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Mindful Mystic Mama

Intuitive Consulting and Lifestyle Coaching

For Parents of Small Children (Tips for Dealing with Stress)

This blog post was forwarded to me by a friend, and I feel that it is very worth sharing.  So many parents – mothers, and as we can certainly see through this real and raw post, fathers too – are struggling just to keep up.

Just to keep up with the demands for more milk, more sandwiches, a new t-shirt because I just got this one wet (for the fourth time today), the sticky juice needing clean up on the kitchen floor (and probably the sofa), the boo-boo that has recently been acquired from running too quickly tripping over toes … never mind, keeping up with the laundry, the dishes, the bill payments and the (attempted) meal planning.  It’s a LOT.

On top of all these demands, we can feel demanded upon by society, by infomercials and billboards, and by other blogging moms (and dads!) to do more, strive for more, be MORE as parents.  Where does this leave us in our own minds, hearts and bodies in regards to having time for ourselves?

And for simply ENJOYING the lives that we have, right now, in this present moment?  The present is all we have.  For the most part, parents are doing the very best that they can … with what they have.  Now go on, grab yourself that piece of chocolate.  Or two.  Go on, grab the whole bar.

You deserve it.

I would like to offer you some gentle tips for dealing with stress here:

  • Be Easier On Yourself: So many people create their own stress by self-criticism. Do not allow yourself to think negative thoughts about yourself. Instead learn to focus on the positive things you do and not the negative. In other words, give yourself a break.
  • Pray or Meditate Daily: It has been proven that people who pray or meditate for 10-20 minutes every day have a reduced stress level than those who do not. Therefore, why not give it a try? If you’ve never meditated or prayed before, you can easily find information regarding both online. You may also be able to incorporate guided imagery into your new daily routine.
  • Take a Break: Stress has a funny way of making us prone to blowups or “angry outbursts.” So, if you are feeling stressed and something angers you, try to take a short break before you address the issue or respond to the person who is angering you. If you’ve been stressed for the majority of the day, you may find it helpful to take a 15 minute break just to clear your mind.
  • Breathe: Take the time to breathe in slowly and deeply. Breathing like this has been shown to reduce stress levels, remove toxins from the body and relax muscles, which is why it is often used during meditation. 
  • Tap Into Your Inner Artist: While you may not believe it, art therapy has actually been proven to reduce stress levels. Therefore, tap into your inner artist and eliminate stress by signing up for an art class!
  • Keep Things in Perspective: It’s easy to get caught up with a pressing issue and blow it out of proportion. Therefore, always try to look at the big picture when there is an issue causing you stress. For example, will the outcome affect you 5 years from now, 10 years or 50 years from now? If not, try not to stress about it – keep it all in perspective.
  • Prevent Stressful Situations: While we don’t like to admit it, most of the time we cause our own stress when we fail to plan. For example, vehicles breaking down, a forgotten meeting, health problems and other stressful situations can usually be avoided if we plan ahead and take care of ourselves.
  • Enjoy Alone Time: You don’t always have to be available to others. In fact, it’s important that you take time for yourself. Whether it’s going on a 30 minute run, taking a bath or just reading a book – take time to rejuvenate yourself. There is nothing wrong with this and you can even tell your family and friends so they don’t worry when they can’t reach you.

The following writing first appeared as a post at The Actual Pastor:

I am in a season of my life right now where I feel bone tired almost all of the time. Ragged, how-am-I-going-to-make-it-to-the-end-of-the-day, eyes burning exhausted.

I have three boys ages 5 and under. I’m not complaining about that. Well, maybe I am a little bit. But I know that there are people who would give anything for a house full of laughter & chaos. I was that person for years and years; the pain of infertility is stabbing and throbbing and constant. I remember allowing hope to rise and then seeing it crash all around me, month after month, for seven years. I am working on another post about infertility that will come at a later date.

But right now, in my actual life, I have three boys ages five and under. There are many moments where they are utterly delightful, like last week when Isaac told my sister-in-law that “My daddy has hair all over.” Or when Elijah put a green washcloth over his chin and cheeks, and proudly declared, “Daddy! I have a beard just like you!” Or when Ben sneaks downstairs in the morning before the other boys do, smiles at me, and says, “Daddy and Ben time.”

But there are also many moments when I have no idea how I’m going to make it until their bedtime. The constant demands, the needs, and the fighting are fingernails across the chalkboard every single day.

One of my children is for sure going to be the next Steve Jobs. I now have immense empathy for his parents. He has a precise vision of what he wants — exactly that way and no other way. Sometimes it’s the way his plate needs to be centered exactly to his chair, or how his socks go on, or exactly how the picture of the pink dolphin needs to look – with brave eyes, not sad eyes, daddy! He is a laser beam, and he is not satisfied until it’s exactly right.

I have to confess that sometimes the sound of his screaming drives me to hide in the pantry. And I will neither confirm nor deny that while in there, I compulsively eat chips and/or dark chocolate.

There are people who say this to me:
“You should enjoy every moment now! They grow up so fast!”


I usually smile and give some sort of guffaw, but inside, I secretly want to hold those people under water. Just for a minute or so. Just until they panic a little.

If you have friends with small children — especially if your children are now teenagers or if they’re grown – please vow to me right now that you will never say this to them. Not because it’s not true, but because it really, really doesn’t help.

We know it’s true that they grow up too fast.

