Mom Boss Mode: Leading with Confidence, Boundaries & Self-Care ROUNDTABLE (Part 2)

Show Notes:

Motherhood is more than just caretaking—it’s about leadership, resilience, and self-empowerment. In this dynamic roundtable discussion, our expert panel explores how moms can step into leadership roles, advocate for themselves and their children, and cultivate self-care practices that sustain them.

Join us as we challenge outdated narratives, share practical self-care strategies, and discuss what it truly means to lead as a mom—both at home and beyond. Make sure you check out Part 1 of this conversation, Ep. 128 ROUNDTABLE (Part 1): Mom Boss Mode: Leading with Intention & Letting Go of Guilt

These are the top three things you will learn from this podcast episode:

How Moms Can Step into Leadership Roles with Confidence – Learn why taking risks, modeling assertiveness, and embracing discomfort are essential for both personal growth and teaching resilience to children.

The Power of “Yes Spaces” and Screen Time Boundaries – Discover how creating environments that foster independence can help children build confidence, and gain strategies for managing screen time effectively at different developmental stages.

The Importance of Self-Care and Community Support – Understand why self-care isn’t selfish, how small, consistent rituals can make a big impact, and how surrounding yourself with a supportive community can help sustain your leadership and well-being.

Episode Notes and Resources:

Irene Gouge https://www.lovinglessonslearned.com/

Chasta Hamilton http://stagedoordance.com/

Kelly Smedley http://waypointcounselingnc.com/

Amanda Smith http://hinenibirthandbeyond.com/

Holly Moore http://thatsthemominme.com

Holly mentioned the Via Character Survey: https://www.viacharacter.org/

Support Mama Needs a Moment! Become a patron through our Mama Needs a Moment Patreon.

HER Circle – https://www.herhealthcollective.com/membership

Transcript

Crissy  

HER Health Collective hosts four expert Roundtables each year, diving into the topics that matter most to moms. These discussions are among our most popular episodes, bringing together professionals from diverse backgrounds to share unique insights and collaborate across disciplines. Our Roundtables are designed to foster a more holistic model of care, expanding expert networks, while emphasizing the power of collaboration. Today, we are exploring how moms lead at home, in their careers, in their communities. Our panel of her experts will share their perspectives on leadership, self care, advocacy and the evolving role of moms, we are excited to welcome our experts today, each will take a brief moment to introduce themselves before we jump into the conversation. Just going to go in the order that I see you. So Holly, would you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Holly Moore  

 My name is Holly Moore. I own a practice. That’s the mom and me. I am a therapist and school psychologist.

Crissy  

Thank you, Holly, Irene.

Irene Gouge  

I’m Irene Gouge with Loving Lesson Sleep Solutions, where I work as a sleep coach and postpartum doula, and I’m known for helping parents get more sleep with the right strategies using a holistic approach. Thanks for having me.

Crissy  

Thanks for being here. Kelly.

Kelly Smedley  

Hi, my name is Kelly Smedley. I am a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist, and I’m the owner and founder of Waypoint Counseling and Maternal Wellness. We are a practice that focuses on maternal mental health, providing therapy and medication management.

Crissy  

Thank you so much. Kelly, Amanda 

Amanda Smith  

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I own Hineni Birth and Beyond, and I’m a full spectrum doula, so I am for births, postpartum and bereavement.

Crissy  

Thank you. And Chasta,

Chasta Hamilton  

Hi. My name is Chasta Hamilton. I’m the founder and CEO of Stage Door Dance Productions, as well as the founder and president of Girls Geared for Greatness, and I am working to make a difference in the youth activity space.

Cindi  

Well, in this last segment, we were talking about moms as leaders in the home, but a lot of what I was hearing was also how we can model leadership for our children, and that’s the direction we’re going to take as we’re moving on to these next questions. And Kelly, I’m going to direct this to you. Risk taking sometimes it can be a challenge. It can be hard, but how can taking risks help moms step into their leadership roles while also modeling assertiveness and confidence for their children?

