Hello Sunshine, Hey besties.
Today on the bright Side, so many families are starting a new school year and some of us could use a little boost after sending our kids off. Definitely not talking about myself here today. We're joined by the founder of the mother Company Life Coach, Abby Schiller. She's here to help us navigate that transition, offer a great way to talk to our kids about it, and the number one question you should ask yourself if you're feeling stuck.
One of my favorite questions to ask kids at any age is what are all the ways you can solve this?
Because we are raising problem.
Solvers, Ultimately, we can't solve everything for them. They have to become independent and critical thinkers.
It's Thursday, August twenty ninth. I'm Simone Boyce.
I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Danielle, what do you remember about your first day at Wisconsin?
Were you excited? Were you nervous?
I thought I was going to throw up. Really, I didn't eat for like the first two weeks of college. I was so nervous. My mom came up, dropped me off, got my whole room, settled with me. She was so amazing, called it our room. It was not my room. She called it our room. She would call me and be like, hey, how's our room. But then she left and she drove back to Chicago. It's like a two and a half hour drive. And I called her that night crying and I said, can you please come back?
And she did.
She came back that weekend and stayed for the weekend, and then I was finally off.
And then you felt like you could transition on your own.
Yes, I feel like your experience was very different.
I was so ready for the freedom. I was like bye, Mom and Dad. I honestly can't remember whether I was nervous. I'm sure I had some nerves, but I just remember wanting to make friends immediately. Yeah, I just I wanted to find a community. I wanted to find that sense of belonging because that's what I grew up hearing about college. Yes, you know, it was like this is where you find your people, the friends that you're going to be with
for the rest of your life. So one of the first things that I did to try to make friends during the summer, because I think I arrived during summer school, okay, to kind of get settled in. I bought a slip and slide and I brought it to one of the parks on campus, and I started making friends that way, Like I made some friends that day.
Hilarious. Are you in touch with any of your slip and slide friends?
I'm not, okay, that's okay. They serve their purpose. I hope you're doing well, slip and slide friends.
The idea, like the fact that you did that makes me giggle. I love that.
Yeah, why not?
So Simone, we're sitting here talking about college, but you actually recently sent your son to transitional kindergarten, which is such a big deal. It's so different experiencing going to school versus being a parent and sending your kids off to school. I know it was tough for you.
It was so tough.
I don't even I'm so mad that I have to talk about this because I'm probably gonna cry again. It's not even that i'm it's not even that I'm still sad. It's just I had this beautiful moment with my son, Logan, who is going to TK, which means he was starting at a real elementary school for the first time, and he was fine, My son is like so social, so gregarious, so outgoing, and he could see that I was having trouble.
I had my sungnglasses on.
He could see that my eyes were welling up with thug tears, and he was like.
Mommy, why are you sad?
And I didn't know what else to say other than you know, I'm a little sad that you're growing up. Like I'm so excited for you and I love you so much. And he gave me extra hugs that day because he knew that I needed it. And as he was walking in with his little oversized backpack that's bigger than him, he turns around and he gives me two thumbs up. And it was just the most intuitive moment because he knew that I needed that extra sense of validation that he was going to be Okay.
I got chills when you said that kids are incredible.
Yeah, the way that they like to be seen by a four year old. Imagine ever being seen and understood on that level by someone who's thirty years younger than you and.
Like thirty inches tall. Yeah, it's wild.
It's wild that they have the comprehension and maturity to do that.
Oh that's so beautiful.
Yeah.
I see online now all these parents crying their kids up at school. So you're not alone. This is a very common thing.
Yes, But I do have a hack. I do have a way that I approach it. And this is kind of how I approach any tough thing in life. I rejection, disappointment, whatever it is. I give myself twenty four hours to feel the things, to feel the emotions, and then I'm like, you gotta move on. You gotta time to breathe through it. Yeah, time to be strong. Be strong for your family, be strong for your kids. So it's not like I'm crying every day when I drop them off now, you know, which is good.
