[00:13:51] Stephanie: I think what is the biggest thing you've done that you've noticed in your own children? Like, especially going through a separation and, you know, the differences and environments for the kids can be stressful and stressful for you as a parent managing relationships and changes how, I guess, with your own kids and with your own self, what has been a big thing for you that you've done?
[00:14:14] Dr. Alison: Well, I know. Things that are out of my control. Like I used to stress over a lot of different things where now I know what to do, whether I take a break or a breath or practice gratitude, or I learned a lot about mindfulness and meditation and all these things that I heard of years ago that I was like, there's no way these things can do anything.
And then I researched it and actually on myself as my own experiment, saw the impacts on my life and how I can deal with stressful situations. More commonly. Which really, it goes back to when I was forced to learn these things back in a prior injury eight years ago. And again, I didn't really believe any of it was true, but I had to function, right.
I had all this, no one could figure out what's going wrong. And I learned all these different modalities. So I think seeing that and knowing that I can't change anything and we'll always have stress in our lives on how I can, what I can do in this stressful situations, humor a lot. I try and just think in the positive and laugh at different things or.
Not minimize any issues, but really. I think taking a break to me, Pratt and all these alternative medicine set of modalities that are in there. And along the way really made an impact. I do think fitness, I know back to that, but that if I'm ever in a bad mood or like, I don't work out, I find myself more sluggish and more moody or diet as well.
I mean, that's. Huge topic to take a whole talk on, but I feel like the worst, if you're eating different foods or worst foods are infamous for it, there's different things that impact the way you feel, which really, I think it's all, like I said, interrelated and intertwined and self-care taking time for yourself.
Like you said, even if it's 20 minutes, like moms, we need a break or dads or anyone to focus on yourself. Recharge and like, you just you'll get burnt out. And that's just another reason for more stress and anxiety in your life. Right.
[00:16:07] Stephanie: Well, I want it to switch gears a little and talk a little bit about your career and the reason why is you were talking about all these kind of alternative medicine.
More holistic things. And that you even said like, oh, I didn't really like, believe in these before, because you were an actual or you still are a pediatrician or you were, you know, you went to school to be a medical doctor. And a lot of times we separate that medical doctor from more like holistic health and you didn't stay as a pediatrician.
You kind of shifted in your career. And so I wanted to ask like, first of all, Why did you switch gears? But also when did you have kids throughout the process of all of this? Because I know for a lot of moms out there, having kids ends up changing your career trajectory, whether like it's, they can't work full-time anymore, or they realize they're passionate about something else.
So for you. Why did you switch your career? And when did you have your children in that whole journey?
[00:17:02] Dr. Alison: So, yeah, I'm definitely not the traditional path, but I practiced and I always loved kids. And I think by default times they went into pediatrics, but I practiced for a while here in Manhattan. And then it was about five years in when I really, I loved medicine and I helped loved helping patients, but I found myself really wanting to use more of the, I was fascinated by the research and really wanted to use tech to the really complicated cases. So all these different things that I thought, you know, what I needed, maybe practice wasn't for me. And I really looked to see what else was out there. And I had no idea at the time. What I could do is with an MD.
I was actually, true story, looking about meteorology schools in Miami, because I'm fascinated by the weather as well. And then I,
[00:17:51] Stephanie: after all those years of going to school to be a doctor,
[00:17:55] Dr. Alison: my parents are not
[00:17:56] Stephanie: happy with that. It's an interesting question. Cause I actually have a bunch of mom, friends who are doctors, ER, doctors, pediatricians, things like that.
And they're always like. We can't just throw away our degree. What do we do? So I'm here to ask you what can they do?
[00:18:10] Dr. Alison: I, I mean, this was well before. I mean, there's so many, but there's so many more options today, even, but so I researched all different things while straight and then boyfriend at the time was saying everyone out in Northern California works for pharmaceutical companies.
So I researched that angle and I learned about safety and regulatory in the industry. And I transitioned to the pharmaceutical industry and I really love. So I feel like now what I do is so rewarding, just as rewarding, if not more helping patients, because it's not on a small level, it's really like in the millions.
And so I can really use that science and medicine that I love. So I made that transition well, before I had kids or even met my husband, who I had kids with. And then years after that, while I was in the industry, I had children.
