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Episode 182: Parenting and Relaunching - Recommendations from Parenting Author Katherine Reynolds Lewis

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Episode Description

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is a certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP), an award winning journalist and the author of the popular parenting book, The Good News About Bad Behavior, which brings the tools of narrative journalism to the question of why kids don't do what you want. Katherine is the perfect person to speak with us about parenting and relaunching. Many relaunchers are returning to work after childcare career breaks and need to transition their kids of all ages to new routines at home when they relaunch their careers. Katherine gives advice on how to involve kids in the job search, when to introduce new childcare arrangements, how to manage new routines in the household, and how transparent to be on the ups and downs of the relaunch process, both before and after starting the job. This podcast will be especially useful to parents who took Pandemic-related career breaks and are planning their career reentry.

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Katherine Reynolds Lewis


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Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:00:00] Welcome to 3,2,1 iRelaunch, the podcast where we discuss strategies, advice, and success stories about returning to work after a career break. I'm Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO, and co-founder of iRelaunch and your host. Today, we're speaking with Katherine Reynolds Lewis. Katherine is a certified parent educator with The Parent Encouragement Program and award-winning journalist and author of the popular book, The Good News About Bad Behavior, which brings the tools of narrative journalism to the question of why kids don't do what you want. Katherine is the perfect person to speak with us about parenting and relaunching.

Many relaunchers are returning to work after childcare career breaks and need to transition their kids to new routines at home when they relaunch their careers. Katherine gives advice on how to involve kids in the job search when to introduce new childcare arrangements, how to manage new routines in the household and how transparent to be on the ups and downs of the relaunch process both before and after starting a job.

And we're going to cover all of that today. Katherine welcome to 3,2,1 iRelaunch.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:01:19] Thank you so much, Carol. It's great to be with you. The article I wrote for the Washington Post Magazine about a job relauncher was my first big career break, and I of course cited iRelaunch and I've really enjoyed following your work since then.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:01:34] I remember that article. Wow. And I think we did an early give and take live with The Washington Post. And it was one of these early Twitter conversations, I don't even know if they do it that way anymore, but that was one of my first times doing that, that kind of a followup to an article. So we broke new ground together.

But since then, you've written on a whole range of topics and you've zeroed in on this parenting topic and you wrote this awesome book. And I know that it's made a big splash. And so I'm really excited that we have the opportunity to get your advice on parenting topics that are relating to relaunching.

Can we first start by talking about life transitions in general and how they impact kids of different ages? Because of course, when you are home with a child and then you relaunch your career, everyone's structure and framework changes, and it's a big transition, not only for the relauncher, but for the family.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:02:43] When it comes to transitions I'll talk about the sort of broader life transition. Of course we all are familiar, parents are all familiar with that immediate separation of dropping the kid off at preschool or waving goodbye to your child as they head off to college. And that's the sort of immediate in the moment separation which has its own pain. And kids do go through a phase of separation anxiety right around six months to 18 months. But that's sort of a different topic. When we're talking about life transitions, we're really talking about this huge shift in a child's life from a lot of time with their parents, whether you're a hundred percent with them or 90%, right?

They're used to you being there. And so for our little kids, zero to two, they just need to know that they're safe, they're cared for by a responsible adult, and that they have a predictable routine. And,over time, our little kids will just get used to a new caregiver. And you may have seen that already with a babysitter or parents-in-law who watches the little kids for a while. By three or four our kids are becoming more aware of the adult world. And so transitions will provoke more questions in them, and you always want to just answer where the child is when they're asking. Our older, early childhood kids, the five to eight year olds are really in a much better position to help with the transition, to make charts, to help with organizing.

And they experience it also as something that's happening to them. But if they can be involved in some way, that can really help them to feel empowered and less of a loss of control. And then older than that really is where we want to build our kids independence and really give them some glimpse inside of our adult world of what's happening with us as these transitions are happening with them.

So they're much more able to be fully aware of this is a huge change for our family, with the parent going back to work outside the home or potentially traveling for work. And and so they're really going to be able to be engaged in the conversation around it, and also to see it with almost more adult eyes, to understand how it's happening to the adult as well as to the child. But children are above all else, they're self-interested so they will experience it first as, “How does it affect my life?”