It feels good to be past that point.
Well, the first are a big deal for a reason. Yeah, you know, the first day is a big deal.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think it's also because you start thinking about the rests of the first that you have coming up.
You know, well, you have so many.
It's true, there's so much to look forward to and so many emotions that are going to be involved in each of those transitions. And to help us navigate some of those feelings. Is our guest today, Abby Schiller. She's a life coach, mother of two, and the founder of the Mother Company, a family focused multimedia company whose mission
is to help parents raise good people. The company creates content focused on social and emotional literacy, and Abby started it when she found herself yearning for a hero in children's media that would help teach emotional and social lessons.
Okay, so I don't want to take away from the importance of this intro, but she also says she's a mother of two, wife of one, which really makes me laugh. Thank god, wife of one who has time to be wife to many. It's exhausting. Anyways, fast forward to today. The Mother Company is behind the MS Award winning children's series Ruby's Studio, which helps kids understand feelings, friendship, siblings, and so much more.
Well, let's jump right in, Abby Schiller, Welcome to the bright Side.
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
So a lot of families have been dropping their kids off at college in the last month or so, and last week you flew with your daughters to Boston, where she attends college, and you wrote in an Instagram post congratulations and condolences. Yes, I love holding two truths at once, So I really love that post. But can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, so this was my third rodeo, so she's a junior, and I have to say that we aren't very good at duality as humans. We don't understand the concept that we can have joy and pride and excitement at the same time as feeling grief and dread and despair, and
that is a normal human experience. And that is exactly what it feels like for so many of us dropping our kids off at college, Like we are so excited for them, and we are really sad to be on that plane or in that car right on the way home without them, or at that dinner table without them. It's painful and it really forces us to re examine our own roles as mamas and as people and understand
what is next for us. So many of us think like that's ended, and we don't often focus on like what happens next looking forward.
So you've actually compared this transition to when we're first sending our kids off to preschool or kindergarten, which is something that I just did.
So this is very fresh for me.
Yes, there are moments of celebration as much as they feel like moments of morning or loss. What is the best way to honor both truths in that moment.
Yeah, so we have.
To just process feelings, like becoming emotionally literate is number one. And that looks like this, it's not hard, but we never do it. We always like stuff our feelings away or ignore them or buffer them, or go for snacks or drink or whatever. But it's really quite easy just to like honor an emotion. So an emotion is a vibration in your body, and you just need to kind of tune into it. And so it looks like feeling it, understanding maybe what signal it's sending to you, honoring taking
a minute to just sit with it. Like if you had a friend who was in pain, you would hug them or pull up a stool next to them and just be with them. But we don't do that for ourselves. So that's the first step. Recognizing If you can name the emotion, that's even better because putting a word to that vibration or that feeling is really normalizing and empowering. So saying oh, I'm feeling grief or I'm feeling anxious,
or I'm feeling just sad, just sad right now. Of course I know she's okay, of course they need to be doing this, but also you know, and just feeling it.
Yeah.
The other thing that I would say is taking it even a step further if you can, is behind every emotion is a sentence. We think in our heads a thought. So what is the thought that is connected to that feeling? What is the thought connected to sad? I'm going to miss her, I'm not with her anymore, She's changed, our lives are changing. Right, those are sad thoughts, normal thoughts, but sad. And we just want to really connect our head to our heart. Most often we live our lives
very disconnected. But when we can actually bring the two together, I think that we are more empowered by our own experience, even if it's a painful one.
Yeah.
A hack that I developed to get over that Sunday scaries feeling is to schedule something either on Sunday or Monday that allows me to look forward to something other than the task that I'm dreading. And I know you have kind of a similar practice.
Y, Yes, that is my m so.
I teach a lot of courses I coach women going through change. And one of the things that we do every Sunday evening is create the week that we want. So it looks like you know, scheduling, getting your calendar very organized, but then also making sure that every week you have something to look forward to the other thing
for Sunday Scaries is to have connection. I think that you know, there's like three main things that you need for a good life and connection, meaningful connection, feeling a sense of belonging and safety within a family or within a community is like number two on that list of how to have a good life. You want to know what one and three are?
