10 Essential Mom Skills You Can Practice Now
Forget about baking cookies, packing animal themed lunch boxes, flawlessly entertaining 20 kids at a birthday party and keeping a sparkling clean house.
These are the real mom skills you will use day in and day out.
You won’t learn about these in birthing class or even from your pediatrician. You can only find these in Mom Class, our 6 week online course to help you emotionally prepare for motherhood.
Now is the time when you have to the head space, time and clarity to work on these. It’s much more difficult when you are in the trenches of parenting. Of course you will always being working on yourself and finding ways you can hone these skills in deeper ways.
1. Be true to yourself
It's easy to lose yourself as a mom especially if you don’t have a good grip on who you are before you have kids.
Know what makes you you and do it. Make time for what interests you. Do more of what makes you truly happy. Do less of what makes you cranky.
2. Be comfortable in your masculine and your feminine energy.
Most of us are comfortable in our masculine energy - going, doing, building, evaluating, goal-driven, giving to others, etc.
But motherhood (especially with young children) requires us to light up our feminine energy - being, vulnerability, resting, flowing, emotional, intuition-driven, being nurtured, etc.
Spend a day with a baby/toddler and you will see you get very little done. It’s also a time in our life when we have to let others take care of us - financially, emotionally, and physically.
3. Feeling Enough.
Feel enough as you are so you don't go out of your way to earn love, approval and validation by trying to be perfect.
Stop trying to "earn your keep" or try to come off as having it all together. You are lovable just as you are.
Instead of aiming to be the "best mom" aim to be a "good enough" mom. Relax and enjoy life.
5. Taking care of yourself.
Self-care is the art of taking care of you - mentally, physically and spiritually. Being a mother to yourself.
“You can’t live on baby love alone. As a mother you must learn to care for yourself as well as you care for them. If you don’t give generously to yourself- you will only have crumbs to give.” - Anna Leonhardt-Lupa
6. Intuition - How you feel about something matters more than anything else.
Your intuition is expert parenting advice. No one else, not even the experts or science, have all the answers and you will drive yourself mad trying to get things “right.”
Ignore others and go with what feels right for you. Period.
7. Self-forgiveness.
There is no perfect parent. Great parents make mistakes all the time.
Make a mistake - vow to do better next time - let it go. Don't overcompensate, act out of guilt or over apologize.
You'll be a better parent by being more present, not worried about the past or future, or focusing on what you haven't done for your kids.
8. Have Fun!
The key to having fun and enjoying your life is to worry less and be relaxed and in the moment.
Chill out. Laugh. Don’t take life so seriously. Your kids will be fine. They want you to have fun too.
9. Design a support system.
Don’t you dare try to do this alone or even mostly alone. Learn to ask for help and let others help you. Line up help before the baby comes.
10. Get comfortable with kids.
Spend enough time with kids so you don’t see them as breakable, fragile and helpless creatures. Try to go for the feeling of your first kid being your second kid. (The main differences are confidence and experience between kid 1 and 2.)
Learn about some simple parenting techniques and child development. Read a few books (not too many!). Maybe watch a bit of Super Nanny.
Honing these skills will help you thrive as a mom, maintain your identity, keep a balance, feel successful, keep your relationship going and make sure you are in control of your life.
If you want to know more about these skills, we spend a whole week of the Mom Class discussing these Mom Skills.
You can also download our free mom prep journal with tons of journal prompts to get you going on thinking about your childhood, your partner and yourself.