Kelly Smedley  

It’s interesting. I think going back to the values, identifying what your values are and what that might look like, especially when you have young children, and how to incorporate that. And sometimes that does mean taking a risk. That may mean, as a parent, you know your kid is showing interest in learning an instrument or joining band, and you’re not musical at all. So it could be like, I’m not comfortable. I don’t know the first thing about a trumpet, so I don’t even know where to start, and in finding a lesson for that. And so even just doing that is taking, taking what’s, quote, unquote, a healthy risk for you and your child, that could turn out to be a wonderful thing, or it could flop. We don’t know. That’s the thing with risk is actually a risk. You don’t know if it’s going to succeed or fail. I think modeling to our kids that a lot of our decisions in life are risks, right? The decision, if you get married, that’s a risk. We think we love this person. We think we think we want to be with them the rest of our life, but we never really actually know. And so that’s a risk. It’s a risk going to school. It’s a risk getting in a car every day. So kind of just normalizing that actually many of our decisions on a daily basis are risky, but it’s trying to help kids and ourselves, especially if you’re a parent that is more on the shy side or the introverted side, which is fine, you don’t need to be extroverted, but there are situations with your child where you may have to use assertive skills, like talking to a teacher or talking to another parent about an uncomfortable situation, whatever that is. So you’re you’re having to kind of demonstrate getting out of your own comfort zone, and so modeling to our kids that sometimes we actually have to lean into that discomfort and anxiety and navigate through it and kind of embrace it to get to something better. You’re not going to learn how to ride that bike by not getting uncomfortable and taking that risk of like this feels really weird, taking those training wheels off and trying to pedal this myself, and I’m probably going to fall and I’m probably not going to do great the first few times. But by taking that. Risk, you are actually setting yourself on that path to learning and growth and success, and by not taking the risk, you’re certainly not going to get where you want to go. And so it’s it’s talking our kids through those just day to day things, even just, you know, meeting someone on the playground, or trying something new and encouraging them, but also modeling that ourselves.

Irene Gouge  

So what was interesting, as you were bringing that up, it was reminding me of doing kindergarten homework with my son, Connor, and it was like a coloring sheet, and I was like, Honey, just let it go. Like it’s okay, like you don’t have to finish it. And in that moment, like I was like, Oh, you’re only doing what you have seen me do the whole time, and so you were talking about taking those risks. I had to start practicing, how do I show up and fail in front of my kids, and knowing how to fail and what that looks like. And then I was like, Well, I usually hide it and I don’t show it. Like having to process that in a different way. And so, you know, I just remember that kindergarten homework is just this aha moment of like I have practice not showing you how to fail well, and like, being intentional about that process thereafter. And so it is that, like, risk taking and putting ourselves in vulnerable situations, which I think, then in the long run, will serve our kids with the skills and tools. And I think sometimes we’re having these conversations because maybe we didn’t have it modeled for us. So now we have this opportunity to be able to model it for our children. So hopefully they will be able to practice and learn to be uncomfortable and maybe do some hard things.

Cindi  

Irene, that’s a great segue into this next question that I want to ask to see if perhaps you have some additional suggestions or ideas that you want to contribute, or if any of the other experts do, you had talked about failure, and that’s a huge piece of leadership is to try things and then it’s failure is going to be part of the whole process, and kids have to learn that through various different daily experiences. I’m curious on some other ways that parents can help lead their children through daily experiences while setting a strong foundation for the healthy home environment.

Irene Gouge  

I love this question because I think sometimes this is a missed opportunity in homes. As a sleep coach, a lot of times, parents reach out and they’re like, let’s talk about sleep. And I’m like, let’s talk about the play window, and what are we doing and practicing during that awake time? And it’s not just about the amount of time that children are awake, because it’s not about that. It’s have I taught my children how to be okay and figure out and do life on their own. And one of the ways I encourage parents to think about that is creating yes spaces. And this is a little bit of a Montessori idea. Magda Gerber talks about like having a yes space, and it is a safe space where a child could potentially be there for four hours, but they would not be happy, but they would be safe. And so for infants that might look like a crib, maybe for toddlers, it looks like a gated like play area, or sometimes parents will have like a room in the home. And so the idea is that we help our children actually become comfortable and build resilience, and like learning how to initiate their own play. And when they have fed well and slept well, then they can go ahead and do the things that they need to do as they’re doing their work. And I think that this is also a great way for parents to delegate, not feel that pressure of like I have to entertain you the whole time, that we can engage with our children like through those transitions and help them become comfortable in those kinds of spaces. And I think that that yes, space oftentimes allows children to explore the different things that come up for them, because they have to problem solve and figure out, well, what do I want to play with, instead of us initiating that play all of the time for them. And so I do talk to families a lot about that, because sometimes, like, it’s okay for children to be okay, awake in their crib and just have some alone time, because sometimes we’ll look at the monitor be like their eyes are open and rush right in. And so it’s just again, sometimes pausing and recognizing, Hey, these are ways we can create healthy habits. You’re okay. You can figure out how to entertain and use your time, and I can take care of myself through this process as well. And that, I think also goes back to like, when we started like. It helps us be able to respond rather than react. So creating rhythms and flows of the day where our children have these opportunities to practice in a yes space. Because again, sometimes we miss that opportunity, and we expect children to sleep on their own, but they’ve never had any time on their own. And so the yes space actually put. Provides all of that.