So if we can put our adult lenses on and try to make sure that the ways that it affects their life we've planned for and thought through so that nothing takes them by surprise or seems out of control.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:05:07] Thank you. It's very interesting to hear about it across different age groups and the fact that we're in COVID right now, on the conversations that we have had with relaunchers who have just relaunched or are in the early weeks or months of their transition. They've actually said that COVID and work from home, and we don't know how long work from home will stay beyond COVID, but it's actually made the return to work transition somewhat gentler and easier because they are back at work, but they're still around physically. And so that's a whole new dynamic that we're thinking about.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:05:46] No, that's great. Yeah.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:05:47] So, what recommendations do you have for parents who are planning a future relaunch? They are thinking they're going to be taking a career break, they are trying to do some advanced planning to get their kids in the best mindset and ready, how should they do that if they have the luxury of planning in advance?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:06:11] Well, I always start any parental advice with, know your children, right? You know your child best. So you're going to be guided by everything you already know about your kids and how they handle change, how they react to new circumstances.

And this is one of those parts of all of our temperament, but our children's temperament in particular, that is often just inborn. They're just wired to be fearful or they're wired to be excited about new things. With that groundwork, I would say it's never too early to start talking about it because one of the great things about raising kids is that you get to give your children this preview of what adulthood looks like.

And so the more glimpses we can give them into these kinds of adult decisions, the better prepared they'll be to make them when it's their turn. So you always want to be honest, right? But also be positive, lead with courage. It can be a little scary to jump back into a career and we have all these feelings that I know you talk a lot about Carol, of, “am I good enough” or, this sort of imposter syndrome that everyone has, but especially in this situation.

So you want to not hide that, but also try to lead with courage. Frame it as something exciting that you're hoping to do, you can be vulnerable and try to model comfort with uncertainty: “I don't know how long this is going to take, but I'm excited about the opportunity and I'm gonna ask for everyone's help. And I’m really gonna rely on you guys,” and then you'll see if your kids become anxious about it. Then maybe you talk about it a little less, right? You have to be responsive to how your children respond.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:07:48] And I love that idea of role modeling, these relaunch processes can take a long time and there are ups and downs. And as you're saying, it's important to know your child in terms of the transparency piece, but let's say you're going through a long stretch where you're not really making any progress, or you got through an interview process to a certain point and then were rejected. Do you share that in as constructive a way as possible with your child, or is it better to only focus on the positive parts of it?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:08:23] Oh, I think it's really important to share all emotions with our kids, to the extent that it doesn't scare them. So we never want our kids to feel that we're out of control, whether it's anger or grief, or anything that's scary to them because we don't seem to be in control, or that their life may not be in control, that we're going to not have enough money or, we're going to have to move.

And those sorts of really big questions that to us we may know in context, that's not going to happen, but they can extrapolate in ways that we don't anticipate. So with that caveat, yes, it's good for our kids to be exposed to the whole range of human emotions, because then they also can express everything to us, not just their positive, happy feelings, but their fear and their anger and their sadness and their guilt.

And again, that's another wonderful opportunity for modeling. I really like the work of Mark Brackett who runs the Center for Emotional Intelligence at Yale and the Child Study Center, and he talks about raising our children's emotional literacy and helping to become emotion scientists, where we really can accept all of the emotions in life. So being vulnerable with our kids, when we have a setback, accepting comfort from them, that can be a really empowering thing for our children, to bring us a hot cup of tea if we just got a rejection or to give a back rub. If our children can be part of the process in the good and the bad, then they also feel more ownership.

I hope that that makes it clear. It is a balance, right? Because we never want to give the most raw feelings to our little kids especially, but I do think it's a valuable opportunity because then they also can have their setbacks and learn that it's okay. And if their parents can experience disappointment and persevere, then they feel, “Well, my mess ups and my mistakes and my failures, I maybe can take in stride as well.”

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:10:19] Yeah. Again, that role modeling piece and, kids of course are experiencing rejection along the way as they grow up. And so to have them see their parent experienced rejection and model reaction to it in real time, I could see how that is an opportunity, as you're saying.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:10:40] And I will say another thing that I've learned over the 20 years that I've been a parent is, I've learned much better self-talk myself, because I have to do it in front of my kids.

