How to Find Quality Time for Your Kids (even when you're feeling burnt out)

A Purpose Driven Mom Podcast

Episode 426

Are you looking for ways to spend time with your kids? In this episode of the Purpose Driven Mom Show, Cara explores the importance of spending quality one-on-one time with children, especially for busy parents. 

Spending one-on-one time with your kids individually is such an important thing to do as a mom. It is something that brings you closer to each child and allows you to build a better bond over time with them. It can be hard if kids are in school, have activities and homework to do. For Cara, it is important to be intentional when spending time with your kids and to make goals around that.

One of these goals can be to spend 15 minutes every day spending time with each child. Find something to do with them by choosing things that will bring you closer. Play a video game, read a book or go for a bike ride. It is best to speak with your kids on what things that they want to do during your time with them as a way to have fun and connect.

Take a listen to learn more!

 

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Episode Highlights:

02:39 Importance of One-on-One Time 

06:37 Balancing Activities and Family Time 

09:15 Setting Goals for Connection 

17:45 Decluttering Mind and Home 

19:46 Saying Yes to Fun 

Links Mentioned:

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3. The 15 Minute Formula: How Busy Moms Can Ditch the Guilt, Say Yes to What Matters, and Conquer Their Goals here >>> https://the15minuteformula.com/free/

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Transcript: How to Find Quality Time for Your Kids (even when you're feeling burnt out)

Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale an online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life. Toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this! Welcome to the purpose of our Moms Show episode 426. And before I get started, I actually want to go off to my little outline today because we’re talking about time with your kids. And I just want to encourage you, if you didn’t know, I wrote a book and I wrote it almost three years ago this morning, I went to open up the books because I’m doing something for the conference.

Cara Harvey 00:01:02 And I looked and I thought. Copyright 2021. This book is almost three years old and I don’t talk about it enough. I forget, not that I forget that I wrote a book, but I don’t share it. So maybe you’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time and you knew this. Or maybe you didn’t go to the 50 minute formula.com/free. There’s a workbook there. It links up to Barnes and Noble, Amazon, I read it on audio and it’s also in Kindle Unlimited. So if you have cou go download it, go check it out. I’ve been very reflective lately about where things have gone and where they’re going with my business, especially as we gear up for the conference when this comes out. Like we’re in conference zone already. But I forget sometimes how far I’ve come, and I don’t share it enough, and I don’t share my story enough. And we’ll talk a little bit about that today. I’m going to talk a little parenting today. no parenting expert here, but I’m going to share some some tips on spending time with your kids when you’re super busy, because that is my life story.

Cara Harvey 00:01:56 But I just wanted to tell you today I think you should go read the book. So if you’ve not read it or if it’s been a while, go to the 15 minute formula.com/free. If you want to just go right to Amazon, you can search for it there. If you have read it, I’d love a review or rating. That’s how people find it. And it hasn’t had reviews in a while because we haven’t done a huge push forward. It gets like a smattering of reviews and so we’d love some fresh ones. I appreciate you if you’ve read the book. So anyway, I was on my heart and I wanted to share it. We’re going to talk, though, about how to find one on one time with your kids as a busy mom. Like, how do you do it when you’re burnt out and you barely have time to be alone? Show notes are going to be over at a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast for 26, which is another wild thing to think about. 600,000 downloads, 426 episodes like you know and you know what it is.

Cara Harvey 00:02:39 We are almost coming to the seventh anniversary of A Purpose Driven Mom, and I think November 5th is the seventh when I officially launched the website to the world, and it really puts me in this reflective mode in the fall. There’s something about it where I get super introspective. We’re getting to towards the end of the year, and so I’m a little bit mushy and thankful for you. If you’ve listened to an episode, obviously you’re here. If you’ve shared an episode, if you’ve ever attended one of our live events, free or paid? If you’ve ever joined a program, I just want to say thank you. I feel so mushy today. Thank you because I think that I forget sometimes. I do feel mushy. Okay, if you’re watching this on YouTube, I’m getting a little little choked up, but I forget. I forget what I’ve done because sometimes I get stuck on thinking about what’s next. And I just want to encourage you today, reflect back. Reflect back on stuff you’ve done and be proud of yourself.

