We are about halfway through my kids’ official first week of summer break from school in my house. Their last days were respectively, last Thursday and Friday. By Friday night, I was already feeling antsy and restless.
This restless feeling is not at all unusual for me, but it is highly unusual less than 8 hours after the end of school. I felt like I wanted to go somewhere, do something. We thought of taking the kids to this retro arcade at the beach about an hour from our house. We went to the local grocery store to eat dinner in their little food area before.
By the time we finished dinner it was raining, and we decided to postpone the trip to the beach and went home instead to watch a movie. As the movie played, I tuned in to myself to try to figure out why I was having all these feelings surfacing.
Finding my Center Again
Saturday morning. I woke up and did one of the things that always brings me peace and serenity. I walked our dog.
Something I learned about myself several years ago is that I struggle with the lack of structure on school holidays and summer break. When my kids were younger, they seemed to disintegrate into whining and fighting when there was too much unstructured downtime. When they were little, I used to take them to the beach for a day-trip at least once a week all summer long. We would go to museums, local playgrounds and the pool. Every day was something different. It was challenging for me to fill the hours while I was home with them and my husband was at work.
Back then I worked part-time as a therapist in the evenings, and there were many nights when I could not wait to pass the kids off to my husband and head off happily to work.
But now, I mostly work from home – writing, recording, creating, teaching and having sessions with clients over the phone. I sometimes have speaking engagements outside, but that is not an everyday occurrence. And I love it!
Mostly, I am home.
For long stretches of time.
The luxury of time
One thing that I noticed that I began feeling a few years ago is a bit of resentment towards my kids. You know that saying “Youth is wasted on the young?” It is so true!
I work really hard and have a (sometimes unhelpful) habit of trying not to “waste” a single moment. Meanwhile, I see my kids laying around watching movies, reading books, playing games and with friends seemingly all day long.
Can you relate?
It’s not that part that bothers me necessarily. I think what has bothered me is that they have this precious free time to spend as they wish, and they don’t appreciate it. When we are young, we have the unabashed luxury of time. But we tend not to appreciate that luxury until we are older, and our time is more spoken-for and structured.
I know I “wasted” my fair share of time when I was young, as most kids do. It’s not like my kids are doing anything “wrong.” They are simply being kids.
Splitting our attention
What I am aware of now is that because I am a wife, mother and multiple-business-owner, I must allocate my time to many different areas. Even when I’d rather just hyper-focus on one. I think that’s probably the part that I wrestle with most. My kids have the luxury of hyper-focusing on something they are interested in if they choose to. Sometimes I envy that freedom.
There are several realizations I have learned over the years to help me as a working-from-home mother.
- Learn to go with the flow
- Become an attention-shifter
- Communicate
- Make it a win-win
Let’s dive deeper into each of these.
Learn to go with the flow
As much as I struggled through the years, I did learn one extremely valuable skill. That is to go with the flow. Being a person who thrives on structure, flexibility was never my strength. But I have learned to develop it as my children got older. This may be one of the single most valuable skills I have learned as a parent.
When my children were really young, I would naturally plan out an ordered structure for the day. I believe that half of all of my stress as a young mother came from the times when the day did not go according to my plan! And honestly what young child (or better yet THREE of them) will just easily go along with whatever random plan the mom has for the day???
Admittedly, I wake up with a plan each day of what I would like to accomplish. But I keep the flexibility front and center in my mind as I move through my morning routine. We are only at this point 4 days into the summer but so far, my level of productivity for work has not decreased. And we have played card games, watched movies, tv shows, swam, baked, gone to the beach, had three sleepovers out of four nights, had a volleyball tournament and scrimmage, and kept up with the regular household duties (grocery-shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc.). Not too bad if I do say so myself!
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Become an attention-shifter
I have learned through the years to get much better at being able to shift my attention quickly from one thing to another and back again. This is particularly valuable as a mom who works from home. Sometimes I will be in the middle of writing a blog when it becomes time to drive one of my kids somewhere or make dinner, etc.
Rather than resisting the need to shift gears in the moment, I have learned to find a good stopping point (the end of a sentence in a blog for example) and walk away to focus on the thing that needs my attention more immediately and then come back to the original task as soon as I reasonably can.
Now this is a really funny illustration. Just in the middle of writing this blog, happily sitting outside by my pool waiting for my kids to get into their suits and head outside to join me, my phone rang. It was the dentist. As soon as I saw who it was, I suddenly remembered that my younger son had an appointment that was supposed to begin…FIVE minutes ago! I had to shut my computer and quickly run to get him, ask his friends to politely leave until we got back and remind him that we had to leave…immediately!
I brought my computer with me and opened this blog up to finish while sitting at the dentist office. A great example of attention-shifting in action.
Helping parents is so important to me that I am willing to attention-shift as much as I need to in order to continue doing what I love. It is literally my oxygen.
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Communicate
I believe this one skill is the key to resolving most problems in life. And the lack of it is the cause of most problems in life. Parenting is no exception. I give my kids the utmost respect of asking them what their thoughts/ideas/wishes/plans for the day are and then I share with them what I would like to see happen. Then we find a way to make the most of it work each day. Especially as they get older, it is far more productive for me to get their feedback about the day. Gone are the days when I could just tell them in the morning that we were going to the beach that day and they would all jump up and down with excitement.
Make it a win-win
The final “winning” strategy is to always be looking for the win-win. Sometimes during the school year if one of my kids has a particularly busy schedule, I will pick up their slack. Literally. Sometimes by putting their shoes away, helping them to hang up their clean clothes, etc. But in the summer, my schedule is no less busy than any other time of year and their schedule certainly is. Therefore, I expect them to be able to contribute to keeping the household running more over the summer.
I communicate this to them and help them to remember that I try to say yes as often as possible when they want to do something. In return, I ask for a greater contribution to the running of the house during summer months. I still have to remind them to do certain things, but they almost always honor my requests willingly. This contributes to a better-functioning household and more respectful relationships between us. I support what they want, and they support what I want.
What are some tips you have found to make summers not only successful, but enjoyable as well?
What areas are you still struggling with?
I’d love to hear…comment below!
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