Pest control

Being a parent is a huge responsibility – and children don’t come with a handy instruction booklet. But if you learn how to halve your stress, you will double your energy. By Lorraine Thomas

Being a parent is the most rewarding and most important job you’ll ever do in your life. It’s also the most challenging. Being a parent is a huge responsibility – and your children don’t come with a handy instruction booklet. One of the main reasons that you feel stressed is because you take your responsibilities as a parent seriously. You’re in a lifelong commitment with your child – and you want to do the best job possible.

Every new stage of family life brings new challenges. It may be the demands of a new baby, adapting to the changes that take place in your relationship with your partner, juggling work and family or never having enough time and energy to do everything that’s on your “to do” list. It may be coping with the pressure of toddler, teenage – and even your own parent tantrums.

Every parent lives with PESTS. They’re Problems that affect mums and dads. Y ou know you have a PEST, because when you think about the problem, your Energy levels sink to an all-time low. Your Stress levels hit an all-time high. Yet, it is never the right Time to deal with it.

How stressed do you feel today, for example? On a scale of 1 to 10, give yourself a stress rating, with a rating of 1 indicating low levels of stress and 10 indicating high levels.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

If you find yourself 6 and above, your stress level is a clear indication that you believe you have lost control of key aspects of your life. In order to regain control and reduce your stress rating, you need to stop wasting time on negative thoughts. If you carry on just worrying about the problems in your life, you’ll continue to feel as stressed as you do now. The key to dealing effectively with stress is to take positive action – one day at a time.

Day 1: Be positive and take control

The starting point for change is you. It is important to focus on the things you can change that are within your control. You can’t change other people – a challenging child, a difficult friend or a demanding partner – but you can change you. Start with yourself, the way you are and the way that you respond to challenging situations.

Today, commit to believe in yourself and start to take control. Commit to be positive today instead of negative. Think solutions instead of problems. The first step is to smile and focus on what’s going well in your life. It sounds simple and it is. Often family life can seem so full of problems that we forget all the reasons we have to be positive. Of course they’re there, sometimes we just need to look for them.

There’s something to treasure in even the most demanding child. Being positive and smiling will be good for you and help your child feel valued and secure. How do you want them to remember their childhood? A mum or dad full of smiles or positive energy? Or a mum and dad looking stressed and ground down by family life?

Day 2: Don’t try to be the perfect parent

Parents can be very self-critical and are great at talking themselves down. At the drop of a hat, they’ll tell themselves and everyone around them what they haven’t done, should have done, feel guilty about or wish they had done better.

They’re sending themselves powerful negative messages. This increases their stress levels and undermines their self-belief. Celebrate what you achieve as a mum or dad. As a parent, you achieve a massive amount on a daily basis. But because you’re striving to be perfect, you may focus on what you haven’t done, rather than what you have done.

There’s no such thing as a perfect parent – or a perfect child. Focus on doing the best job you can – and enjoying it. Tonight, before you go to sleep, focus on what you have done well as a parent today. You need to boost your positive thoughts and this will help you reduce your stress levels.

Day 3: Prioritise your problems

The next step in taking control of your life is to prioritise the most demanding problems in your family life and work out which one is causing you the most stress. Once you know this, you can take small steps to tackle that problem and solve it.

Sometimes the challenges of being a parent can seem so overwhelming that we don’t tackle any of the problems. Don’t try to tackle everything at once. Deal with one challenge at a time.

Take a look at the top 10 problems for parents below. Take time to focus on each problem and decide which ones are relevant to you.

Top 10 problems for parents

1. Too much to do and never enough time to do it

2. Stressful early mornings

3. Stressful evenings

4. Shouting and throwing everyday parent tantrums

5. Communicating with children who don’t listen

6. Overwhelming feelings of anxiety

7. Worrying about lack of confidence

8. Feeling guilty about being a working parent

9. Financial worries

10. Too little energy to enjoy your relationships

From the list, identify your most stressful challenge. What is the problem you’d most like to tackle first? What difference will it make to your life if you deal with that problem effectively? What will be the biggest benefit of turning the situation round and taking control?

Day 4: Tackle your problems one day at a time

In the circle below, write down practical actions that you can take that will help you to tackle your top problem. Remember, they need to be practical actions that you can take – and not be dependent on other people. Fill in each of the seven segments. Think small steps and easy to do. Here’s the circle one of my mums, Sarah, came up with to tackle the stress of her family evenings – or ‘arsenic hours’ as she called them. Sarah transformed the evenings in her home by taking positive action.

Day 5: Give ‘to do’ lists the red card and be a goal scorer instead

You can decide exactly how you want to spend your time. So stop wasting time worrying about things you haven’t done or won’t have time to do. Set yourself a specific goal for each. Most mums never stop. They’re always doing loads of things as well as thinking of another dozen to do once those are finished!

Mums are managing directors of the most important company in the world – their family. They deal with budgets, organisation, personnel issues, strategy, crisis management – every minute of every day. Instead of creating endless “to do” lists, either on paper or in your head, commit to achieve one personal goal each day. It might be de-junking the children’s wardrobe or calling the good friend you’ve not spoken to for ages.

Identify one goal you would like to achieve today and schedule it into your diary at a specific time. This will help you to focus on what is really important and create the time to achieve it.

Day 6: Enjoyment not endurance

Instead of feeling frantic – focus on being a fun parent instead! Instead of wasting time feeling stressed, boost the positive feelings that you want in your family life and have fun with your children.

Many parents say that they feel family life has become more like an endurance test and that the enjoyment has gone out of it. What would you really enjoy doing with your child? What will put you back in touch with that sense of fun that might be missing in your life? Make a list of things you’d like to do – and involve your child in creating it.

Your date with your child is the most important entry in your diary – so schedule it in and make sure it happens. We don’t usually plan our time with our children. That’s why other things get in the way. Book a specific “date” with your child. Make it time outside of home so that housework won’t distract you. Enjoy being together.

Day 7: Treat yourself

Make sure that you have one hour of “me”time this week – and do something just for you. If you’re going to be the best parent possible, you need time and space to re-charge your batteries in a totally childfree zone.

It’s not selfish, it’s essential. Organise a support network with other parents or perhaps ask a grandparent to look after your child. While you’re enjoying yourself, focus on the qualities and strengths that make you a great parent. Enjoy spending time with you and relax. Make sure that “me” time becomes a regular weekly fixture in your diary. Cut your stress levels by deciding what you’d love to do – and do it!

 

Lorraine Thomas is the Chief Executive of The Parent Coaching Academy (www.theparentcoachingacademy.com) and author of The 7-Day Parent Coach. Parent coaching courses are available from Lorraine Thomas via www.parentalk.co.uk

The 7-Day Parent Coach by Lorraine Thomas is published by Vermilion, price £10.99 For further information, please contact Anabel Briggs on: Tel: 01273 400406 E-mail: abriggs@onetel.net

 

 

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