Ep 191: Your Kid’s Backpack Is Full Of Ants And You’re Still Okay

Holiday seasons are loud, bright, sweet, and often overwhelming—and that’s exactly why they’re perfect for teaching kids (and ourselves) how to be present. We explore a simple presence practice that uses the five senses to bring a busy mind back to now, turning chaotic moments into chances for calm, clarity, and connection. From Halloween costumes and crinkly candy wrappers to warm pie dough and the glow of neighborhood lights, we show how everyday sensory details can anchor the nervous system and reduce stress.

You’ll hear a real family scene—a late‑night discovery of ants in a backpack—and how shifting attention to sights, sounds, textures, and smells transformed frustration into laughter and purposeful action. We unpack why acceptance is not giving up but stepping into reality long enough to choose a better response. Instead of fighting what’s happening or spiraling into what‑ifs, we practice noticing what is here, right now, and responding on purpose. That skill helps kids build emotional regulation, resilience, and self‑confidence while giving parents a steadier way to lead.

We also share quick, repeatable prompts that fit into busy days: tasting candy with attention, listening to neighborhood laughter, feeling cool air on your skin, and watching lights flicker. These micro‑rituals train the brain to settle faster, make good memories more vivid, and lower the temperature during meltdowns. The holidays become a training ground for year‑round calm, where presence turns modern chaos into manageable moments and families reconnect with what matters most.

If this resonates, share the episode with a friend who needs a little extra calm, and leave a quick review so more parents can find the show. Want more tools? Visit thestressnanny.com and subscribe so you never miss a practice that helps your family breathe easier.

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.

To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.

To review the podcast click here.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
Welcome to the Stress Nanny, the podcast where
we take the overwhelm out ofparenting and help kids and
parents build calm, confidence,and connection.
I'm your host, Lindsay Miller,Kids Mindfulness Coach and
Cheerleader for busy familieseverywhere.
Each week we'll explore simpletools, uplifting stories, and
practical strategies to helpyour child learn emotional

(00:42):
regulation, resilience, andself-confidence, while giving
you a little more peace of mindtoo.
I'm so glad you're here.
Hey there, it's Lindsay.
Today I'm going to share anactivity I like to call presence
practice.
This is something I've beenworking on with my mindfulness
kids during the month of Octoberbecause I think the holidays are

(01:02):
a great time for us to practicebeing fully present.
Because there are so manysights, sounds, tastes,
textures, and smells as part ofthe holiday celebrations,
whether it's costumes and candy,whether it's meals with loved
ones, whether it's lights anddecorations and fireworks,

(01:24):
whatever it is, there are a lotof different opportunities for
us to be fully present byconnecting with our senses
during holidays.
So with my mindfulness kids,what I've been doing is working
with different activities tohelp draw their attention to
their senses as a gateway or aportal into the present moment.

(01:45):
So what I mean by that issometimes when we are like in a
really epic moment, we naturallyjust stop and notice and just
take it all in.
Other times, when we're maybe ina not so epic moment, a
challenging moment, or just aneveryday moment, we don't always
take the opportunity to connectto the present and feel the joy

(02:07):
and ease that can come in thepresent moment.
And so because we do do it alittle bit more during the
holidays, it's a great time topractice that type of awareness.
So whether it's noticing thetexture of a Halloween costume
or, you know, like uncrinklingthe wrapper of can of a candy,

(02:27):
like and then putting it in yourmouth and mindfully eating it,
right?
Taking in all the textures, allthe tastes, what it smells like.
Whether it's running aroundoutside with friends and hearing
laughter down the street andnoticing the sun setting,
whether it's baking a pie andfeeling the dough on your

(02:48):
fingertips, and then smelling,you know, as it warms and the
house starts to smell like appleand it's so lovely.
Whether it's noticing lightsoutside, either your own lights
or lights in the neighborhood,whether it's like a Christmas
tree smell or whatever holidayyou practice, whether it's the

(03:10):
fireworks at New Year's or maybeDiwali festivities, whatever the
activity is that you're you're apart of during this season.
If you can give yourself over tothe sensory input and allow
yourself to just notice all thethings around you, time kind of

(03:30):
stops.
And that full sense ofawareness, that's presence.
When we're just in the momentthat we're in, our mind isn't
racing into next week.
It's not worrying about whathappened yesterday.
It is just right then, like allof us, our body, our mind, our
spirit, everything is liketucked into that moment fully.
And when we can practice that,what we notice is that we have a

(03:52):
clarity of thought and also likethe ability to connect in a way
that's really, really beautiful.
When we are fully present andall of us is in the same place
at the same time, we aren'tdistracted or as concerned about
things that are like usuallytugging away our attention.
And so if you can just noticethe moments that you are present

(04:16):
during the holidays, what itwill do is give you a
springboard into presence forthe rest of the year.
Often we want to capture themoments of the holidays or
remember them, or in someinstances, and maybe like your
newborn just had a blowout, yourtwo-year-old's ripping off their
costume while your elementaryschooler is racing out the door
to trick-or-treat with friends.

(04:37):
Like some of the moments they'rea little bit tricky and we're,
you know, we're we're not hopingthey last forever.
But other moments we're, youknow, really just all in and
invested.
But even in the moments thataren't optimal or the moments
that seem really trying, I findthat presence can be a wonderful
solve for like modern everydaychaos.

(04:58):
I'll share a quick example thatI shared on the podcast a couple
months ago.
My daughter had been at rowingpractice and she was coming home
and it'd been a long day.
We had a lot going on.
We were all like trying to geteverything done.
Like she was trying to finishher homework.
I had calls with clients, and myhusband was working on some work
things he needed to finish up.

