Helping my mom with my younger siblings, growing up in a big family, in a big homeschooling/natural/alternative community, Ive seen more than my fair share of parenting burnouts and wrong turns that lead to moms breaking down and families experiencing chaos. I look around sometimes and see a lot of people in the early stages of burnout. What can you do to prevent it? 1) Stop trying to fit you and your family into a perfect picture on a harsh deadline. It doesnt exist. Start loving you where you are right now. Start loving your children for who they are right now. Stop comparing yourself to other moms. Stop comparing your children to other children. Stop looking at other homeschool set ups merely for the goal of feeling emotionally negative. If you dont feel inspired and positive when looking at others, then it means youre in a damaging loop. 2) Change your goals from unattainable to realistic. For example, instead of saying you will have the family on hardcore GAPS for a year, try slowly moving each food group to a higher quality over a year, or testing the GAPS intro for 2 weeks. Instead of wanting all the the kids lined up in homemade school uniforms at your kitchen table, happily studying 3 grades ahead, focus on providing enough time to transition from traditional school to homeschooling. Focus on each child and the individual needs. Focus on one lesson at a time if needed. 3) Stop trying to do it all. Your value and your parenting are not measured by how much busywork you pound out in a day. Effective parenting and homeschooling is efficient and prioritized. Its not how long your todo list is, but rather how you organize it and complete it. Start to question where your time is invested. Several hours trashing the kitchen, yelling at the unsupervised kids in the other room while you cook for a party? Time to let go of your insecurity or pride and buy premade or request a potluck. Are you spending hours each week organizing schedules, working out assignments, putting together a curriculum? Have you reviewed your state law recently to find out exactly what is required? Have you reviewed your homeschool family plan to see exactly what your goals are and whats required to meet them? Spending hours stressing out on paper pushing means hours not spent on your family. And for what end? If you counted all the hours spent on making cute invites instead of emailing or pre-mades for a birthday, on all your home ec projects, on sewing instead of buying, on trying to make something instead of looking for something secondhand that will work, would you really feel your time spent in this way is truly beneficial to your family? Do your children really view it as beneficial, or do they feel second to the household projects and homeschool paperwork? 4) Speaking of focusing, focus. Focus on the task at hand. No more, no less. Dont accept new projects until your current projects are completed. If you find yourself constantly rotating through endless fermented recipes, the latest natural diet fad, the new canning idea you saw on pinterest, ten different knitting jobs, five potential curriculums, a book report idea you heard from a mom at school, and you feel that familiar sense of whooshing along in the current of chaos, it means you need to stop and go back to steps 1, 2 and 3. Remember your self worth. Remember your children are lovable as they are at this moment. Less is more. Less ensures quality, not half completed quantity. 5. Address the anxiety. If you realize youre constantly in a loop of taking on too much, scattering it around in a mess, and then fighting with the kids, its time to look for the root issue and address it immediately. Is it buried grief over the loss of a loved one? Is it something from childhood? A chain of mother-daughter narcissism or a mother-wound? A chronic physical situation such as thyroid issues or gut health issues? Stop trying to climb out of a muddy hole with your bare hands. Reach out. Ask for help. Build a firm foundation. If you experience symptoms of anxiety or depression, stop spinning the plates faster and faster. You cannot distract these issues away. Life must be slowed down for self-care and restarting on firmer footing. Stop looking at your newsfeed if you constantly feel inferior or anxious. Stop browsing pinterest if it makes you get off the computer angry, ready to bark at the kids. Stop signing up for events and activities if you or the children end up with meltdowns, or even physical illnesses. 6. Enlist your partner. Im not talking about a vague, inclusive idea here. I put this one on the list for a common and specific problem: married, stay at home, homeschoooling mothers who are slowly killing themselves and harming their children while the husband is at work all day and then comes home and sits in front of the TV. He works too hard already? He can still help. He doesnt do it the way you like? He can still help. He complains? He can still help. The kids complain? HE can STILL HELP! (Youre afraid to ask? Get marital assistance and domestic abuse help ASAP.) Parenting, running the home, implementing natural practices, and homeschooling all your children on your own is not a recipe for admiration and success. Its a recipe for complete disaster, burnout, emotionally neglected children, and a trashed mom. Stay at home moms tell me here, But, I have a single friend who works and homeschools! Yes, and she has help, such as someone to watch her child for 8 hours a day. Does your husband watch his children for 8 hours a day? (And if she doesnt have help, she can easily burn out, too, and that is a common concern for single parents.) 7. Evaluate. Just as children have minor regressions or go through stages, our homeschooling and parenting can have dips and go through stages. But, if that stage is lasting too long, impairing the health of family members, or otherwise interfering with your family life, its time to take a second look. Dont tell yourself to just try harder when you might be beating yourself senseless against a brick wall. Remember, the goal is to prioritize, to be effective and prudent. Throwing yourself into something for years because you are scared to admit a mistake, a perceived failure, or address financial or other costs wasted, etc, only means that many more years of damage to your family. What tips do you have for other moms who are headed towards a burnout?
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 16:45:06 +0000
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