So, maybe 10, 20 years ago, I would have a failure and say, "Oh, I was so stupid. I can't believe I didn't double check for typos on the resume," and this sort of really negative, critical tone towards myself. And because I'm doing it in front of my kids, I know that it's never helpful to tear someone down, whether it's yourself or another person.

And so I've had to develop better ways of managing my own emotions. So as I often say to people, parenting is this fabulous, personal growth opportunity for us to even be better at managing our emotions because we have to be those role models for our kids.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:11:24] Right. And also this whole idea of involving your child in the process at, whatever's appropriate for them or whatever stage they're at and I guess their personality.

But I remember trying to do things like, “I'm getting this question about what my three strengths are. How would you answer that about me?”, kind of thing, or maybe for one of my older kids, "Take a look at this job description, what do you think about that? I want to practice talking about how I feel. I have skills that match it." How do you feel about this whole really actively bringing the kids into the job search process itself?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:12:07] Oh, I love it. Yeah. I think that's really wonderful if your kids are open to it and excited about it. It gives them a real feeling of contribution, and in my book, The Good News About Bad Behavior, I talk about how important these three things are for our children's healthy self-development and to become independent, resilient adults is to be able to really contribute to the family. I talked about the three C's: Connection with an adult that's close to them, Communication in a respectful, healthy way. And then capability building and Contribution is the fourth one, or the third one, sorry. And so whenever our kids can contribute to the household or to your life, It gives them such a feeling of empowerment and it really helps them step up and take more responsibility.

So whenever our kids are acting up, misbehaving or starting fights, I often think of that as a child who is unemployed and needs some job, they need to contribute in a way. So when they can contribute by helping you practice interviews, or even like in the old days when we used to put resumes into our envelopes and mail them any of those kinds of tasks really are meaningful to them.

So I love it. The more the merrier.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:13:17] Yeah. I'm thinking about this transition from, we were just talking about the job search process, but then I want to talk a little bit about once you have the job and in the early weeks of having the job, what should you be talking to your kids about in terms of how routines are going to change around the household, how they can be involved?

I mean, do you have a family meeting? Do you make a chart? How do you go about that conversation and actually making it happen?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:13:49] Yes. A family meeting is one of the most important tools that I use and recommend for successfully managing your family. So we do a weekly family meeting. It starts with an appreciation of every person in the family from every other person in the family, which builds a culture of gratitude and yes, your children will give backhanded compliments. And for the first few weeks, "I appreciate Samantha for not being so annoying," but then they start to understand how great it feels to be acknowledged and noticed for what you contribute to the family.

The next step is running through the schedule and the calendar. And then you talk about old business, which is usually the rules: screen time, bedtime, chores. And then we talk about new business. And then we close the family meeting with allowance so that our kids get practice managing money.

So if you have brought your children into the conversation throughout the job process, this will just be one more step, right? The excitement of getting the job and here's the family meeting. How are things going to change? So you can talk about the things that the parent at home has been doing, “How should we, as a family, decide to divide those up?” And hopefully your children will be bought in enough at that point that they will volunteer for different roles.

You may find that there are some things that just don't get done right away. So maybe you're pulling laundry out of a clean laundry out of baskets for a couple of weeks. It's important to be realistic. You may not have the exact same standards of housekeeping or organization. But if you agree as a family, “we're going to let this slide as we're making this transition,” or if it really matters to someone, then maybe they pick it up. That's the kind of collaborative decision-making that can really avoid problems with our kids becoming defiant or not wanting to help because they've had a role in deciding.

And then whatever charts work for you. So for the little kids, we can do visual charts. You could take photos of every stage in their morning or their afternoon routine. If they're involved in doing that, taking the pictures or pasting the pictures onto a visual chart. That's great. Older kids might work well with either an Excel chart or even reminders on a phone. And again, whatever your family decides works for you. I find with my family, we like novelty and we like change. So every three or four months, we have to change up the way that we're reminding people of the structure, because we start to glaze over the things that are already on the walls. So I would also say, it's good to revisit quarterly, “How is it working? Are there things we need to change?”