[00:18:59] Stephanie: Did at any point in there where you, like, I don't know if I can continue my career or where you, like, it's not even an option.
Like it's totally fine. Kids didn't change.
[00:19:08] Dr. Alison: Yeah, kids didn't change it. It's interesting. Cause even then I remember my boss at the time saying, oh, you're never going to come back. I'm like, no, I'll come back early. But I did extend my leave a little bit because I loved being home and mom and nursing and all that, but I didn't feel like it would change my career at all.
And that's even more when I started doing more on the side because parents would still be coming to me with questions or confused if there's so much misinformation and starting. Writing and speaking and talking all the parenting stuff that still sort of stuck with me because of that, that I did outside my, my career too.
And I love that. And that's actually sort of how the book came about because there was nothing really that I found when I was pregnant that I thought would be an easy read or not boring or not textbook like with parents would want to pick up because there are going to be so exhausted. Right. We're working, taking.
So, yeah, so that's sort of the career path that I took.
[00:20:01] Stephanie: So then how did you also find time to write a book while working full time while also having two kids? And also having apparently side stuff where you're speaking, you're blogging, you're on media. So like, how did you fit that all in? Like how did you structure it?
[00:20:19] Dr. Alison: Yeah, I did well after my kids would go to sleep. I would write a lot in the morning if I was doing workouts. I, I thought a lot about what I wanted to write on the weekends. You know, when my kids were at their dad's and it's funny, cause my friends were like, that's what you want to do. Like you want to work more, but to me, it's not working.
I love it. So parents are reaching out or if I have to write, so it was really on any spare time, but it was a lot of nights and me that like, I need my sleep and I talk about the benefits of sleep. So it I'd have to force myself sometimes to stop writing at a certain point. Or, you know, I tried to do a lot at night after the kids would be in bed.
I mean, other times they'd fall asleep on their floor when they went to bed. But for other times, yeah, I would just do it. I didn't have the kids or when they were sleeping. And did
[00:21:02] Stephanie: you write this during the pandemic or beforehand?
[00:21:05] Dr. Alison: I started it right before the pandemic and November the fall of 2019. I had thought about it for years.
And a lot of what I was writing about, or for a media or on my blog would be similar topics. So I thought about it, but I didn't know exactly. W how I want it to put it into a book that would be succinct enough where they would get this information easy to digest. So it was probably the fall of 2019 where I, I flew down to Austin, to the company that I was working punching company that I was working with them.
Yeah. And started writing it. So most of the writing was done during the pandemic. So it's a fitting topic for that, but not at all. I
[00:21:44] Stephanie: was going to ask like calm and confident is a very thing. Like after the pandemic, it seems like something really important to have. And so I'm wondering, did you have anything that you changed throughout the process?
Like anything you discover that parents really needed that maybe not before? And if so, like what are those things that parents really need? Or an, any like tips on like how to address that?
[00:22:06] Dr. Alison: Nothing changed. I thought about that when I worked with the editors, I was like, is my, do I just have to throw my book out the window?
Because the pandemics changed anything? No, if anything it'll be relevant for that, but I didn't want. For the pandemic, because it's all these topics that we've, we live with everyday pre pandemic. And when the post pandemic, whatever that looks like, but it's a lot of the same topics. I mean, it's self care and it's starting all still starting with the parent, which I wanted to really focus on that impact on parenting.
Diet nutrition, exercise, sleep. I put in things as far as emergencies and what you need to stay calm and confident through emergencies and that sort of parenting, but nothing that I think I think is super relevant now for parents, more than ever, but nothing that I changed because of which is
[00:22:59] Stephanie: actually on that note.
How do you stay calm and confident as a co-parent because I know that can be stressful. There's different ways that everybody parents and so dealing with your partner who might parent differently, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with, you know, you're even saying like it's important to have your sleep, have your nutrition as a parent so that you can parent really well, or, you know, in a certain way, how do you deal with that as a co-parent
[00:23:29] Dr. Alison: for the impact of the kids? You think? Great. You're saying, yeah, so it's hard. And there's times I remember when my kids were younger for smooth Jack, I can only, I can only do what I can do when the kids are with me. Right.