Cindi  

Does this extend into teenage years as well? Can we create a yes based in that regard? 

Irene Gouge  

Well, I think that sometimes teenagers like I know right now, I have an 18 and a 16 year old, and they love to just go to their room, and I have to, like, respect that they just want to be there, and they pull off and they do whatever they need to do. And like, I have to also recognize my boundary now in this season where I’m, like, they don’t always want me to be in there. And like, I can’t ask too many questions. I have to just let them be so I think it evolves and it looks different throughout the just different seasons of parenting. But I think more than anything, it’s like getting comfortable in like, allowing our kids to kind of unfold and develop the way they need to, and then us being okay with that process.

Cindi  

Sure, what I’ve noticed is, as they become older, in the teenage space, their Yes, space is their room, but then what they struggle with is being without stimulus. So immediately they’re in their room, then it’s like grabbing their phone or grabbing the iPad or gaming or something, and it’s just constantly get off the electronics. So I’m hoping that others feel that way too.

Kelly Smedley  

That’s what I was going to say, I think, with teenagers especially, and this is probably a whole other podcast right about social media and screens. But kids, you know, they’re they’re so used to that not not being able to sit with themselves in silence and boredom and because the screen is right there, and they have dopamine hit after dopamine hit right away. And so helping your kids, especially you know, the younger they are, and as you as screens are introduced to them, parents often feel bad regulating that, but it’s really important to do that so your kid learns to to struggle, and learns that, like not everything is fun and games and Tiktok videos all the time, like, sometimes we have to, like, sit within ourself and our actually our uncomfortable feelings and and not distract and so I think that’s the challenge with tweens and teens, is getting them off the screens, getting them comfortable with themselves. So I think that’s a challenge for parents these days and kids, and I think it really starts when they’re young, like when Irene is way back helping them with that safe space, just getting comfortable with yourself and not having to rely on another stimulus to distract from the hard stuff. 

Amanda Smith  

I think everything that she was saying just goes to teaching your children, also being a good leader in the home and outside of the home, is teaching your kids when things don’t happen, like something gets canceled, or we’re not able to go somewhere because somebody gets sick, and what reactions that we have as parents is going to be the reaction that they’re going to have when things don’t Go right or or they have to shift, you know, from doing one activity to to another. And so I think just modeling that in the home and regulating how we behave and how we act when something doesn’t happen or go our way can be a big influence on them as they grow and then going into those teenage years, and I will say I was, I was the mean mom. My kids had 30 minutes of screen time from the time they were two until they were like 12, and unless we were watching a family movie, they had dumb phones until they were 16, and then they had locked down smartphones that weren’t allowed in their bedrooms. So my kids learned to play with themselves and to play with each other. They love to write and read and draw and build things with Legos and other toys. So it is possible to keep that technology to a minimum, and then once, obviously, they get out on their own, it’s, you know, probably a mute point, but hopefully they’ve got some good boundaries and understand the importance of not living on them, but that also goes to modeling. So in our home, you know, I didn’t have the TV on all day. I didn’t have my phone in my hand all the time. We had designated times like, okay, Mom’s going to go 30 minutes. I’m going to check my email, do some things, and then we’re going to go to the park or whatever. And so just saying what you’re going to do, and doing what you’re going to say, and and keeping those truths to be truths. 

Cindi  

It’s great input, Amanda and a lot of what I was hearing from what you were saying is creating positive, healthy environments for our children. And I’d like to draw Chasta into this conversation, particularly around creating the positive healthy environments, because her work is just that. It is just a place where kids can go and have that healthy exposure to exercise and other kids and leadership and whatnot. So Chasta, do you have any feedback that you can give on how. Can leverage their leadership and avoid creating harmful environments and just steer them more towards building healthy ones. 

