Parenting can be a hard slog at the best of times. Kids can
be very demanding. When you have little people running around needing your
attention and you have pain, let’s face it, it is damn hard work!
So I wanted to share
a few tips for parenting and living with pain.
Get them involved. Growing up, I had chores to
do (although, being the youngest of 5, I was very good at squirming my way out
of them!). With such a big family, we all needed to pull our weight and learn how to be self-reliant. I
want my kids to grow up learning these skills too. Getting young children involved
in basic housework will mean less work for you in the long term. However, sometimes
their involvement does come with strings attached. Recently, I have started
bargaining my kids for their efforts. If they are getting set to watch some
television, I might say “how about we spend 10 minutes cleaning your room
before we put on that show?” Other people I know will use pocket money as an
extra motivator. Mostly, it goes down well and they get stuck into it – and if
it means 10 minutes less work for you later on – surely that’s worth the
effort! Here is a list of age-appropriate jobs to give you some place to
start...
Practice self care. My kids now understand when
I need “time to self”. They are getting to a good age for being able to
entertain themselves while I undertake a necessary self care task whether it be
a meditation, stretching or a walk/exercise outside. I have said to them to not
disturb me unless it’s an emergency – like blood or fire. One day recently my
eldest tentatively knocked on my door while I was meditating to let me know of the
“emergency” – the TV remote had run out of batteries! However, by demonstrating
that I need to look after myself, I am also setting a good example for them to
follow into their adulthood because, pain or no pain, taking time to look after
yourself is always time well spent. There is also the old adage that a healthy
mum has healthy kids. If I don’t look after myself (and for me this means
attending to my pain self management techniques), I will become an irritable
parent with a pain flare and that won’t be much fun for anyone! There is also a
reason they say on a plane that you need to attach your oxygen mask before
attending to others!
Replace guilt with gratitude. Before I started
learning to manage my pain, my default solution to pain was to rest. Still
today, if I am having a particularly hard pain day, I will be gentle on myself
and allow myself to “take it easy”. Previously, I would stress myself further
during this (already) difficult time by piling on the mummy guilt. Berating
myself that “I should be playing with the kids” or “I should be doing some housework”.
I felt bad that I couldn’t give them some fun experience because I needed to
rest. Enter guilt and negative self talk. So to flip the perspective, now I try
to focus on gratitude. I am grateful for the opportunity to snuggle with my children.
I am grateful to spend some quiet time with them reading. Rather than feel
guilty for not doing something, I am grateful for and enjoy what I am doing,
right in the moment. But I will admit this is still an area of struggle for me.
There will be days when I feel I am a “bad mother” – I think this is hardwired
the day we give birth. It’s a good chance to look at the big picture. Overall,
I think I do a good job. Some days, we will have a blip in the system but that’s
manageable. Kids are pretty resilient,
they will survive just as we do!
Mindfulness. Chronic pain or not, kids provide
an excellent opportunity for mindfulness practice. They are almost always in
the moment. They unashamedly believe the world revolves around them. So for
every activity they undertaken they become absorbed. There is little room in
their developing brains for worry, rehashing past mistakes, stress etc. It is
all about the here and now. So parenting can help to bring us into this same
mindset. A friend once suggested to me that each child should get 30 minutes of
focused attention from you a day. Initially I thought – that’s easy. But
focused attention, at the level of a small child, is hard for our fast paced
brains. To sit and play and be totally mindful of the process is actually
pretty hard. But the more we do this kind of thing, the strong our attention
becomes. Here is a good book all about this topic....
Teachable moments. Parenting is a big responsibility. This
little malleable mind is all yours to mould! I believe I am setting an example
to my children by showing them, everyday, that for me to be healthy, I need to
invest time and effort. Living well while self managing chronic pain takes strength
and discipline. I am modelling to them that I take control of my health. This
is a lesson I want them to know. In the future, if they face health challenges,
I want them to know that they have the ability to get through it. But at the same time, I want my kids to know that life can sometimes be hard. Everything is not always rosey. They know I have a bad back and I want them to be aware that people struggle with stuff, no one is perfect. So, I am hoping they learn a little empathy along the way too.
I would love to hear your experiences. Do you have any good
tips for other parents? Please share or comment below. And one last thing, hug
those kids of yours, they are so precious. Time goes pretty fast, so enjoy every moment. If we are honest, they send us crazy
most of the time, but we wouldn’t change them for the world. It's worth it for the smiles, the cuddles and the notes like this.....
No comments:
Post a Comment