I mean, yeah, you got us hope to now.
We're in See. This research comes from an amazing guy named Jonathan Field. He has a book out, but he figured out what the secret is, like how to actually have a good life research wise, science backed. So the first thing is your vitality, and it's like your health, your mental health, your physical and emotional health, spiritual health. And that includes your sense of wonder and awe, which like when was the last time y'all experienced wonder or awe?
Yeah, we could do that all day long, right, you could be like no leaves.
Are the same, like, look at this tree, feel this breeze, look at how the light is hitting, but we don't because we acclimate to that kind of experience. Okay, So vitality, vitality, connection, connection, and then contribution. How are you contributing in a way that may outlast you? And you can do that through parenting, you can do that through lived values. You can do that by spreading wonder to other people, or by holding
the door for other people. You can do that in caregiving, in your work, like, there's lots of ways to do it. But yeah, those are the three buckets and they all drip out any given day, and the act of having a good life is the act of replenishing those things. Interesting, the only caveat is that every once in a while, something happens, we get sick, we lose a job, we lose a family member, something bad happens, and then that bucket will deplete. Yeah, and when that happens, it pulls
the other two buckets down much faster. If you think about, like you have a diagnosis, your vitality bucket drains and you're not meaningfully connecting with anybody, and you're not able to contribute in meaningful ways. So then you have to kind of go through a triage period and rebuild. You have to create a plan to rebuild those buckets. To replenish the buckets.
We need to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Abbi Shiller. And we're back with Abbi Shiller.
You mentioned thoughts and connecting our heart to our brain. I'm not a mom yet, but one of the thoughts I see my friends go through dropping off their kids is the uncertainty. You know, there's so many questions that they have, yes, and so how do you suggest that people and parents can get peace of mind?
I mean I typically am like a hyper vigilant worrier, but it comes from our upbringing. These are coping skills that we've developed when we may have grown up in times of uncertainty or unsafety, and our brains scan rooms and look for exits or imagine the other shoes always going to drop. And that's just a very typical. I mean, it's normal for parents to worry, and you just have to kind of keep yourself in check of like where is there too much and where is there not enough?
Like what is the balance that is right? I would say you need to kind of like find the balance between being safe and trusting that it's going to be okay, Like where how do you establish with your kid? And y'all the statistics are very scary, like the first three months of college is the most dangerous time for sexual
assault for women on campus. So do you want your child to know that maybe maybe they need to look out, maybe they need to know not to leave their drink open, maybe they need you know, there's but then there's a limit, right, you don't want to like freak them out.
Well, so okay, that's my question then, because part of growing up is finding your independence, and you don't want to handicap your children. So what is the line for you?
I think if you were to ask my daughter this question, she'd be sitting here rolling her eyes, Like the line for my mom is very different than the line for me. So I have had I mean, really, the thing here is like learning to trust yourself. And we have to separate intuition from fear. Right, we have to accept that there is uncertainty and there we cannot protect our children from everything, and there are bad things that happen, and
that is no life is without that. That's just given, and we can educate them to some of the risks, and we can manage our own anxiety around it, and we can be there if they need us, and they can we can be a trusted source. There's not really a right answer that fits everybody and every family in this. It's just the nuance of like understanding your kid, what they need, what you need to let go of and accept and kind of find your way together.
Are there any apps you trust? I mean, like for this, I love find friends, Yeah, find my friends. Yeah, and she lets us do it's with her permission. But like I've had calls where I'm you know, she's texting me and she's like, I'm in the back of a car. I'm not sure if he's sober, and I might need help, And honestly, in that situation, I'm like, what do you want me to.
Do about this?
One of my favorite questions to ask kids at any age when they come to you with a problem, is what are all the ways you.
Can solve this? Because we are raising problem solvers, Ultimately we can't solve everything for them. They have to become independent and critical thinkers. So, like starting from preschool, when they come.