Cara Harvey 00:03:29 So an area I haven’t always been proud of myself though is being intentional with my kids. So let’s let’s segway into it. I want to share with you a couple of things that I’m doing, some goals that I made, and how I’m using my routine and goal methods around my kids. And I know, oh, you monster, it’s so formulaic, you know, don’t you just want to spend time with your kids? Yeah, I really do. I do, and there’s three of them, and we have lots of activities, and I volunteer a lot, and I have a job and I’m tired. All those things can be true just because you’re not spending as much time as you’d like intentionally with your kids does not mean that you don’t care about them. It does not mean you’re not a good mom. It does not mean any of those things. What it means is that you have a lot going on, and you just need to be a little intentional with the time. I want to encourage you that the time with your kids really does matter.

Cara Harvey 00:04:14 You know, it’s trite. Time goes fast. But where I’m at right now in my life to my youngest is about to turn 18. My stepson and, my husband and I have been dating dating together since Dean was three. So almost 3 or 4, 3 or 4. We’ve been together. 14 I’m trying to do the math. We’ve been together 14 years, married ten. So somewhere in there, right. I met Dean and have gotten the blessing to get to raise this incredible young man who’s about now I’m mushy, who’s about to be 18, like he’s about to be an actual adult. And it’s weird. And he is a senior and I get to see it. And I have this interesting perspective because also I have a child in first grade and third grade. So I get to see like people say it, but I’m living it where the time goes fast and I’m seeing it on this end with my oldest, and I’m watching it with my youngest, knowing what it feels like to have the time go fast.

Cara Harvey 00:05:03 And it’s just if anyone else has older kids and younger kids, it is a strange feeling and it makes you very sentimental and want to be more intentional with the time because it does go fast. You know, I look at my my daughter is going to be nine in December and like she’s like gearing into the pre-teen zone. Like she still plays with dolls, thankfully. And she still is a kid. I feel like a lot of that’s another soapbox for another day, but I feel like a lot of her friends, the conversation around cell phones is happening, which is wild. My kids aren’t permitted on YouTube, but a lot of her friends are, so the skincare like stuff is starting to happen around her. The other I’m going to say this in case you’re listening. You know the other things that kids often believe in as kids, like all that stuff is, you know, like, it’s all starting to happen now. And while I’m not trying to hold on to her innocence so tightly and, like, shelter her, I want my kid to be a kid for as long as, as as we can.

Cara Harvey 00:05:55 But I see it. I see the change in attitudes, the change in behavior. She walks to school by herself. Now, friends. So I say this with the caveat of and you know what’s so funny? I automatically want to qualify it for people who are like, how dare you? And I say this to my therapist the other day, I said I would be such a better parent if I stopped caring what other people thought. And I was like, oh, light bulb, right? You feel the same way. So not that I need to qualify to you that my kid walks to school by themselves, but we walk behind her. I walk with my first grader. She’s, you know, there’s three crossing guards on the way to school, so I’m less worried someone’s gonna, like, snatch her up. And I walk to school in third grade. You know, we’re right behind her anyway. But we’re at a very interesting place where we’re getting less time together. That one on one time I have with my kids, when I walk them to and from school, we walk.

Cara Harvey 00:06:37 Unless it’s like really bad snow or really bad rain, I will walk. It’s a very short walk. I love it because I want the time with my kids because I crave it, but now it’s getting less and less. Activities are more and more. My kids don’t do a ton of activities. Both of my kids do scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, and they play one sport at a time. That’s just kind of how we’ve run things in our home. But my children have chosen after school activities that are very involved. It’s not recurrently, it’s not like a once a week thing, like when my son did Ninja Warrior last year, it was once a week. It was cool. Like that was not whatever. But my son does football, which is three practices a week and weekend games. My daughter does competitive cheer, which is three practices a week and weekend competition. So it’s like they’ve just involved things. On top of that, my schedule is getting more and more full with work, and I have been taking on some more volunteer opportunities.

Cara Harvey 00:07:24 My husband’s schedule is full, we’re all very busy, so one of the things I realize, and I’ve been talking about this, was how much I crave time with my kids. When I don’t have time with them, I notice their behaviors. They start to change. Maybe you notice it to the attention seeking behaviors start to to come up for my kids. I can pinpoint them right? I know we feel like a disconnect, and because of all the rushing, which is the nature of where we’re at right now in September, everyone’s kind of nervous systems on high alert. And so when we got into September and I was making my September goals? I was like, I want to make a goal around more time with my kids, but I don’t actually physically have the time in my schedule. So what do I do? Let’s take a quick pause so I can encourage you to go grab my book. The 15 Minute Formula. I cannot believe it has been two years now since his book was originally published, and it has sold thousands of copies.