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:16:28] I love the comment about lowering standards of when Vivian Steir Rabin and I were writing back on The Career Track, which came out in 2007, we did a lot of interviewing of people who were relaunching. And the common refrain was, “my house is messier and I don't care.” Right?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:16:47] I love it.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:16:48] A general lowering standards was helpful for all.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:16:52] Yes.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:16:53] So that was kind of a theme, but we also talked to parents, one mother who went back whose kids were a little older, she didn't take the career break when they were babies but when they were in middle school, and she said they had a family meeting and she said, “Everyone owes, each person in that family owes the household a half an hour a day.”

And so they kind of marked that out. And then another example was one family made each kid in charge of dinner for one night. And this was a mother who was relaunching. She said, “I didn't care if it was pasta and water for dinner, but the kid was responsible for getting something on the table and getting their grocery list in order and reporting to me by Sunday morning when we were going to go shopping that day.”

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:17:40] Yes. Yes. I love involving kids in the household routines is so important because if they've helped plan the meals and cook them and will shop for them and cook them, there's a lot less complaining, you know? And, during this pandemic we have done that, each person in the house has been responsible for cooking one meal, and it's just such a wonderful way to teach responsibility, to build independence and even during the training process, as you're teaching your kids to do these new chores or take on these new responsibilities, that can be a really special connection time, right? The first two or three times you cook a meal with your kid or you do laundry with them, that can be a really fun way to share some time together and also get something done.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:18:23] Yeah. And I remember that mother saying her seventh grade boy was not enthusiastic about this dinner idea at the beginning, but as time went on, he got very possessive about it. So it’s like he went through a transformation of owning.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:18:40] Oh, that's wonderful. And I will say also, this is another opportunity to really be careful how you frame it. I hear a lot of times people talk about, “How do I make my kids do chores,” or “How do I get my kids to contribute?” And if you present it as an opportunity, or a need: “Our family really needs these jobs to be done. How would you all like to work together?” When the kids have it presented as a question, they're much more likely to step forward. Whereas if you present it as, “You have to do this,” they're going to step back.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:19:10] And I'm just going to ask this, is bribery ever involved? What is your opinion on that?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:19:18] I have many feelings about bribery. So I have extensive research in my book on rewards, and I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but rewards do not work. So rewards actually dis-incentivize the behavior that you're trying to encourage. If you're paying for grades, if you're offering dessert as a reward for eating the healthy food, all of these things are actually going to undermine intrinsic motivation. That doesn't mean that they're evil. And I have given up gum to smile in a photo for a child. There are times when you just need the photo taken with the smile. And I don't really care if they have an intrinsic motivation to smile in a photo because they will eventually be teenagers and do it on their own. But we just need to bear that in mind that if we use bribery, it is a very weak tool that is going to lose its power.

So do not use bribery for anything that we want to hold fast and be a core value for our children, around chores, contribution to the household, I don't even call them chores. I call them jobs because we all want to be employed in some way, whether it's for pay or for love. So the things that we really want our kids to take ownership of, we should not use bribery.

We can certainly have family goals like, “If we can all together keep this house clean for a week, then we'll have a game night on Saturday,” or that kind of thing I think is a very different than the powerful adult doling out rewards, because that sets up this power dynamic that again, humans are just independent and rebellious. And whenever there's someone controlling us, we want to push back. So the more that we can keep the power dynamic respectful and equal and collaborative, the more cooperation we'll get. I hope that's clear about the distinction between family goals and working together which builds cooperation and independence versus the adult who's in charge deciding and doling out bribes.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:21:21] Yeah. Super helpful. I'm glad I asked. I thought, "should I ask her this?" All right. That was extremely helpful. Let's move on to the topic of caregiving and caregiving arrangements. How soon should you introduce them? Should you introduce them? If you can afford it while you're still job searching or maybe it's a family member or grandparent who's coming in or, maybe, I remember one parent had two high school students who job shared picking kids up from the bus and being with the kids for the afternoon, from three to six until the parent got home, whatever you're setting up.

