Amy Peterson is a mother of 3 boys, wife, coach and Special Education parent champion. Amy and I met when her son, Henry came out to play football. She and I were more of acquaintances. A year later she volunteered at the snack stand for our youth football program and we chatted and found a similar mindset and common interests. During this episode we discuss our experiences as parents, youth sports, and special education.

We discussed the importance of being involved, setting good examples as parents and the challenges we see with mindset and grit in youth today. Providing structure, consistency and discipline to set your children up for success. Parenting children with special needs and the challenges you face when dealing with the Special Education world. Being an advocate but knowing it's ok to ask for help. We discussed her experience as a HS field hockey and softball coach and how that has helped her raise her boys and nephew navigate youth & HS sports today.

Thank you to Amy for sharing her story.

We didn't discuss is but Amy's husband, Greg has his own business, GSP Industrial. https://gspindustrial.com/

GSP Industrial is a locally owned Winzer franchise with access to over 70,000 high quality core line products available to ship same day. In addition GSP Industrial has access to over 2 million additional products with a specialty in hard to find fasteners in over 100 different materials.

Offering full service vendor managed inventory to customer managed inventory to online ordering-GSP Industrial can supply almost any customer no matter their size.

Local South Jersey Resources:

Performcare- https://www.performcarenj.org/

https://www.cgsresourcenet.org/

https://www.cgsresourcenet.org/community-services/arts-recreation/adaptive-sports/

TopSports- mullica hill

Marlton Sports Unity Program

The Mother Load is about the unrealistic expectations of moms and the challenges we face trying to survive. This is a longer than expected episode, but it needed to be for how challenging this topic can be. I review the feedback from fellow Mom's and what they identify as their "load." I went from "shoulding" all over to needing a filter on my mouth. I shared some of the real me and my kids even joined (unexpectedly and multiple times). This was an emotional topic for me and may be for you, so I am including mental health resources below:

Mental Health Information & Referrals- 1-800-382-6717

NJ Hope Line- suicide prevention- 1-855-654-6735

National Suicide Hotline- 1-800-273-8255

NJ Mental Health Care- 1-866-202-4357

Crisis Lifeline- 988 or 911 for emergencies

What advice would I tell my 20 year old self?? Reflection on the choices I've made, hmmm. It's not always easy to think about the mistake in the past but what did I do right to get where I'm at? I share a pieces of me in my younger years. The good, bad and ugly from anxiety to changing college majors and reaching goals. Allow yourself to make mistakes, change friends, jobs, whatever you want.