Daily Parenting Hacks: Tips Every Mom Can Use
Practical tips to help moms (and all parents) navigate daily challenges with less stress.
What’s New This Week 🛍️
Creative Cleaning Strategies for Parents with Kids: A clean home with children could sound like an oxymoron. But with these tips, it can start to seem less impossible!
Creative Discipline & Guidance Techniques: Discover unique techniques that help parents set boundaries, teach responsibility, and build cooperation with kids of all ages.
How to Run a Successful Family Meeting: What is a family meeting? How do you run one successfully? We've got you covered!
What We’re Reading This Week 📖
New Mexico becomes first state to offer free childcare for all: ‘model for the nation’: Effective November 1, 2025, New Mexico will offer universal free childcare to all residents, regardless of income. Formerly, free or subsidized childcare was available only up to a certain income threshold. This expansion is being hailed as a model policy, expected to significantly reduce costs for families and make reliable childcare more accessible across communities.
Kids’ Basic Needs Are Pushing More Parents Into Debt: A survey by National Debt Relief and Talker Research found that 6 in 10 American parents have gone into debt trying to meet their children’s needs. Inflation, high interest rates, and social expectations—especially via social media—are major culprits. Parents are increasingly forced to choose between paying for bills or essentials like extracurriculars and quality childcare.
White House Seeks to Cut Nation’s Only Federal After-School Program: The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC)—which supports after-school and summer programs for about 1.4 million students mainly in low-income communities—is facing proposed cuts. If eliminated or reduced, this could significantly impact families who rely on these programs for childcare, enrichment, and meals.
How We’re Feeling This Week:
We’re smack in the middle of September, that weird month of transitioning from summer to fall and camp to school, resulting in a million other daily adjustments: tank tops to layers, lazy days to demanding routines, rushed mornings, what-to-make-for dinner-again. Plus, the headline transition for us this year: getting ready for Kim to give birth! In between her Braxton Hicks contractions, she’s been trying to front-load her work in prep for her time off. And I’ve been practicing being less reliant on her, so things don’t fall apart while Kim’s away. (Thank goodness we still have Jordan!)
Here’s one last tip, courtesy of my daughter. While sorting through my her hoarded crafts and beads, we rediscovered a breathing stick she made at school last year. It’s a calming tool that teaches kids (and adults) to breathe deeply and slowly when feeling overwhelmed with emotions.
Directions: Inhale while sliding a bead over. Exhale. Repeat.
Who knew. All we ever really needed for dealing with life’s stressors is a pipe cleaner and a few beads.
Signing off,
Your Team at MomBrains