Should that be set up in advance? And if so, how far in advance?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:22:02] Well, yes, I would say yes, if you can afford it. Or if you have a willing family member who will do it for free, it's always good for you to get the break from your kids and have just a little time to do an interview or to write a cover letter in peace, and for your children to experience that they are perfectly okay without you, that they actually can connect and bond with and learn from another adult or an older, a teenager in a way that maybe brings them something that they don't get from you. It's great for kids to have lots of positive connections with as many caring, responsible adults as possible. So it's hard at first. And I remember this myself, going back to work and leaving your child for the first time, you feel like you're the only one who can meet your child's needs, but that's actually not a healthy relationship long-term for our children.

From zero to 18, we want to work ourselves out of a job. We want them to be okay without us, where other people can meet their needs. And then eventually they can meet their own needs. They can advocate for themselves. So introduce caregiving early if you can, even if it's just a few hours a week to give you a little bit of a break and to have them experience that, and then also gives you a little more comfort with, “Okay, they are going to be okay once I do go back to work.”

And the question of how far in advance, I think is a hard one, because you don't know how long you are going to be looking. But I would say at least a month, if you can, if you can do it a month before you anticipate that you're going to be committed to being at work for regular hours. I would say that's a good time.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:23:37] And, all kids are different, but let's say you've done a lot of planning, you've followed a lot of the suggestions that you've presented to us in this conversation, Katherine, but you have a child who is particularly anxious about the transition or is very sad or is acting out in some way in the first few months or a few weeks of the relaunch. How do you recommend handling that kind of situation?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:24:05] It's so hard when we see our kids upset or anxious or sad. And it's really natural for us to want to solve that problem for them. Make the pain go away, reassure them, make them happy again. And as we talked about before, our kids have to experience the whole range of human emotions. Right? There is no life that has no anxiety or sadness. So I think the first piece is for us internally to be comfortable that this is normal and natural. You're not causing your child to be sad. You're not feeding their anxiety. This is actually going to give them practice for future life transitions that may be hard. And I find that really a helpful place to start, because I always want to rush in there and kiss the booboos, make the problems go away. But the great saying is, “We do not prepare the path for the child, we prepare the child for the path.” We want to let our kids have practice.

So great tools, reflective listening, “I know, it's really hard when you see dad heading out the door and you know, I'm not going to be back for three hours. I miss you too. And you're with this person who's caring for you,” brainstorm ways that they could feel safer or happy, or think of you when you're away. There's some great books out there for that moment of separation.

I remember one about holding a kiss in your hand that was really great. And just letting them talk about those feelings, and be confident and lead with courage and you have to imbue your sort of sense of confidence through your whole body. This is a situation for “fake it till you make it”. Even if you have to channel someone you admire, who's really calm, give that confident leadership during those moments.

Another great tool is special time. So it's like a prescription, whenever kids are acting up, one-on-one, one parent, one child, dedicated time that is on the calendar and they choose what you do. So for our little guys, it's maybe just 10 minutes playing Candy Land, or building with blocks or playing with dolls, whatever they decide. And we treat it as a sacred appointment on our calendar. Just like anything else, we don't answer the phone, we don't take interruptions from other family members. If you do it daily. That's great. Or, but even once a week is a really great way to just connect with your children and fill their emotional bucket.

Another thing that I mentioned before when kids act up is involving them and giving them more opportunities to contribute. So you could even just ask them, "What would help, what do you think would help?" I have a list of age appropriate jobs in the back of my book. So you can show them, "Hey, which of these jobs would you like to learn?" And often it's something involving a knife or a flame or a piece of equipment, and so you're going to just teach kids to use them safely, but giving your kids more responsibility often, it's counterintuitive, but when they're acting fearful and scared and small, they want to feel bigger. They want to feel more in charge. They want to have that. Anxiety is a really important one to nip in the bud because anxiety feeds on avoidance. So if our kids are anxious and they don't ever have to face that tough thing that they're worried about, then they don't get that desensitization and the practice dealing with anxiety. So we want to be very careful to balance only as much as they can handle, but with comfort from an adult that they're attached to, but don't let the anxiety drive the adult decision-making.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:27:33] Great advice. And when you're talking about spending time with the child on their terms when they pick the activity reminded me of one relauncher who said, " When I got home from work, I just wanted to talk about the day, but I realized that my kid just wanted to go outside and throw the ball with me and I had to make that adjustment. "