But feeling like I have to enjoy every moment doesn’t feel like a gift, it feels like one more thing that is impossible to do, and right now, that list is way too long. Not every moment is enjoyable as a parent; it wasn’t for you, and it isn’t for me. You just have obviously forgotten. I can forgive you for that. But if you tell me to enjoy every moment one more time, I will need to break up with you.

If you are a parent of small children, you know that there are moments of spectacular delight, and you can’t believe you get to be around these little people. But let me be the one who says the following things out loud:

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out a way for your children to eat as healthy as your friend’s children do. She’s obviously using a bizarre and probably illegal form of hypnotism.
You are not a terrible parent if you yell at your kids sometimes. You have little dictators living in your house. If someone else talked to you like that, they’d be put in prison.
You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out how to calmly give them appropriate consequences in real time for every single act of terrorism that they so creatively devise.
You are not a terrible parent if you’d rather be at work.
You are not a terrible parent if you just can’t wait for them to go to bed.
You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.
You’re not a terrible parent. 

You’re an actual parent with limits. You cannot do it all. We all need to admit that one of the casualties specific to our information saturated culture is that we have sky-scraper standards for parenting, where we feel like we’re failing horribly if we feed our children chicken nuggets and we let them watch TV in the morning.

One of the reasons we are so exhausted is that we are oversaturated with information about the kind of parents we should be.

So maybe it’s time to stop reading the blogs that tell you how to raise the next President who knows how to read when she’s three and who cooks, not only eats, her vegetables. Maybe it’s time to embrace being the kind of parent who says sorry when you yell. Who models what it’s like to take time for yourself. Who asks God to help you to be a better version of the person that you actually are, not for more strength to be an ideal parent.

So the next time you see your friends with small children with that foggy and desperate look in their eyes, order them a pizza and send it to their house that night. Volunteer to take their kids for a few hours so they can be alone in their own house and have sex when they’re not so tired, for heaven’s sake. Put your hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and tell them that they’re doing a good job. Just don’t freak out if they start weeping uncontrollably. Most of the time, we feel like we’re botching the whole deal and our kids will turn into horrible criminals who hate us and will never want to be around us when they’re older.

You’re bone tired. I’m not sure when it’s going to get better. Today might be a good day or it might be the day that you lost it in a way that surprised even yourself.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

You’re not alone.

Comments

  10. The advice is so relevant to those of us who aren’t parents either. It’s so easy to get caught up on our daily stress and routine. We really need to take a step back and give ourselves a break.

    Reply

  11. This was a good article. Too often people behave as if it is unconceivable that a parent would be stressed out and need a break from the stresses of parenthood. Thank you for saying this it is normal to be stressed sometimes and for givign tips for handling the stress.

    Reply

    • Thanks Janeane 🙂 Absolutely, if we haven’t walked in the shoes of another we really can’t speak to their experiences. I am inspired by other cultures that see it as imperative that parents are well rested and nurtured during the early stages of child rearing.

      Reply

  12. I really needed to read this article. Thank you so much fro sharing, stress really can harm your body. I am a stress case and that caused a chronic illness that has now somewhat robbed me of my life. I book marked this page and will be coming by to read from time to time about the techniques. :0)

    Reply

  17. I cannot tell you how much I really enjoyed this blog post! It is EXTREMELY important for husbands and wives to get breaks to keep their sanity. I try hard to pray every morning and read scriptures. 🙂

    Reply

  21. Beautiful! Just what I needed everyday. It’s very stressful when you have the kids age 6 years old and 17 months old. Plus, doing all the chores can be really exhausting.

    Reply

  23. Thanks for the destressing tips here. Sometimes It’s nice to just get away from things for awhile. I’ll go for a walk sometimes just to collect my thoughts. I always look forward to that.

    Reply

  24. I find that indulging in hobbies is a great stress reliever and most of my hobbies are productive so I feel twice as good when I get to them. I like making jewelry, crochet and garden.

    Reply

  25. I definitely needed to read all of this. Especiall “You are not a terrible parent if you just can’t wait for them to go to bed.” I know there are some days where my two year old daughter just pushes me to my limits. But I know she’s only two and doesn’t understand.

    Reply

    • Hi Courtney – I hear you. It is okay to say that we need some down time hours to ourselves. How else do we get the physical, mental, and emotional rest that is required to take care of others? 😉

      Reply

  26. That’s an amazing post! Thanks for sharing it with us. I don’t know why nobody told me before, that having a kid is so difficult. Mostly everybody tells you how beautiful it is an how funny kids are. But they don’t mention the hard stuff.

    Reply

    • Hi Ave – exactly. We would be so much better off as a society if we learned early on that it is okay to be ‘not okay’. The general mentality toward things such as postpartum depression need to shift; ie: of COURSE a woman is going to be depressed after having a baby! She has just spent the better part of ten months building up massive hormone levels, which come crashing down upon her while she is struggling with lack of sleep and taking care of another human being, or two, or three…

      Reply

  29. This is so true! I remember the stresses, and how it really affected me in many ways, and now I do my best to be there for my daughter, to try to take some of these stresses off of her, since she has 2 stepchildren and 3 little ones.

    Reply

  31. I have 4 girls and am very pregnant now.. so I love that my teens allow me to do the last A LONE TIME.. they are 17 and 19 and will take the 6 year old and the almost 1 year old for a few hours every day for me to rest.. I love that they are always so helpful and realize that I need a break too…

    Reply

  34. GREAT advice!! I will have to bookmark this post and come read it every time I’m in need of a reminder.. TAKE A BREAK is soo important, but soo hard to do. Thanks for sharing.. LOVED it

    Reply

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