To you and they're like, I need a snack. What are all the ways you can solve this? Yeah, I believe in you, Like, that's the that's the few for them, right, you can solve this. You don't need me, which is so painful when they go to college and they really don't need you.
Yeah. I think when you give them like or when you ask those questions, though, it makes them trust themselves totally.
You're saying, I trust you. That's why I trust you. That's exactly the point. And so many kids right now are anxious and oppressed, and they just need to know that we believe in them and that they are capable, and that we had to learn these things too, and that mistakes are okay, they're expected. You have to fail, like we've really failure proofed this generation in so many ways that don't help them.
Okay.
So there's there's failing in a way that is a learning experience and that's helpful, and then there's failing in a way that can be dangerous. Right.
So I want to talk to you about.
Peer pressure and how we should be talking to our kids about that in a respectful way that honors their independence and our anxiety. You know, kids are going to expe, they go off to college. For a lot of people, it's part of you know, how they gain life experience. But how do you approach things like substance abuse delicately and yet with authority at the same time.
Again, every family is going to have kind of a different boundary on this and what's okay and what's not okay. Hopefully we have raised kids who have a strong sense of self and like themselves and understand that when you drink to pass out it's not an act of self love, but that they understand and learn from those moments and still come to you if needed. I mean, at some
point we have to let them fly and fall. And it's really hard for parents to or at least it's really hard for me to see that, to see what to see, to see our kids struggle. Yeah, that's hard. It's hard and learning. And this goes back to the emotional resilience piece, the emotional literacy piece that we were talking about, which is we have to be able to hold the pain for ourselves and them like it's not their pain isn't ours to hold, But we don't need
to fix everything for them. We have to trust them to fix it. And watching them struggle is really hard. At the same time, if they're doing things that are consistently dangerous, we need to ask them about it. I mean, compulsion and addiction are definitely not my expertise. There are plenty of people who really know that world. But as
a coach, I would say that we can't change people. Ever, there's no changing people, even people that we had previously been in charge of, and that we have to love them and guide them as best we can and also let go, even if it means that they're gonna spiral in ways and so seeing you know, challenging behavior is like not the easiest thing, and they will know to come to us when they're when they're ready. I would suggest if there's really a problem to seek support, talk
to the college. I mean, failing out of classes, not functioning, they need help.
The question about social media, yeah, I'll share first, my parents were incredibly conscientious about social media, and I grew up in an era where it was kind of just beginning. We had like aol aim and they used to say to me, I can hear it perfectly. They used to say, you know, you think this is a private forum, but it's not so don't write anything to your friend Brett Berlin that you would be embarrassed of your teachers or mom and dad seeing yeah, and like they were pretty
rigorous about it. I think that still rings in my mind. I'm actually very thoughtful about my social media. I kind of think of it as a virtual workplace. So like that's my version of it. Everybody has to make a choice about what social media means to them. As a parent, how do you communicate that to your kids? Because we're living in this time where free expression is so valued and it's wonderful, and at the same time, there are real world consequences to what you post.
Ten percent, and social media, like gambling, is designed to hook you right, like it is designed to play upon human psychology of anticipation popularity, like there are literal psychological designs to hook you right. So in my family, my thirteen year old son does not have any social media. He's really pissed about it. And my rule is, show me that you have a balance between offline and online activities because he plays the fifas you know, video game.
Show me that you have a balance between off and online activities in a way that I can trust that you can handle one more thing, and he knows he's not going to get it before he's like fourteen or fifteen. He's just not like, his brain is not developed that way. Do I hear all my friends have it? I'm missing out on all of these conversations.
Yes, do.
I remind him that he will if he goes on to Snapchat or whatever platform he prefers, he will still feel left out. He will still feel less liked in the same way that he feels now without that. That's a really great point. It's just even I think more under a microscope because he'll see his friends at a party, He'll see his you know, the girl he has a crush on doing you know, with another person, He'll see that.