Chasta Hamilton  

Yeah, I think this is such a great conversation, and I love everything that’s been shared and a through line is healthy over harmful environments. How do we create them? How do we cultivate them? How do we teach them and so often, and it’s already been said, but we long for safety and care without always recognizing, like, sometimes the hard and difficult things are these incredible teachable moments that when they’re debriefed in really thoughtful and meaningful and intentional ways, can set the child up for greater success long term, right? Like, maybe there’s some conflict resolution between two children, and that’s a natural part of life. And instead of just trying to avoid conflict altogether, like, let’s take that as a teachable moment for humanity that’s going to benefit both children in the long run. So from my experience in running extracurricular activities for 16 years. It’s this, this microcosm ecosystem, right? Of how can we let children create and build ecosystems in a very intentional way that’s working on their individual growth as a person, a unique, authentic person on their own specific journey. So often we want to force the journey and the check boxes upon them, and we’re seeing this more and more with toxic achievement, culture, society, expectations, digital media, the internet, like we’re constantly being told this is what it should look like. This is what it should be. And someone had mentioned like being above the social media imagery, and I think that is so important, because when we look at the individual child, we’re helping them become a leader, an innovator, and pushing that progress forward. And I think we have to say the same thing about ourselves as moms, right? Like it’s so easy to also slip into that of well, this is what society is expecting me to do. This is what I should be doing for this child at this age, even just I’ve been hearing so much about kindergarten admissions in the last week or two, and there’s so much expectation that is just poured upon us every single day that it can be easy to just soak that up instead of soaking up our inherent, confident internal voice. And I think if as moms that we’re able to prioritize what we know in terms of our values and beliefs as has been discussed, and we teach that to our children, then whatever environment they’re in hopefully majority health, healthy, but of course, there may be a harmful exposure along the way that we want them to be able to navigate and work through. Then that’s incredibly important as well. 

Crissy  

Thank you so much for that, Chasta and I love that we’re we’ve kind of discussed this sort of microcosm of leadership within the home, leadership within ourselves, leadership as a parent, and now we’re kind of veering into this more macro element of leadership, and I’d love to turn this to Amanda and kind of look at this evolving role of moms in leadership. Amanda, how have the roles of moms in leadership evolved over time, both inside and outside the home?

Amanda Smith  

I feel like the leadership has evolved in the sense that if you take it back 60-70 years, a lot of the leadership was in the homes. You didn’t see a lot of moms outside of the homes. And then there was a shift in the 70s and 80s, and moms were breaking out of the mold of just being stay at home moms and getting into the workforce. But it still didn’t take away that leadership role inside the home and or even split it into a 50/50, of dads and moms, and so we, just as women, ended up taking on more. We kind of talked about that at the beginning of the conversation about how we just take the CEO hat for the home. So I think a lot of society will say that, you know, we can do it all. We can work outside the home. We can work inside the home. We can be the CEO everywhere we go and and we can, to an extent, we just have to be careful that we aren’t burning ourselves out and in, showing our families ourselves our children this Go, go, go, go, go, mentality where we’re just we’re just burnt out. We’re burnt out of being a mom, we’re burnt out from work. We’re burnt out from being a wife or a partner and and we just we have nothing left at the at the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the year. And so I think it’s really important as we do things that we enjoy, things that fill us, whether you’re just fully at home, which you have 18 different roles as a mom, or if you’re in the home and you’re working outside the home, again, we talked about this earlier, those boundaries and those things that we need to say yes to, and those things that we need to learn to say no to. And I think self care is such a huge thing that a lot of moms do not take the time or can. And even stop to understand what does self care mean, and how do we take care of ourselves? How do we fill up our bucket so that we can pour into everybody else’s bucket, and then that’s going to look different for everybody, and that could be something that we’re doing daily, weekly, monthly. For me, it’s every four to six weeks. I’m out getting a massage, doing things like that to, you know, get some time away for myself feeling better, so that I can be a better leader inside and outside of the home. 

Crissy  

I think being a mom is such a it’s a wild experience. Y’all, there is nothing quite like being a mom. It is just so all consuming. And somewhere along the way, maybe it’s always been that way, I don’t know, but there’s this idea that being a mom, it’s often seen as not enough, like you’re that’s all. You’re just a mom. You’re just a mom. So Amanda, how can we shift that narrative?

Amanda Smith  

I think that narrative is definitely something that does need to be shifted. And I think that needs to be shifted in us first, as moms, and we need to remember that being a mom is, I mean, you’re wearing a chef’s hat, you’re wearing a laundry you’re a cleaner, you’re the nurse, you’re the caretaker, you know all the different things. You know you’re the medic, you’re the school teacher. And I think they added it all up. And if a mom was going to get paid for 24/7 it’s like $240,000 a year that we save our families in outgoing money because of all the benefits we bring to the home. So we just have to learn to see our value. And I think in doing that, we can help each other, you know, learn to see another mom’s value. And that’s one of the things that I talk about a lot in birth and post. Part of as a doula is, you know, where your value is, self care, taking time to take a break when you need to, and know that it we’re not meant to do it all, and we need to ask for help when things get hard, before we hit that brick wall. And so it just it’s going to start with community like this. Community, you guys doing these podcasts, reaching out to all of these moms, letting them know that a stay at home mom like that’s the most valuable job anybody could ever has. We’re literally raising the future of our nation, of the world, and if we don’t see the value in that, we’re definitely missing something.

