Being a working parent looks different for every career, every family, and every parent. In today’s episode, Robin Smith, licensed marriage and family therapist shares his experience as a working dad in the mental health field. He shares wise insights, including the self-inflected pressure that can occur as a parent from having heightened awareness as a mental health professional, the shifts happening due to COVID-19, what it looks like to have grace and compassion for yourself and your children, and the many elements of being self-employed. Join Tom Spiggle and Lori Mihalich-Levin in this interview for incredible insight and advice from Robin Smith.
Show Highlights:
- Robin shares his working parent story and how he navigated parental leave
- Robin talks about how COVID has impacted his profession and how he’s used positive reinforcement to make a better environment to work at home
- There’s great diversity in the experiences mental health professionals have
- How being a mental health professional impacts work-life balance
- Being a mental health professional can increase the strive for perfectionism and the feelings of shame when it isn’t met
- Being self-employed can allow for flexibility but also means there are no professional supports
- Why Robin wishes he would’ve had working dad groups to talk with during transitioning into parenthood
- Transitioning into a digital space has been a major shift and has been difficult for many therapists
- How will COVID change the future of therapy
- Why intentionality is more important now than ever before
- Why we should start with having self-compassion as a working-parent
- Robin shares books and technology that have helped him on his working-parent journey
Links:
https://www.spigglelaw.com
https://www.mindfulreturn.com
Contact Lori:
Lori@mindfulreturn.com
Resources:
The Expectant Father
And Baby Makes Three