When You’re a Busy Parent, It Must Be All Hands on Deck!
Blogs By Heidi
- November 30, 2022
By now you will know that nutrition is just one tool in our coaching toolbox. We focus on lots of other things as well, and a big one is STRESS.
Some people are very surprised when we tell them that our young kids are in charge of the ‘big jobs’ around the house such as cleaning the bathroom, washing and vacuuming out the cars, and mowing the lawns (they also do daily chores such as dishes / folding washing etc).
The truth is, we started training them at a young age because it was a win-win scenario for everyone. The kids could earn pocket money for the things they wanted to buy, and we could relax in the knowledge that our weekends weren’t going to be filled with mundane chores that we didn’t want to spend the time doing.
It’s taken persistence and supervision to get them to the point where they can now work independently, but the pay-off has been huge for us, because we now have four pairs of hands on deck instead of two. This reduces our overall workload…..and stress. The kids are happy too because they have a stash of cash at their disposal.
One of the big sources of stress for many of our clients is the sense of overwhelm at everything they have to do. They run themselves ragged looking after and doing for everyone else (women are particularly skillful at this), whereas in reality they could be sharing the load with other members of the household. In my opinion you’re also doing your kids a big favour by teaching them essential life skills!
If you feel this way, I encourage you to take stock of everything you need to get done in a week, then start to delegate. There may be some initial push-back from some family members, but the pay-off is well worth it.
Less chores on your shoulders = more time = a happier you.