Personal Wellness Practices for Busy Parents

As new parents, finding time for yourself and your own care can be a real challenge. Even as your children grow, it can create more stress. As they gain more independence, they also need additional guidance. 

However, personal wellness is not only important for parents, it’s also a lesson you should start teaching your children. Foundational concepts such as setting boundaries, expressing emotions, time management and self-advocacy are great places to begin. These concepts teach your children lessons they will use for a lifetime. It also helps you reduce some of the stress that goes along with parenting.

Setting Boundaries

Boundaries help to define your personal space and comfort levels. Creating healthy boundaries are important to your overall well-being. There are many benefits to setting boundaries:

• Helping parents respect themselves and their commitments.
• Maintaining and improving personal relationships by establishing limits.
• Reducing stress and decreasing the chances of feeling overwhelmed by daily tasks and activities. 
• Preventing burnout by prioritizing healthy activities. 

By teaching and modeling what healthy boundaries look like you are doing a great service to your children. They get to see how boundaries work and get to experience you in a more beneficial way. Boundaries only work if you are implementing and enforcing them. Consistency is key when setting boundaries.

There are many resources parents can use to learn to set better boundaries. Nedra Tawwab has a great book on this subject, “Setting Boundaries, Find Peace”.

Building Emotional intelligence

We live in a world where we have to interact and work with others. Being able to manage emotions and understand others is a skill that is critical for anyone to learn. Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of the emotions of others around you and to express out emotions in a healthy, empathetic way. This concept helps us navigate relationships, build perseverance and develop healthy coping mechanisms. It’s also helpful when teaching children about empathy. This is a critical skill for children and adults to learn. Here are a few ways to model this concept.

• Letting your child see emotions being expressed in a healthy way with you and a loved one.
• Showing others you understand their emotions and that you are present using active listening.
• Managing stress in a way that exhibits proactive behavior, such as taking a break or going for a walk.

Being a positive example to your children and letting them see you process things is invaluable. It helps you with your own personal wellness. Further, it will teach your children that this is a journey and that it’s alright to not have it together all the time.

Managing Time Effectively

Time management is a skill that transfers into almost all areas of life. It helps with organization, goal setting and implementation. In teaching time management, use every day activities to point out and explain how time management strategies can positively affect your daily life. 

Exposing your children to calendars, planners and checklists can be effective ways to show them some of the various components of creating schedules. Talking about the importance of setting priorities can help them understand the thinking behind time management.

Showing your children how this works in the real world is the best way to teach this concept. Here are a few examples:

• Demonstrating how you manage your own time day-to-day and how to handle the unexpected things when they arise.
• Keeping an organized space that is clear of clutter and mess.
• Sticking to deadlines and due dates and communicating when schedules need to change.
• Explaining, then demonstrating, why taking breaks are important to mental well-being and capacity.
• Celebrating wins, large and small, along the way with your children present.

Time management can improve your own personal wellness and decrease stress in your household. It also models the concept for children so they can use it for the rest of their lives. 

Encouraging Self-advocacy

There is nothing like being able to express your needs, wants and opinions comfortably. Self-advocacy can encourage empowerment, build confidence and make you your own biggest supporter. However, demonstrating this idea to children could be very challenging. 

Sharing your story and stories of others can help paint a picture that’s easier for them to understand. Discussing this concept can teach children to take ownership of the decisions, articulate themselves, and encourage them to focus on solutions. These actions can build on the assurance that they can handle what may come.

Modeling this behavior to your children could look like:

• Demonstrating how to communicate your needs effectively with a loved one or family member.
• Advocating for others in need when you see it outside the home.
• Handling conflicts in a positive way, de-escalating the conversation instead of making it worse.
• Modeling conversations to inspire independence and autonomy

As a parent, it’s important to teach children life skills they can use when they become adults. However, it’s equally important to continue to take care of yourself and maintain healthy habits. Incorporating these practices into your everyday life can decrease the stress on the parent while instilling lifelong lessons for your children.