And I think that on top of the addictiontive aspects of that, and I just don't think a thirteen year old brain is ready for that. And honestly, once you give it to them, and I learned this with my daughter, who I gave it way too soon. I gave her a Snapchat when she was thirteen. You can't put that genie back in a bottle. You just cannot. And so it's much easier to manage it before they have access
than after they have access. But if there are parents who are listening who have already done this, make sure that there's a balance between on and offline activities. Put some guardrails on there. There's like some really great apps that you can use to alert you if they're in danger, if they're watching content that is totally inappropriate, which they
will be exposed to. You know, it's so wild because as parents we when they're kids, we research the car seat for four weeks before we buy it and we make sure that they're strapped in. But when we hand them the internet, like everything everything falls apart. Right, they have access to strangers and dangers.
That we.
Would allow in our home. Ever So, and then the other thing is, I'm really careful about tech. You So there's no tech at the table we eat dinner together every night. We never have our phones nearby.
That's great.
He has to check his phone in the public space in our kitchen before he goes up to bed, Like there's no phones in the bedroom that are allowed, so like we have to monitor that even if he's not on social media.
Chip and Joanna Gaines have a rule where they all the phones stay in one place in the house. It's like by the door, like a docking station. Yeah, so if you need to use it, you go to that one place, but you're not walking around the house with a screen attached to your hip. That.
I really like that, but let.
Me parents too, Yes, because it's everybody. Yeah, I really like that.
Yeah, Okay, I like it. And there's no way I could do that.
I run a whole business off of my phone and out of my home office, and so I just I don't want parents to feel like, oh gosh, like, how would I ever do that. I think it's amazing if you can. Yeah, but I also think, yes, carve out times when you're not going to be looking at your phone. Kids are lonely, like parents are looking at their phone and there's no connection. Yeah, and again good life buckets connection is the second one.
Yeah, maybe it's just after a certain time because yes, it's not realistic like posts six pm or something.
Yes, and then get back on after they're on bed if you need to do a check.
We have to take another short break, but we'll be right back to talk more about big life transitions with Abby Schiller. And we're back with Abby Shiller.
Okay, so we've talked about the impact of these transitions on our kids, but I want to talk about how it impacts parents and caregivers too, because there's a big identity shift that can happen whenever your kids go off to college. You know, a huge part of what feels like your purpose and mission on earth has been shifted in a big way. How did your identity shit when your daughter went off to college?
So I had actually spent years anticipating her going off to college.
I was the parent who'd be like, we only have twelve summers left.
I grew up with the dad who was much older than I was, so I was always anticipating that this could be the last Yeah, Thanksgiving, this could be the last Father's Day, this could be the last Tuesday Night, right, And so that is really like has set the scene for how my brain works. And so, of course, you know, my daughter, as she was like going through high school, I was like, oh my god, she's this is our like last whatever. And the entire senior year I felt
so much grief. Anticipatory grief is the word for it. I was feeling like nostalgic about a moment that I was currently living in. And I think that we don't talk about this enough because every focus in at least in our culture in this country is about like their journey, but we don't think about the parent's journey. And for somebody who, especially for women who take on the burden of the caregiving and parenting in a heterosexual household, we put our heart and soul and much of our identity
into raising kids. And so when they leave, we graduate too. And what does that mean? For so many women, they're like they get to this pinnacle moment and then they're like, okay, now what which is really common when you achieve a goal, Like if you talk to like medalists in the Olympics, they go through a post metal depression. And this is very common, like a post graduation depression. And so we have to first of all, we have to read our feelings and be with them, and then we have to
make a plan for ourselves of what's next. We have to look forward, I mean yes, acknowledge the pain, acknowledge the grief, acknowledge the duality and all of that, and when we're ready, start thinking about what is the next chapter. And that's actually what I coach women on, like this big change next chapters, designing your next chapter. How can we help you create the next version of your life? How do you evolve into what's next?
I see dads deal with this a lot.
Actually, yeah, fair, and of course they do.
