Kids
Kids. You got to love them. You literally have got to love them. There's no other choice. You got to love them. They're amazing little people. Complex little bundles of… everything.
My belief is that children often drain our reserves and drain our wellbeing but parenthood is interspersed with moments of complete and utter joy.
As parents, kids can have a really detrimental effect on our wellbeing:
They can affect our sleep. In the early days, our time is no longer our own.
It can cause lack of time to exercise.
We're always carrying this overriding sense of guilt, "We're not doing enough for our children", or "We're not doing enough for our jobs", or guild of practising self-care instead of spending time with our children.
Tips on staying well as a parent
Get your exercise
Self-care is not selfish. It's actually essential to help you be an effective parent.
Get those moments of quiet reflection
Take time for yourself in the day, making sure you have got a social life yourself. This allows us to be better parents because we've got a bit of perspective, we've got our reserves, and our resilience in place, to be able to deal with our children.
Put boundaries in place, between parenting and work
Set a good example. Role-model healthy behaviours to our children that, it is okay to prioritise wellbeing. It is okay that we make mistakes and we apologize for them and we own those mistakes. That we will experience challenges with our mental health. And talk about it, create that openness.
Play. Meet your kids on their level. Look at what they're looking at. Be with them. Be with them in the moment.
Practising acceptance as parents
Accept that life is imperfect.
Accept that we're not going to be able to do everything we used to do.
Accept that the house is not going to look perfect.
Accept all of that because there is no thing as 'Perfection', and this certainly is no thing as 'Perfection as a parent'.
And don't beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself along the way.