During my GTD review today, I went through David Allen's exercise known as "Are they problems or projects?" The idea is, you write down everything that is weighing on your mind that feels like a problem in your life. Then you figure out how to make it into a project, capture it, determine the next action and have it happily leave your psyche.
I discovered that one of my biggest problems today is an insufficient focus on active parenting. Sure, I have committed a substantial part of my day to be engaged with the kids. We often have fun, sometimes we relax, sometimes learn. It just isn't coming together in my mind as the path I would like to envision. I appear to have misplaced my cheerful competence at parenting, the sense that I was doing what was right, facing challenges, solving problems, making progress and knowing the best was yet to come. Instead, I have scattered ideas that rarely come to fruition; stolen moments absorbed in productive activities that often become interrupted and unfinished; scattered mommy projects, such as organizing kids books that stay in my GTD system for months. It is tough to feel productive in the midst of such mental chaos - and without that feeling, hard to feel self-confident.
Once I identified the parenting problem (really, it wasn't even something I was aware of till I focused), I decided that what I needed was some good and regular planning. Everyone talks about the baby temperaments and how parenting is impacted by them. I like to focus on the mommy temperament. Seriously - I am actually the one in charge and there is no one here to help or to teach. So I better figure out how my own temperament works and figure out my parenting style with it in mind. Planning is not my thing. I like doing - plain and simple. Right now, however, my time is so committed in so many different directions, I often feel like I am drowning. Solution: blogging. It's really a lot more like doing than it is like planning - and it's definitely the right self-reflective tool that will help me focus on the goals I would like to achieve.
Today's thoughts are about Lily as a younger sibling. I feel like she is constantly frustrated as so much attention is being paid to helping Alex get to the next step in whatever he is doing, leaving her completely behind. Bed time reading is a great example. It is so much fun to see Alex be able to make it through a book on his own that Lily falls victim as she does not get parental focus and a mommy-read bed time story. Instead, she gets one clumsily read by a four-year-old, with all the attention dedicated to him. To make things worse, we are finally getting into kids' novels as bed time reading - something that is clearly inaccessible to the poor two-year-old girl and she is clearly upset.
The truth is, getting Alex to read at bed time is cheating. It fulfills the goal of supporting him in learning to read without having to dedicate special time to it. Perhaps, that is the first step to solution: find a short interval, perhaps half an hour each day, to set up 1-on-1 work time. If you have multiple young children, you know it will be tricky. How do you convince the other one to give you the space you need? This will be my focus for the week: find private time for my two brilliant children, making them each feel accomplishments in their own rite. Stay tuned!
I used to let my children take turns picking out a bedtime story. I agree that the younger child often gets left behind, but that can change with effort, as you mentioned. I remember reading the whole Little House on the Prairie series to my children, and my daughter hated it because she was too young to understand it and stay awake. I ended up reading her a book or two of her choice before reading the chapter book to my son, or we'd read her books one night and the chapter book the next night.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the Easter thing is tough. I think the kids like it just as much if they hunt for real eggs or plastic eggs with stickers and toys inside. They don't need junk food to enjoy a special holiday--a basket with little stuffed bunny, a small puzzle, and some healthy snacks are plenty! We often accept the junk food that is given to us and then just give it to my husband to take to work to share with his co-workers. But it's hard when the relatives pressure the kids to eat it right then. I'm sorry you are going through that with your family. Family relationships can be so tough sometimes!
Kim