Cara Harvey 00:08:19 If you are looking to amplify your productivity, learn how to manage your time and finally conquer your goals in 2024, I want you to go to the 15 minute formula.com/free over there. I’ve got an absolutely free workbook that you can use to go with the book, and it’ll link you over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, where you can purchase it on audio, e-book, paperback or hardcover. Go and get the book that thousands of moms have downloaded and said has transformed the way they look at their time. Go to the 15 minute formula. Com slash free today. I would love to have hours with my kids. It’s actually part of the reason I am still considering homeschooling. Eventually. Maybe one day. Like I just want more time with them because we just don’t have it right now. But instead I ask myself, what’s practical right now? Now, when I pick a theme, which is a concept by teaching goal setting around my goals for each month, I tend to pick a theme that either supplements my goals or a theme that supports my goals right in the season.

Cara Harvey 00:09:15 So in September, we have. The conference is back to school season. A Girl Scouts has started. I’m also our registrar, so I do all the back to school nights in my town. I make all the troops, I place girls. It’s it’s a more intense volunteer in September and October and then it dies down until April. So anyways, I know that I want to be more intentional with them because it’s a busy season and so I can make a decision around the theme. My theme can either be something again, that supplements, helps fill in the gap or supports it. I have chosen my theme for September to be connection because I need that help. If I’m not intentional, if I’m not very much saying, hey, I want to have this intentional connection with my kids, so I’m going to make goals around it. It might not happen. And it was very interesting experiment. It’s been two weeks that since I’m recording this, this is coming out later, but it’s been two weeks since I started this goal and I’ve had some really big takeaways.

Cara Harvey 00:10:06 So let me show you what my goal is and then my takeaways. And then we’ll talk about how you can do it too. So my goal was I wanted to spend 15 minutes with each of my people every day, one on one, and I gave myself a few qualifiers. Right? I want it to be one on one, like I want to connect with them. I want to hear about their day, whatever. It doesn’t have to be anything. It literally it has looked like a walker on the block, right? A quick game of Uno playing Legos for a little bit, you know, so it doesn’t have to be we don’t have to spend money to do anything. It’s just I just want to read a book with you. Like, I just want 15 minutes ish to hang out with each person. And this includes my husband. So when my substance is his mom’s right now, but when he’s not, he’s included in that. I’ll send him a text, you know, on the other days.

Cara Harvey 00:10:47 And then my younger two and my husband. So I’m like, okay, I can do this 45 minutes to an hour, not together. You know, it just. I have to find it should be easy, right? The other qualifiers I gave myself was like, I want it. I didn’t want it to be on the way to her from activities. I’ll talk about that in a second, though, because I really that tends to be more logistical for us. And it’s not face to face like I wanted face to face. I want to paint my daughter’s nails. I want to hold her hand. I want to listen. I want to play a video game next to my son, right? But not them in the back seat. So I want that. And again, I want to no distractions. I want to know tech in the sense of like, if my son wants to play switch with me, we’ll do that. But no tech. I don’t want to be on my phone.

Cara Harvey 00:11:25 Okay, so those were like the three rules, quote unquote, I gave myself. And I remember going into the first week of September and I was like, well, duh, I obviously do this. This is going to be so easy. Like, I’m with my kids as soon as I pick them up from school, like we’re together all the time. But what I learned was, while we’re together, we’re not connected. We did not spend as much time together outside of being at their activities. Then I thought, and it was this Where I was like, this is actually going to be harder than I thought. I’m going to need the five step goal process. I’m going to need to be intentional. And at first I felt like a bad mom. I was like, wait, I really need to incentivize myself to hang out with my kids. Like, what is wrong with you? But what I realized is that guilt and shame isn’t going to move me towards my goal. That guilt and shame is going to make me feel like a terrible person and a terrible mom.