So you can control what happens at school. You can control what happens to move. So there are times my, my, my daughter was younger. Weight was an issue. Fortunately, it's gotten better now, but I knew what she was eating. Like to keep her nutrition diary or keep track. It's it's very, it's not easy because you have to have right.
That trust and communication. And when you're co-parenting. Even speak, how do you do that? So you can only focus what you can do with your kids on your own time. I mean, now, as they get older, it's easier, but it's hard. I don't know if I have an answer. I mean, every situation is so different and every scenario would be, but I learned not to stress over what I couldn't control.
Like it was just, it was hard initially. I think every parent we like to know what's going on and if.
[00:24:34] Stephanie: When they're not with you, because I mean, I've seen, unfortunately, a lot of COVID casualties of divorces or separations throughout the pandemic. And they've seen that, that other parents out there it's stressful.
Like some parents don't talk at all. Some parents are great co-parents where they're on the same page and they're doing it for the kids. Like, and. So like, how do you manage that without quote, communication? How do you manage that consistency and how do you do that with your children to make sure that they come first in all of this, despite your differences?
[00:25:07] Dr. Alison: I mean, again, it's really just, I can only do what I do, but there are, there is going to be differences. Everyone, you know, bedtimes even you'd how much are they tired? Are they acting out or having a character because they're exhausted or they're overtired. And I don't know what time they went to bed the night before, again, now at eight and 10, it's a lot easier than when they were like three and five, because you can get a sense of like, oh yeah, I went to bed at this time or whatever, but that's a more simplistic, simple example, but yeah, I can only, I mean, the best you can do it.
Can when you're with the kids and COVID, it's hard. I mean, I imagine whether you're separated or not, there could be those differences of opinions of you want them home, or you want them at school, or you don't want them in this activity or you it's. It's a, it's a tough situation. I think for everyone, fortunately, we're on the same page as far as COVID and vaccine and how to handle the situation as far as masks and all that.
So that, that, that was very helpful, but yeah, I don't know. It's a tough situation. It's too. Knowing that you can only control what you can control.
[00:26:17] Stephanie: That's good to like, let go of all of that. And how do you teach? Do you teach your kids that at all? Or how do you communicate with them about that to like, not stress out about that?
Or if, if things are really different. Cause I know, you know, kids don't like change, like change is hard. And so to like go from how, how did you get them kind of adjusted to being in different environments?
[00:26:37] Dr. Alison: And they were so young, I think it was in a way better that they were younger. And now they're older and understand this is how it is for now.
I don't think it's ever easy. I think the reverse and it took me awhile to actually decide that this is what I want to do and end it, but I think it's better for kids to see. Uh, parent in, you know, in a way where they're happy rather than what a marriage shouldn't look like. So there that the kids are great.
I think it's just a matter of, for their emotional health. Like everyone's going to be upset or get, or I, I do like to talk about as far as stress and anxiety, but like having kids learn how to express their emotions.
And that's another topic that I really liked to talk about as far as how to stay calm and decrease your anxiety and re is really knowing how to handle your own emotions, because we're all gonna have stressful situations come our way.
So I try to talk to them at least daily about. Their emotions or what they're feeling like, really learning how to express it. Cause sometimes they'll know now, you know, I got so upset and I'm angry and they things that we do to help calm them or breather, but they
[00:27:51] Stephanie: might not do you do with like help calm them?
Do you like, do breath work? Do you do meditation? Do you like, what do you do with them?
[00:27:58] Dr. Alison: There's different things like tantrums, you know, There's nothing that once it starts, that you can do to stop it, you have to let them have their not engage is the best way to deal with that. But other times when they're getting upset, not to get upset with them, but to try and have them take a breath, I've tried, there's different, great apps that help them, that help adults too, to help calm.
At that point in time. And really sometimes the hardest part is knowing why they were getting upset, but not to think about that at that point in time while they're that excited. Cause they're not going to hear you or really listen to why, but later on, trying to understand why and what they can do in that situation.
Some have, you know, something that they can get upset with our holds or squeeze or there's different ways that I do it sometimes I'll add, again, the humor, not at all of what they're getting upset about or some, because you don't want to minimize their feelings and know that you think that, and you understand that those feelings are real, but it's a matter of how, like, to kind of lighten up the situation, which I find really helps.