Irene Gouge  

I wanted to just share, something Amanda brought up about self care. Sometimes that can be very overwhelming for moms to think about, like, Okay, I’m going to plan and schedule this in that time. One of the things, especially in like that post early postpartum period, and even like when you have toddlers and preschoolers, is like, what can I do to take care of myself? That fills my cup daily, you know? And something that sometimes I will share with moms is like, can we go out just for a grounding, walk with our little ones, you know, and just stepping outside two to three minutes, walk around the house with your bare feet touching the ground, maybe share some gratitude, because I think that sometimes in this self care idea that we talk about for moms that can also become more stressful, it’s like, oh gosh, now I have to do one more thing. But I think it’s also recognizing, like, Can I start modeling what it looks to like to say I have needs to and communicating that to our children in those moments. Because I think self care can be like, this really hard space for moms to navigate and then feel like, oh my gosh, I don’t have money for self care. I don’t have time for self care. And it can be just simple acts that we can do, but the grounding walk is definitely something I highly recommend, those dance parties and bubbles and things like that. So just keeping it simple and incorporating it into our daily rhythms of life.

Holly Moore  

You were talking about like, that shift of motherhood. How do we begin to like, recognize that value that we will place in this role. And I think the part of it is the community. I love how Amanda, you were like, bringing it to this space and and I think another part of it is being vulnerable. I see a lot of moms carrying the burden, showcasing what they imagine it’s supposed to look like, not understanding how the anxiety or depression is showing up for them in this space, or not imagining someone else might not like this role either at times. And I think that being able to be vulnerable and sharing our stories is part of how we shift the narrative of what it’s actually like to be in this space. And I think it also speaks to what we can do, that we can be vulnerable with our children, and that, in itself, is also taking risk, right? Like, can I trust them, that they can hold, like, understand this, like, vulnerable space that mom is in, and so that when they’re struggling. Maybe they can trust me, that I can hold that space too, and we’re kind of tethering ourselves to that. And I think too, like, we should all kind of, I’d love to share or hear, like, what you guys are all doing right now, like, like, from a ritual standpoint of like, how you’re caring for yourself, like, that’s just something that I get curious about. Like, we’re seeing these little things. Like, right now, I’m drinking hot chocolate every night. And I heard this chocolate from, like Vermont that’s, like the spicy jalapeno hot chocolate. And like, the sensation of this spice just really kind of is warm and enriching. And I just kind of wonder if we could dumb down self care a little bit too.

Kelly Smedley  

I think it obviously looks different for everybody. For me, it’s prioritizing getting to the gym or going for a run, even just the simple act of listening to a podcast while I’m schlepping kids around, or, you know, driving to carpool, and definitely prioritizing time with girlfriends. And that sometimes could look like meeting someone, someone on a Sunday for a half an hour walk, or it could mean going grabbing lunch or dinner occasionally, but those are the things for me that fills my cup. I was actually talking to a client this morning who’s got three little ones, two of them, one’s in school, two at home, and one’s a newborn. And this was the topic of, how can I get a little bit of time for me when the toddler’s throwing the tantrum, I gotta get dinner. I gotta go pick up the other one. I got the baby needing to nurse. And so just like Irene said, it’s getting creative, getting proactive and prioritizing, that your time is just as valuable. And like, where are those five minutes? And it’s going to be inconvenient sometimes for your family, for you to get that self care, but it’s necessary for everybody. And I think a lot of moms need to realize that.

Irene Gouge  

One of the things when I was doing my home daycare, and I love Holly, that you drink your hot cocoa with that spiciness in it. I started actually putting cayenne pepper in my tea and it with ginger, and it’s really good. And it has just become kind of a daily ritual. And so I would set up the kiddos. It was like after they ate, then they were set up in their yes space, and they were playing, and I would just sit at the table, I would look outside at the trees, and he’s like, I’m just enjoying this. And I just enjoy having, like, a cup of something, but usually something warm is really great. And so just creating that kind of ritual and still something like all these years later that I am doing. And so again, it can become just a natural rhythm and pattern that we create, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal, but spicy is good. 

Cindi  

I, on the other hand, might be spicy in my behavior, but I am not a spicy eater, so I’ll find other ways to fulfill myself. Thank you, but I do want to thank all of you so much for being part of this discussion, it’s been a pleasure to spend time with you and to hear all of your expertise and knowledge and smarts in this area. So we hope that you all have a wonderful rest of your day, and we look forward to connecting with you all soon.

Thank you so much.