Yeah.
I obviously moms feel it that. I feel like that's a given. But I see dads and they don't know how to deal with it, yeah, because they're not used to those feelings there as much.
I think this is some of the ways that they deal with it. Okay, they get really busy. This is the way some all parents deal with it, right. We sometimes throw ourselves into busyness, We throw ourselves into old habits that we don't want, so we sit around and we snack, or we watch Netflix, or we sometimes avoid the feelings we might over try to connect with our kids when they're trying to break free, so we could call and leave lengthy messages. We can FaceTime them all
the time. Like, there's lots of things, and we just really need to take kind of a conscious moment and decide who do we want to be in this stage?
How do how are we going to support ourselves? Who do we want to be? What do we want for ourselves?
Which is a question.
Very few people.
Ask, Okay, can we can we go over those questions that you just said?
Yeah, how do we want to act? Who do we want to be? And what do we want for ourselves?
I really like those as like a check in mechanism.
And by the way, not just for parents in this stage, but for anyone at any time. Yes, how do we want to how do we want to act?
Around this?
Like, you have a difficult boss, how do you want to act? Who do you want to be?
Totally?
Yeah, what do you want?
So these big life transitions, it's not something that is just happening in a vacuum.
You know.
The way that it affects us also can impact our partners in our spouses. So how can we use these times of transition to strengthen our relationships instead of harm them?
Yeah?
I think I love the idea of redeciding your life every few years. We make these decisions when we're young and think that we just are stuck with them forever and ever, and that isn't the case. And so you can look at every aspect of your life and redecide it.
Where you live, who you live with, what you do for a living, how you show up for yourself and others, how you parent, if you are a parent, if you want to become a parent, Like all of these things that we've decided redecide on an every few years basis. And if you're going to redecide to a relationship, for instance, a partnership, redecide how you want that partnership within this
change and be intentional about it. What skills do you need that you might have gotten into a habit that are inconsistent with those skills?
Well, how do you.
Show up in a way that you need to have different perspective around you know, if somebody is bothering you in like they you know, a habit of like leaving the cabinets open, or is it like one of those little kind of death by paper cuts habits like and it's like really getting under your skin.
Like how do you want to resolve that?
Is it really that they need to change or is it that you can change your perspective of that? So like, be intentional about it. I think in a life that is filled with intention is a good life. And that when we redecide the things, even if we just decide to commit again, it's a fresh perspective that brings freshness and newness and purpose into it.
Okay, as we wrap up our conversation today, we have to ask how many times have you called your daughter since you dropped your apples week?
How codependent are we?
Fair?
That's a fair question, I I I don't think I have actually called her. I think we've done a couple texts and a FaceTime. Honestly, she misses her dog more than she misses me. No, so when she texts me, she's like dog please.
That's hilarious, harsh.
No, good, it's good.
I'm telling you it's good.
She's totally independent, she's totally like thriving, and it's exactly as it should be. And I'm okay, I'm pleased with that. I'm thrilled for her, and I've got a lot going on for me too. Like again, this is our third rodeo. So like if you had asked me this question when she was a freshman and I had just dropped her off, and the answer would be two thousand ryeah.
Yeah, Well, I bet it also helps to have an independent child because as they cleave away from you, it makes it easier for you to find your own way.
Yes, and she was raised to be independent. So I was always asking her, what are all the ways you can solve this. I was encouraging her to go to sleep away camp when she was really young and be on her own. I was, you know, giving her the skills, and so was her dad giving her the skills to be the independent, amazing woman that she is now. So yes,
there is a cause and effect to that. Right, stop doing things that they could be doing for themselves, and you will be having a more independent kid, misindependent Abby.
Thank you so much, Ah, thank you guys so much. Such a pleasure.
Abby Schiller is a life coach and the founder of the Mother Company. You can find out more about her work at Abby Shiller dot com.
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're popping off with writer, producer and podcast host Diosa Fem.
Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Simone Boye.
You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro Ba.
Y see you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.