Cara Harvey 00:12:07 So what if instead I used the strategies, right? The goal setting strategy I use for every other goal I have with finding connective time with my kids? After the first week, I realized I do spend the most time one on one with my youngest. I don’t know if it was easier, but he wants more of my attention, right? He’s seven. He just turned seven two last week, so he. Mommy read a book. Mommy, let’s play a game, mommy, let’s go take a walk. Let’s go right by. He wants that time so much with me that he is just the easiest to be. Like, yeah, sure, let’s go. Like, you know, last night I came home from Girl Scouts. It was like 815. My kids go to bed around nine and they were getting ready for bed. I was like, all right, I gotta get some work. Like I had so much still to do to like, close out my day and he still will come over and be like, you wanna play a game? so he wants that with my daughter.

Cara Harvey 00:12:52 I realized while we spend a lot of time together at activities, we didn’t spend as much one on one time together, and it’s becoming harder to find one on one things that she wants to do. I haven’t asked her to play dolls. I don’t be real. I don’t like to play dolls because they can let kids yell at you because you’re not playing right? So I’m not a creative play person, but I love I love games and I love building. So my daughter is very into Legos. So I have said I saw her playing with Legos and I said, hey, can I come play Legos with you? And she loved that, right? So we were able to do that. I painted her nails before school. We took a walk around the block, but I didn’t. There were many days that I realized that at the end of the week, when I looked at the data because I was like, let me look at this like a detective, and not in a shame based way that I really didn’t have that much time.

Cara Harvey 00:13:35 And you know who got the last of my time as my husband? We did not spend time together. We got really good over the summer of like, we’ve been watching shows together and that has been like our connecting time. We’ve been checking in at night and not that I’m going to blame football, but it’s football season and I love my husband and he could have many worse qualities. But he loves football and he plays fantasy football and Madden. And football season is one of those where I like, quote, lose him a little bit. And because he’s a great dad, he wants to be involved with the kids. He plays his games when the kids go to bed. Now that time was me and my husband’s right. So when the kids go to bed that hour, because I go to bed early, I let me roll. I go up to my bed at ten, and then I scroll my phone on TikTok for an hour, and then I go to bed at 11. That’s the reality.

Cara Harvey 00:14:25 But that time, that was me and my husband’s. Like, that was the time that we we had together. And now he’s like, well, I don’t want to we don’t have time because our schedules are so busy, because because of the kids activities. He helps with activity. Like we split up, right? Like he he might take my son, I might take my daughter. We will switch back and forth. So anyway, by the time he’s ready for his night, right to play Madden or whatever, watch a football game or whatever he wants to do. It’s 9:00. The I, I Like my schedule and could I accommodate a little more, maybe stay up a little bit later? Yes. Right now I don’t. But yeah, then I’m ready to go to bed by the time he’s ready to hang out with me. And so it becomes a little bit of a challenge. And so now I’m trying to find different times of the day where we can connect. Now, I could have done a couple of things with this.

Cara Harvey 00:15:06 I could have shamed myself. My God, you never hang out with your husband. You barely see your kids one on one. I could have, but instead I said, let’s let’s figure out what to do, okay? So you know, and I know that that one time, one on one time matters. It’s good for our bond, is good for their emotions, their developmental brain. And it’s good for us. Like, I love my kids. They drive me nuts, but I love them so much. I just want to eat their first. Love them right? Like we all have that and I want to spend time with them. I want to get to know them. And I do think I would love to freeze time. I always like right now. I’ve been saying lately the ages my kids are at, I love, my son is seven, my daughter’s almost nine and my son again almost 18. I want to freeze time right now before my oldest has to become an adult and like be with all that.

Cara Harvey 00:15:48 I don’t want him to have to deal with that, because being adult is not as much fun. And my kids are at a younger age like they’re fun. We do a weekly monopoly game as a family and we play different versions every week. They can play monopoly now and but they also like to do big kid things and like are getting into like, I don’t know, roller coasters and my daughter can walk to school by herself. But also I’m right there. I don’t know, it’s just a really fun age for me. So I want to get to know them as people at like where they’re at, especially now my daughter, she has her own little personality, the things that she likes, like she’s just becoming this cool kid and I want, I want it so bad. So what do we do? Right? I told you my story. Maybe you’ve, you know, resonated with anything I’ve said. What are we going to do? One is, I want you to make a goal.