(05:19):
And everybody kind of finishedwhat they were doing.
You know, we had eaten earlier,everyone finished what they were
doing, and we were movingtowards bedtime when my daughter
grabbed her, you know, backpackfor the next day, and we found
it swimming with ants.
And she had like a snack barthat she had tucked away in the
pocket of her backpack, and shehad eaten it, but there were a

(05:41):
little, you know, few crumbs anda little bit of chocolate on the
wrapper.
And while she was at rowing, theants had gotten into it.
And so in that moment, I wasfeeling complete exhaustion
because it had just been areally long week.
And again, all of us were kindof at max capacity.
It was late, all we wanted to dowas go to bed.
And here we are with this messof ants, which was now like in

(06:03):
our living room and herbackpack, like all this stuff
had to get washed, and it wasjust a lot.
So we found ourselves a fewminutes later standing on the
front porch, like the myhusband, my daughter, and I
shaking out everything in herbackpack.
And we just kind of stopped andlooked at ourselves and laughed.
And like, we, you know, thereare a lot of different different

(06:25):
options for responses in thatmoment.
But here we were outside on, youknow, like a late summer
evening.
We were all tired.
So we're aware of all of thethings, right?
But like we're looking around,we're we're noticing the the
hilarity of the situation andchoosing to tune into that while
acknowledging our frustrationand exhaustion.

(06:45):
Like those things all existedright there.
But we just like stopped andnoticed and laughed.
And sometimes you stop andnotice and cry, right?
And that's okay too.
But I think in this, in thisexample, what was interesting is
like we were wanting to be inbed, right?
And like we could have beenthinking about all the things we
had done that day and or all thethings we were going to be tired

(07:09):
for the next day because we werenot going to be sleeping anytime
soon.
But what we did was we juststopped in that moment and
didn't fight it.
We didn't, we just accepted whatit was.
We accepted ourselves as we werein that moment, and then we made
a choice about how to respond.
And the power of presence isjust that, right?
Whether we're in a reallychaotic moment or whether we're

(07:31):
in a moment that's just lightingus up from the inside, we can
respond on purpose to any momentthat we're in when we accept the
moment and we accept ourselves.
And so when we can practice thattype of presence and practice
just being fully in that moment,it's easier to accept it.
It's easier to work with it.

(07:51):
It's not easy in general, butlike the fight is often what
pulls us out of the present.
We're fighting what's going on.
We're fighting someone'sresponse.
We're fighting the way somethingturned out, we're fighting a
circumstance that's beyond ourcontrol.
And the fight pulls us like itgets us in our head and pulls us
out of the moment.
Or we're wishing it wassomething else, or wishing there

(08:14):
was a different way to approachit.
And we can wish all thosethings, but if we can just kind
of let those things go for justa minute and accept, like, oh,
I'm really wishing this momentwas different, and here I am,
right?
Hold them together at the sametime.
That's what in that's where thepower of presence comes in.
And so I think the range ofmoments that we experience over

(08:37):
the holidays from like thesereally elated opportunities to
connect to also like the cryingmoments when we had a really
grandiose idea about howsomething was going to turn out
and it really didn't go thatway.
Like the range invites a levelof acceptance that gives us such
good practice.
So again, you're going to havemoments that are amazing and it

(08:59):
will be easy to be present tothem and easy to accept them.
And then my invitation is to usethat as a springboard and allow
and invite yourself to presencein all the moments that you can,
in other moments that aren't soeasy, that are like a mess and
going not the way you wantedthem to.
And if you can embrace again themoment and embrace yourself in

(09:22):
that moment without fighting it,you will have a sense of clarity
about how to move forward andhow to like help that moment
serve you or at least get inyour way a little less than you
would if you're fighting.
So here's the invitation onemore time.
Notice the sights, notice thesounds, the tastes, the
textures, the smells.

(09:44):
When we were outside likeshaking out stinky rowing
clothes in a stinky rowingbackpack in the night with the
summer air on our skin and thesmell of somebody's bonfire a
few streets over, like thosethings, they all slow it down
and they make the importantthings rise to the top.

(10:07):
And the stuff that's not asimportant sifts down.
So when you practice that typeof presence, you invite yourself
to continued experience with thekind of clarity that comes when
you can let go of thoughts abouthow things could have been, let
go of what you wish was going oninstead of where you actually

(10:27):
are, and really accept yourselfin the moment fully.
Give it your attention and giveit all that you've got, and then
you can move from it with alittle more freedom, and you're
not as taxed by your response,right?
So often when we're fighting thepresent moment and wishing
something was different ortrying to make it different or

(10:48):
bemoaning the fact that it isn'tdifferent, we block the
creativity that can come and wejust give ourselves we give
ourselves over to our head.
And what we really need that atthat time is like the presence
and the clarity that come fromtuning in.
So just like with my mindfulnesskids, I'm gonna invite you to

(11:09):
notice the textures, notice thesounds, the smells, the sights.
Just really, really be presentand notice anything you can
during this holiday season.
And again, you don't have to bepresent 24-7.
That's not realisticnecessarily.
But if you can as much aspossible notice those moments
and tune into them, it'll begreat practice for the rest of

(11:32):
the year when presents canreally serve you as well.
Thanks again for listening.
Until next time, I wish you afully present holiday season.
Thanks for listening to TheStress Nanny.
If you found today's episodehelpful, be sure to share it
with a friend who could use alittle extra calm in their week.
And if you have a minute, I'dlove for you to leave a review.

(11:53):
It helps other parents find theshow and join us on this
journey.
For more tools and support, headover to www.thestressnanny.com.
Remember, you don't have to dostress alone.
Together, we can raise kids whoknow how to navigate life with
confidence and ease.
Until next time, take a deepbreath and give yourselves some
grace.