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:27:56] Yes, that's a good one, and I've heard this advice too, that the five minute reconnection time after you've been out of the house or you've been apart, even when they're on zoom school and you're out of the zoom meeting that, make sure your eyes light up when you see your child, and give them that five minutes of just devoted time to connect. Then you can talk about your day and then you can take off your stockings or whatever.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:28:22] That's great. So, Katherine, what about celebrating the relaunch? I remember one person that we spoke to said that their family had a tradition, even with her own parents, they'd sit around the dining table. Her father was in sales. And when he would get a new account or some sort of a sales achievement, they would all celebrate around the table. So I'm wondering can you bring this into the relaunch context and celebrate something about the parent making this transition?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:28:54] Yes. I love that idea. And I've been covering the workplace and careers in addition to parenting for a couple of decades now. And the most high powered, hard working parents that I interview, who are partners at law firms or consulting firms or CEOs, they seem to make it work by engaging their family in their careers. And, even when possible traveling with their kids or bringing their family into their work lives, and then also bringing some of their work lives into their family.

So I think whenever we can do that is great. That could be a celebratory dinner. It could be even something visual that we put on the wall, something that celebrates not just your adult accomplishment, but how the whole family worked together to do it.

I know when my book launched, my kids were very involved all the way along. And when my book came out, they were so excited for the launch party. They helped me plan it. They helped with decorations. So when we have big events in our careers, my partner and I both, they'll say, "Oh, well, let's do a fancy dinner." And they like to dress up, even if we're just at home and I put out candles, your family develops your own traditions. When they were really little, they would bring their Fisher Price cash register, and then pretend that we were in a restaurant and ring us up ,and one kid was the waiter, so let it go wherever your kids want to take it. But definitely ask them, “How should we celebrate?” And then you'll find out where it goes and it can be really wonderful and delightful places.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:30:23] I like the idea of asking them, once again, bringing them into the process. So we're running out of time now, Katherine, and I want to ask you the question that we ask all of our podcast guests, and that is what is your best piece of advice for our relauncher audience even if it's something that we've already talked about today.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:30:44] My one piece of advice is to believe in yourself and believe in your kids. Because when we are doing hard things, that is when growth happens. So you're going to have uncomfortable moments. You're going to have moments of self doubt, but if you have the courage to lead your family through this transition, everyone's going to grow and develop in ways you couldn't have imagined. And when I look at the things that I've accomplished in my career, the one question I occasionally ask myself is, “Why didn't I try to do this sooner?”

It's usually because I had self doubt or I had imposter syndrome or I thought I wasn't ready yet. And so looking back, I think the only thing I would've done differently was to just have more confidence earlier. And so I just want to give that to your audiences. Just believe in yourself now.

Don't wait.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:31:33] That's a great way to end. And Katherine, how can people find out more about your book and your parent education work?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:31:41] Well, thank you so much for having me, Carol. I always love hearing from listeners and readers. You can go to my website, KatherineRLewis.com , which is K A T H E R I N E R L E W I S.com. And my book is there and articles I've written and classes I'm teaching, upcoming events. I also am launching a masterclass series with a number of 18 different wonderful, bestselling parenting authors called the Parenting in Place Masterclass Series. And you can find that at parentinginplacemasterclass.com and you can also link to it just through my website. I'd love to hear from anyone who's listening and has up follow up questions.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:32:27] Wow. Terrific resources for everyone. Katherine, it was such a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: [00:32:34] So great to talk to you and to reconnect, Carol, and good luck with all of your really wonderful work supporting relaunchers.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:32:40] Thank you so much. And thanks for listening to 3,2,1 iRelaunch, the podcast where we discuss strategies, advice, and success stories about returning to work after a career break. I'm Carol Fishman Cohen, the CEO and co-founder of iRelaunch and your host. For more information on iRelaunch conferences and events, to sign up for our job board and access our return to work tools and resources, go to iRelaunch.com.

And if you liked this podcast, be sure to rate it on Apple podcasts and your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to share this podcast with a friend on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. Thanks for joining us.


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