30: Mental Health Dads

Parents At Work

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:

[e-mail]

Resources:

The Expectant Father

And Baby Makes Three