Take Care.
Two simple words I have used countless times over the years when closing off letters, emails and cards to family and friends.
Take care of yourself.
But what exactly is self-care? For many families where both parents juggle full-time employment along with raising children in our modern climate of ever-increasing inflation, self-care may seem like a pipe dream. There simply isn’t the time or the money for pampering oneself.
And as parents, we are the glue that holds the family together—we are the ones to provide care. Raising children is a full-time job, leaving little to no time at all for the luxury of self-care. There are countless things to do in the space of a day, all of them needing to be completed on top of a full day of work—meals to prepare, cleaning and laundry to be done, driving to and from appointments/activities/school, bedtime routines of baths and homework—the list goes on and on. Some days the only way to get everything done is to “burn the midnight oil.”
And yet, self-care for parents is so critical. After all, if we don’t look after our own well-being, we have less to offer our family. As parents, we typically lead by example with our children—by our selfless acts, we demonstrate what loving others is all about. But equally important is the need to teach our children about self-love or self-care, both in a physical and an emotional sense so they will be better equipped to face life’s challenges.
Taking care of our bodies is well-defined—eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly. But taking care of our emotional/mental health is less clear. How do we do that? How do we model effective de-stressing at the end of a day or whenever we are at a low ebb? For some, it might be listening to or playing calming music; while for others, it may be engaging in a favourite hobby like crafting or reading; and for still others, it may be as simple as an uninterrupted cup of coffee and a newspaper at the kitchen table.
Interestingly, many children instinctively develop outlets on their own for coping with stress or anxiety. Even young children are very adept at this when they engage in self-soothing behaviours such as twirling their hair, chewing their nails, or rocking themselves. And many children carry these behaviours well into adulthood because they have been so effective. I distinctly remember my own sons’ way of coping with stress when they were in middle school. By that point, they were into some pretty serious rough housing when they got home from school. One day when I called them on it, my older son very articulately explained that it took all of their effort to stay focused and well-behaved in school all day, so much so, that they simply had to “cut loose” when they got home. Fair enough (other than it typically ended up with one of them crying foul … ).
Despite many children developing coping strategies on their own, parents need to bring awareness to the importance of making the effort to carve out moments for our mental/emotional self-care. I think our society is better at teaching children the importance of caring for our bodies physically—the need to eat properly and exercise daily—than it is in teaching our children the importance of caring for our mental/emotional/well-being. That’s a harder thing to define for a child. They can easily understand a physical body and what needs to be put into it, but it is much harder for them to conceptualize the health of our minds. Prioritizing a healthy mind could mean reaching out occasionally to family, friends and even local organizations to help share the load, so self-care can be a priority, and there is no shame in that.
At the end of the day, self-care is a choice, one that we have to make for our own well-being, one that we somehow have to squeeze into our busy lives, and one that we should be sure to teach our children. It doesn’t have to involve a big time commitment or even something done every day—it’s just a matter of finding those things that help us unwind and bring us comfort and contentment.
So, take care. Easier said than done, but definitely worth the effort.