Cara Harvey 00:16:31 Make it small. My goal was 15 minutes a day or less. It can be less like literally, I just want to spend one on one time with everyone. I’m realizing I’m not doing that. So my goal in September is to track it, to just track. Honestly, yesterday it was Monday. We had an incredibly full day right from the minute we got up right after school was the dentist. We came home and then my son had football. We had our first Girl Scout meeting, which takes a lot out of me because I’m the Girl Scout leader. Like, I just it takes a lot of my energy out. Didn’t get home till 830, then it was bedtime. I didn’t have time for anybody, I didn’t I had time for myself in the morning because I got up early to work out and read. That was all there was time for. And so, okay, it is what it is. Let me look at the trends. Right. I want you to just be a detective.

Cara Harvey 00:17:15 I’m tracking in September what this looks like so I can make different goals as the year goes on. Okay. I want you to do the same. What is your goal? What is it going to look like? And again, I set some norms for myself. You can do the same. I want to pause real quick and tell you about one of my incredible friends, Denise, and what she’s doing over at her site, Denise Albert. Com if you’re looking to declutter your busy mom mind and your home, you’ve come to the right place. From juggling family schedules, meal planning, budgeting, and more, this is going to help you get all the solutions in one spot. Listen, Denise is a mom of three. She understands what it’s like. And in this digital age, downloading all of your thoughts and your plans from your mind onto paper can make it feel like it’s 1997, right? But we know what it’s like to have a clear head. You can get planners, tools, and her incredible app where you can organize all of your kids photos, artwork and more.

Cara Harvey 00:18:08 If you’re trying to keep your space clear and get rid of the paper clutter, you’re going to want to check out all the Denise has to offer. Her app has been a game changer. I will get pictures sent over from the teacher and I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to forget about them so I can store them in the app, label them first grade Isaiah and go back to them every single year. She’s got a solution to keep the kids memories in a place, and not all the paper drawings of the Pokemon that I don’t need anymore. Her Class Keeper app is a game changer. No more piles, no more glue guns to make scrapbooks and or mom guilt for not having it all beautifully organized. I want you to go over to a purpose driven romcom slash class keeper. That’s a purpose of her mom. Com slash class keeper that’s gonna link you over to all of Denise’s free printables to get organized in your routines together. All of the incredible journals and planners she has, and her incredible Class Keeper app that’s a purpose driven romcom slash class keeper.

Cara Harvey 00:19:04 I want you to also think about how you can take what’s already happening in your day and turn them into one on one time. So, for example, both my kids have to read for ten minutes, so my daughter reads to herself, my son can read, but he is in first grade, so they’re like, you can read to him, he can read. So that’s part of his homework. It’s part of something we have to do. So what I’m trying to do then is saying, when it’s homework time, I say, why don’t you come read your books to me? And then I want to read a book to you. My brain wants to be like, oh, it’s another thing. I’m going to be honest, right? I don’t feel like reading another book. I don’t feel like playing another game. But I want you to remind yourself it really doesn’t take that long. Reading one book to my kid truly does not take that long. But I will make it feel like, oh my God, I don’t have time for this.

Cara Harvey 00:19:46 I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for this. I was listening to this podcast and they were talking about the word no. And when you say no to your kids around like fun stuff, not safety or whatever, like we go hiking, my kids will climb on rocks and I’ll be like, no, ask yourself why? Like, why are you not saying no? Is this safety concern? Obviously, if it’s not, and if it’s just because I don’t feel like it, I don’t feel like taking any longer. Let the kid climb on the rock. It’s really going to take 30 extra seconds. And so I’ve been kind of incorporating this in. So yeah, he has to do his reading. He’ll read to me and then I’ll be like, can I read you a book? But I’d love to spend one on one time with you and name it. I’d love to spend the special. We call it mommy’s time. Like, I’d love to do this with you, you know, same with my daughter.

Cara Harvey 00:20:22 If I have to go, you know, and run errands, I might say, hey, are you want to go grocery shopping with me? And then, she likes Claire’s. That’s the phase of life we’re in. And it’s not always having to spend money. But I might say, hey, do you want to go look around Claire’s for a little bit? Or my son has been introduced to GameStop because we don’t go to who goes to the mall anymore, right? My husband took him to the mall. He learned a GameStop. They let you play the games, you know, and nobody’s ever at the mall. So, hey, I have to go run to the grocery store. But first, do you want to come to the game stop for like 15 minutes and I’ll let you play some video games, you know, like try to think how you can incorporate it. When we take my son to football, if my daughter is with me, yes, I’m sitting there watching. But I can also say to my daughter, like, hey, do you want to go walk around the field a couple times together? We do that a lot.

