This post is part of Thirty Things That Help.
You can change things…
Sometimes we can begin to feel rather depressed by the way things are in our daily lives. Maybe we don’t like how much screen time the children have, or we don’t like how we do (or don’t do) family meals, or maybe we’ve got into a rut with our morning routine and it’s just not working. Children are creatures of habit and they’re not likely to make changes of their own volition. Working out what needs to change, and then taking responsibility for instigating it, can feel overwhelming.
But take heart. You can make changes, and it’s not as hard as it feels. The first step is identifying the source of your frustration, and then the logical steps to addressing it tend to become clear.
Example: I had begun to loathe the way my children had come to expect some TV with/after lunch as a daily right. It seriously impeded the flow of our day and although the screen time itself wasn’t terrible I hated how it had somehow become the one thing in our day that everything else was subordinated to.
For months this loathing simmered without purpose inside me. But eventually I decided that if I didn’t like it and it wasn’t working for our family, I could change it. I told the children that TV would no longer be a daily occurrence. Sometimes they could have it, sometimes we would have better things to do. There were certainly days they didn’t like the new arrangement, but children are very adaptable, and changes become ‘the new normal’ quicker than you’d think. We made a similar change when I decided that their sugar intake was too high. I had anticipated revolution and rebellion but simply not having the stuff in the house was a very straightforward way to make sure nobody ate it.
I don’t promise that your child will clasp their hands with glee when you announce a new way of doing things, but change will almost certainly be easier than you think. Stick with it. Often just beginning a conversation with our children leads to constructive suggestions about how we could all do things differently, and reminds them that most things are not set in stone. Your new way of doing things doesn’t have to be set in stone either: give it a go and adjust as necessary!
Edit: Thank you to Justin who rightly pointed out in the comments that of course change comes easier to some children (and therefore their parents) than to others. As he says though, that doesn’t mean that the change isn’t still necessary and good. If something needs changing, at some point we have to make that change happen.
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"but children are very adaptable, and changes become ‘the new normal’ quicker than you’d think." <--- Honestly very good life advice in general. Why do we overcomplicate things??
If you're willing to share, are any of your children on the autism spectrum?
I ask because our oldest is. (He's 20 now). While he CAN eventually adjust to change, it has always been exceedingly difficult.
I get that my experience is not everyone's but in our house making changes to this degree might be unquestionably needed and good...but they certainly were neither easy, nor quickly implemented.