Every Tuesday, I’ll choose a handful of questions to answer here on my blog, as long as the questions last. Want to ask me about unschooling or parenting or anything else I write about (which is, uh, pretty much everything)? Send them here, or post on my Facebook page.  

I’ve gotten quite a few questions in this realm:

How do you handle stress? What happens when you’re feeling overwhelmed and need a break but you’ve got three kids demanding your attention and you’re the only adult home? (The ‘advice’ I am frequently given, unasked for, is to send my children to school… I’d love to hear a better suggestion.)

I have four kids, not three;  but other than that one detail I could (and certainly have) ask that same exact question myself.   Parenting in general is a 24/7 job, no matter who you are.  Add to that the fact that as a stay-at-home, homeschooling parent, you are ON All. The. Time.  No breaks.  No time outs.  No time to yourself.   If you’re someone like me who is easily prone to overwhelm, you definitely have to take proactive steps to avoid burnout.

As you’ve already noticed, the world will tell you that the solution is simple:  Get away from your kids.  Moms are told over and over not only that it’s okay, but that it’s GOOD to get away from your kids.  You need a break to be a better mother, they’ll tell you.  So send ’em off to preschool!  Make them sleep in the other room!   Leave them with a sitter while you go off on a kid-less vacation!

I think there’s a better way.  I think that the solution to stress and overwhelm and burnout is not to get away from your kids, but to design your lifestyle so that you won’t feel the need to get away.  So that you can be there, especially in those important early years, when they need you, and so you can actually ENJOY it.   Which means recognizing and heading off the stress before it sends you screaming for the hills.

Which means taking care of you.

It always makes me sort of…. grumpy when people suggest things like basic self care when things are stressful.  You don’t get it!  This can’t be fixed by eating right and exercising!  And you know what?  Maybe it can’t. But it does make the stressful stuff a whole lot easier to deal with.  A pattern I’ve recognized in myself when I’m not mindful of avoiding it is that when I get super stressed, I just stop taking care of myself.  I just stop.  Stop eating right.  Stop making sleep a priority.  Stop exercising.  Start self-medicating with sweets, caffeine and/or alcohol. Which of course makes me MORE stressed, which makes me less likely to take care of myself, which makes me more stressed, which makes me less likely….. well, you get the idea.  It’s an ugly and vicious circle.

So it starts there.  Like the proverbial airplane oxygen mask:  You have to put your own on first before you can take care of your kids.  Eating well, getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, paying attention to your own physical, spiritual, and emotional needs goes a LONG way in helping you to more patiently and lovingly meet the needs of the people around you.

At this point, you’re likely thinking, “Well, that’s all nice and everything, but it doesn’t HELP me. What do I do in that moment when the baby is screaming because she’s teething and the naked two year old just dumped a bag of flour on the kitchen floor and the 8 year old is crying because the 5 year old just threw a remote control at his head and all the excitement made the dog pee on the carpet?!”

Here’s what you do:

1. BREATHE.  I know, that sounds like a worn old cliche too, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is!       You have to start with breathing.  Good deep breaths, and a count to ten.  Or a hundred.  Or six thousand.  It  oxygenates your body, slows your heart rate, and literally calms you from the inside out.
2. DELIBERATELY LOWER YOUR VOICE.  This has been a huge one for me.  When I open my mouth and find that something… loud.. is about to come out, I take a breath, and lower my voice.  To a whisper if I have to.  It both calms me down, and doesn’t further escalate the situation with the kids.
3. FIND A WAY TO TAKE A BREAK TOGETHER.  This is the one that takes the trial and error.  Once the immediate crisis is past (ie:  no one’s bleeding anymore) find a way to regroup that works for your family. The flour can stay on the kitchen floor for a little while. Watch a movie together.  Go outside so the kids can run and you can sit. Blow some bubbles.  Get out the coloring books.  Play with water.  When my now six year old was around three, there were some days that the only thing that relieved the stress – both hers and mine – were baths. I’d fix her a bath with all her favorite toys, I’d make myself a cup of coffee, and I’d sit and gather my bearings on the bathroom flour while she splashed and played, for hours sometimes.
4. REACH OUT TO SOMEONE.  A friend (or a parent or a sibling or a cousin or a spouse) that you can text and vent to… someone who you can just tell, without judgement, “Wow, what a crappy day I had”  is invaluable.
5. LEAVE THE PAST IN THE PAST.  One of the best pieces of parenting advice I ever heard was this:  When you have a stressful moment, or an inpatient moment, or a moment that you wished you’d handled differently as a parent… learn from it and move the heck on. It’s over.  Make the NEXT moment a good one.  Don’t think about the past, and don’t worry about what’s going to come after the next moment.    Focus on one moment at a time.  And finally,
6. FIND YOUR DE-STRESSERS AND PRACTICE THEM, REGULARLY.   This really goes under the very first point of taking care of yourself, but it’s important in the immediate sense too.  Whether it’s a bath, or a glass of wine, or time in meditation or prayer or Bible study, or yoga, or running, or dance, or creative pursuits like writing, or drawing, or painting, or making things with your hands….. whatever it is for you, find the time to make it happen, whether it means getting up a little earlier, staying up a little later, or taking a few minutes while the kids play with Dad.  It’s so easy to say, “I don’t have time to do that,” but the fact is, you can’t afford not to do that.

I’ll admit that stress gets the better of me sometimes (um, I may have just posted about that fact just a few days ago)  but it doesn’t have to, and I know that.

I LOVE staying home with my kids, and the very good days so absolutely make up for the not-so-good days.  My hope and prayer when it comes to stress and parenting and my kids is that they learn that yes, you can’t always avoid stress…. but that you never have to let it win.