Cara Harvey 00:21:03 A lot of like, now that it’s nice ish out, let’s go take a walk around a lap around the block. It takes us 15 minutes and we just talk and my kids pick up sticks, and I ask about their day and things like that. My daughter is at the phase, though, where I talk too much for her and she’s like, you just ask too many questions. So I tried to leave a more open ended. And sometimes we don’t talk. But she’ll always start sharing something. Making the most of the small pockets of your time is going to allow you to realize that it doesn’t have to take like, what is it the saying quality over quantity, right? That time is so good for you and them. And then and then also make sure you’re planning it with your partner and your spouse too, right? They have to have some of your time. And it’s hard because I feel like by the end of the day, for my husband in particular, he gets the what’s the word? The fumes.

Cara Harvey 00:21:46 Right, I. From the minute I get up at like I get up around like 545, six to the minute, like, even after the kids go to bed because I’m doing things like I’m on and I know that he gets the last of it, but I want to give him something, okay? Like, we deserve that and we need that connection. The other thing I would recommend that I’m going to start doing, I didn’t do that week one and I didn’t do a week two because this this week. And I should have actually, now that I’m thinking about it, it’s only Tuesday when I’m recording this. The week isn’t over. See, this is a mindset shift. We think, oh, I didn’t plan it already. The week is not over. This week is incredibly busy. I mentioned there’s back to school night for my kids, and then also I have to be at all the back to school nights for Girl Scouts as a registrar to like, get people signed up. So every night this week we have like 2 to 3 things a night.

Cara Harvey 00:22:28 It’s it’s wild, so there isn’t a lot of time. So what I actually think I will do when we get off when we get off this call. No. When I’m done recording this episode is be intentional. When is that 15 minutes going to happen? Where is it going to go? Because if not, the time is just going to happen just like every other goal. If you’re not intentional about it, the time is just going to keep going. The other thing I kind of want to just like close out with is I get it. I know that you have a lot on your plate. My question is for you. If you want to prioritize time with your kids as one of your goals and listen, you don’t have to. I don’t always do it as a goal. It’s just something I have right now. But if that is a goal of yours, ask yourself, what can we do in five minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes? Get it excited and get it planned. One of the other things I think we’re going to start trying to do, we started the year with it, but we haven’t done it.

Cara Harvey 00:23:13 I don’t think it made it past February was one on one dates. You know, we’re just on the end of the year budget, if you will. It’s the holidays. We have all three birthdays coming up. My daughter has just decided she’s going to join the orchestra. Which side note, like, why are we in the orchestra in third grade? Where is my recorder? My hot cross buns. Like, slow it up. And she wants the string bass, which apparently costs $300 to rent. So I’m like, all right. So you know, we’re in tight, tight, tight budget mode. So this doesn’t maybe make sense now. But at the beginning of the year, when the budget was a little less tight, we were doing one on one dates every month. So I would take my son to go play laser tag, or my husband would take her to the trampoline park, like we were doing stuff like cost some money. Right now we don’t have that. But asking your kids like, hey, what’s the one on one stuff you want to do together? And incorporating that in can be helpful.

Cara Harvey 00:23:57 You can expand how much time you spend with each other, but I really do encourage just doing it for you, doing it for the connection with your kids. Because especially for you, as you’re so busy and as you’re doing so many things, it can be easy to lose sight of what matters and what’s important and everything else. Honestly, my to do list sometimes comes before my kids, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In some seasons we talk about the glass versus the rubber balls. You can go back and listen to episodes on that. Sometimes my kids are my rubber ball. They’re still important. But like if we don’t spend one on one time, we’ll bounce back. But there is something about this summer that reminded me of how much I just crave time with them, and I wanted to keep it going in September. So this is our story on how I’m working to find more time with my kids. I’m trying to be more present with them and hopefully this gave you some encouragement and some tips if you want to do the same.

Cara Harvey 00:24:46 Shownotes are over an episode of RomComs Podcast for 26. Check them out! DM me at a purpose over on Instagram. And hey, go check out the book. It gives you good tips on things like this the 15 minute formula, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all those places. See you next week for another episode. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom Show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there, of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening.

Cara Harvey 00:25:34 We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.

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