Cause then like they forget. Something else that might've been really upsetting in that with your parents. It's important because there's so many little small things that we might not think are a big deal, which to kids might be a big deal and stress them or get them upset. But I think learning about how to handle their emotions is the best.
[00:29:19] Stephanie: And now you're almost entering the teenage years, a few years away. It's a whole different like season of motherhood in that
[00:29:29] Dr. Alison: sense. Well, your kids are how old you one, three and six boys to go, but well, maybe not. And she seems like she's a teenager, but yeah, that's a whole nother.
[00:29:41] Stephanie: My three-year-old we say is a threenager because she acts like it.
[00:29:45] Dr. Alison: So. That's fun too. And then with the sibling rivalry,
[00:29:49] Stephanie: yes. And to stay a calm parent with the sibling rivalry, it really is. It's hard to like there's so many times I just walk away. I walk away. I was like, mommy needs a breath. Mommy needs a minute by herself because I am going to scream.
[00:30:04] Dr. Alison: That's perfect. And don't you find I have to do that sometimes. That's the, that's actually the greatest thing to do. And then sometimes they come. Then bond, like, all right, we should probably settle down because mom's going to understand, like they need their mom. They get that right.
[00:30:19] Stephanie: Well, the funniest is last week I did the ER, my daughter did that.
My three-year-old, she walked away and she goes, I want to be alone. And she goes in her room and closes the door and I just started laughing. I couldn't help, but laugh. She was so angry at her brother. She just stomped off and she's like, I don't like him. I need a minute by myself. You go take a minute by yourself.
Feel free. Do what you need to do. Girl, calm down. But it was funny because I don't, I do that now. Like I'm like mommy needs a minute away. Like, and so I think again, that's modeling, but I thought it was funny that she picked up on that
[00:30:58] Dr. Alison: she might help in. Did she feel that she probably did
[00:31:00] Stephanie: like, and then she literally came out of her room, maybe five minutes later.
I could see her in the nest cam. Like she got in her bed. She was like doing random things like talking to her stuffed animal. Then she comes out of her room with like, uh, I don't know, St. Patrick's day hat. Don't ask where she found it. She just marches downstairs and she's like smiling and happy and it like totally calmed her.
I'm like, cool. You did it. You did it on your own. I didn't have to step in and like stop a fight. It was great. Yeah. Well, anyway, to wrap things up, I'm going to ask them a couple last questions.
One. What do you think is a superpower. That you gained once you became a mom that makes you better in either business or life?
[00:31:43] Dr. Alison: I think, I guess even, even though it was a little bit before having kids, I think the whole calm and confident part of me where I really it's only made me. That much, it's only impacted my, my parenting that much more, or I use more and more within the parenting.
[00:32:03] Stephanie: Does it work at work too?
[00:32:05] Dr. Alison: So, yeah, I think it's overall like, and some others, I think of it because I've been told, like, that's your superpower if I have one, but like how to actually throw out work, because work can get stressful or life can get stressful. And then we're always, everyone's always saying I'm stressed, but like we're all gonna have stress and life is always crazy. But I think, yeah, that would, I'd have to say that's so my super power even more so after having kids,
[00:32:30] Stephanie: I love that. And where can we find you online.
My web
[00:32:33] Dr. Alison: links. Yeah. Everything is pretty consistent. Dr. Alison Mitzner. So Dr. Alison mitzner.com. Um, my social media handles are the same. So on there, I have lots of information. It's you can join for free for my blogs, for my handouts and guides and parenting guides and there's information on my book.
[00:32:52] Stephanie: Perfect.
Well, thank you so much for joining today. I appreciate you taking the time out to doing this.
[00:32:59] Dr. Alison: Thanks for having me. So,
[00:33:01] Stephanie: thanks. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of mommy's on a call. Your support means the absolute world. To me. You can find the show notes for this episode and other. Over at mommy's on a call.com.
And if you enjoyed this episode or have gotten value from the podcast, I would be so grateful if you could head on over to apple podcasts and leave a rating and review so that we can reach and empower more moms all over the world together. Thank you so much again, mommy pod, and I will see you here next time.