By Marjie Hadad
The holidays are coming up fast!
Already overwhelmed just thinking about it, given your already full schedule - advancing your career, raising your kids, trying to run a household, etc., etc., etc.?
Now to squeeze in holiday season and all that party planning that goes with it! Exciting? Of course! Stressful? Doesn’t have to be.
PR Parenting can help make party planning easy breezy – for YOU and for your family.
PR Parenting? What’s that? Well, it’s a new approach where we use public relations strategies, practices and tactics to make everything in our lives a little easier.
Here are three PR Parenting tips to help us with the holiday season.
Number 1: YOUR PRODUCTION IS ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR PRE-PRODUCTION
My skill set as a PR Pro for the last 30 years included event planning and my motto - Your production is only as good as your pre-production. That said, don’t feel overwhelmed, pre-production can be fun and efficient. We just need to ask the right questions.
We start with my Top Ten PR Pro Tips for Planning the Perfect Party that you can download by clicking here.
This is the exact check list I have used to plan big and small events from media breakfasts and press conferences for statesmen and diplomats, to galas for hundreds of guests, to birthday parties for my kids to intimate dinner parties.
Number 2: BRING YOUR SUPERPOWERS HOME!
We’ve all been told to leave work at the office and NOT to bring it home!
I say, don’t spend the time and energy trying to separate. Leave the drama at the office, sure, but bring your professional superpowers home to benefit your family.
Teach your children your special skills, and for our purposes today, choose those that can help the holidays go smoothly and to be special – like your organization skills, telephone skills, writing skills, design flair, artistic talents, culinary talents, music talents, etc. It doesn’t matter if the kids have the
same talents. What’s key is exposure, the experience of trying and to have fun. All three will benefit the kids, not only in the short term, but for their whole lives.
Number 3 – YOUR FAMILY IS YOUR HOME TEAM
Next, just like at work you are part of a team, maybe even leading it, create the same system at home with your kids as your party planning team. Assign them select tasks on your Top Ten PR Pro Tips For Planning the Perfect Party guide and oversee them without micromanaging.
If they need help, point out what they are doing right and if something needs correcting, demonstrate
how they should be doing it in a positive way, without dwelling on any mistakes. It might take a while for
them to get it right. That’s ok. Remember -- anything is easy if you already know how to do it. The goal here is to have fun with the process and help your child (your team) to build confidence, resilience and some level of success along the way.
Once they’ve got it, acknowledge their progress and watch them “own it”.
Your pre-production will shine the more for it --- with your family working together in harmony, getting the job done and creating wonderful memories along the way.
Curtain Up
On the day of the party, with all in place, you’ll be able to sit back, relax and enjoy as the evening rolls by smoothly, reasonably stress free, and joyously thinking about how fun this year’s holiday parties were to produce.
And as a bonus… in years to come, you’ll be able to pass the torch to your children, your home team, with full confidence, knowing that they can now run the show and teach their children to do the same and so on, for generations - a long-term goal of PR Parenting.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me at marjie@prfor.life.
Happy planning and happy holidays!
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