School has started and kids are back in class. I’ve been getting very reflective lately as I have a junior and sophomore in high school. I feel like time is ticking…FAST…and there are things I was to accomplish as a parent. I believe my job is to guide these unique children to become the best versions of themselves as they leave my nest. What will I do with this time?
I was watching the news this morning and the reporter was discussing the need for teachers to monitor what students are eating during the school day. And honestly I was taken aback. Teachers are given more and more and more to do within the same timeframe. They are handed all academics, moral development, socio-emotional health, socialization, conflict resolution and now nutrition. But the reason I paused was not to necessarily defend teachers, but to wake-up parents. There are 168 hours in a week. Let’s estimate your child is in school eight hours a day…that’s 40 hours per week of mandated time out of the home. The other 128 hours is up to you! And that’s powerful!!
How do you fill your child’s time? How much sleep are they getting? Who watches your child for after school care? What exercise or sports are they engaged in? What meals and snacks are fueling their bodies? Who are they hanging out with? What are they viewing on screens or listening to in music? Do you make time for Church? Are you volunteering as a family? How much time is devoted to being together? Think hard and take inventory, but without blame or excuses. Acknowledge your reality and make changes if it’s not what you envision. Small changes lead to big results so start somewhere!
So my question to all of us parents is, “What are you doing for your children with 128 hours per week?”
‘Tis the time for back-to-school shopping! Stick me in a store brimming with brightly colored markers, stacks of post-it notes, fun folders and planners galore….I’m a very happy woman. As a former elementary teacher, this time of year is filled with promise, hope, and growth. But while parents are busy purchasing items off the class supply lists, let’s remember to stuff our kids’ backpacks’ with socio-emotional essentials as well.
Starting a new grade or school can be emotionally overwhelming. There are many changes in friends, schedules and routines, new teachers and personalities, coping with homework demands, and navigating teammates. Inevitably, emotions will be running the gamut and some days will be awesome and others downright terrible. So what can we teach our kids to help manage the good and the bad? Positivity, simply having an optimistic attitude!
“Positive thinking is a mental attitude that perceives situations in a constructive way. It does not mean ignoring the negative. Rather, a positive thinker acknowledges a situation and looks at it productively.”1 Making a mental switch is not always easy, but having a positive mindset lends to resilience, self-efficacy, decreased anxiety, and more happiness. This is a skill that needs practice and parents can be great role models. For instance, your child is sad to learn that his best friend isn’t in his new class. Acknowledge his feelings of disappointment, but point out the potential benefits (having a chance to develop other friendships, discover things in common with other people, enlarging social group, planning special outings with his bf). Your positive attitude will help him reframe his initial thoughts and subsequent feelings in a more hopeful manner.
Academically, students who are positive in their abilities and when they come across challenges fare much better. “Students who were positive about math tended to be more interested in it and were also more likely to practice it, and this positive perception towards math and their abilities resulted in enhanced memory and more efficient problem-solving” (How Maintaining a Positive Outlook Can Help Us Learn). To boost memory and performance, guide your kids in attitude. If your child gets stumped on a math problem, teach her to enthusiastically say, “Bring on the challenge!” She’ll be better able to cope and solve.
So while you’re stuffing those backpacks with pencils, folders, and dry-eraser markers, don’t forget about those emotional supplies that will last a lifetime.❤︎
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Have you taken a look around lately and noticed how casual clothing has become? A typical outfit for my teenagers is sports shorts and a t-shirt, possibly with a hooded sweatshirt. I easily fall into this very informal category wearing workout clothes, when in fact, I’m not usually exercising. The pandemic did not help this matter at all. We were given a great excuse to live at home comfortably in pjs for at least 6 days a week. Sunday was the only day we did get dressed up. We are Greek Orthodox and our Church community does get fairly dressed up for service. Men wear suits or jackets, women wear skirts or dresses, boys wear button-down shirts or polos with khakis while girls put on dresses. I have come to truly appreciate the level of formality that comes with attending Church as a family. This past weekend, I watched my children walk into a Church that was new to us. I couldn’t help but notice they stood a little taller, strolled confidently, and greeted everyone with a smile.
“Individuals dressed professionally exhibit significantly greater measures of self-perception, compared to those in both casual attire and their own clothing. By simply wearing professional outfits, (students) had higher self-esteem, self-efficacy.”1 Is dressing up a skill we should teach our children more regularly?
My kids actually like getting ready for Church. It is their norm. No arguing, no squirming saying the clothing is uncomfortable; it’s simply expected. I’ve now transferred this ‘looking nice’ attire for when we go out to restaurants. First of all, it is getting increasingly expensive to eat out as a family of five and I want them to acknowledge that it’s a special event when we do venture out. If putting on nicer clothes helps them feel better and even act better, then maybe Sunday’s best should be worn the other 6 days per week?!
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Jib, tack, trapping, beam reach, turtled, wing on wing…All jargon to me, but not to my teenagers. They teach me about the world of sailing, specifically racing 420s. They become the experts, showing me the ropes or knots of this sport. They take pride in knowing more than me and I let them take ownership of explaining the complexities, navigating the rules, and making sense of watching 65 boats on a race course at sea.
When was the last time your children taught you a skill? Now, my kids teach me many things each and every day such as patience and how many loads of laundry is possible with a family of five. But I’m talking about a tangible skill or facts that may amaze you or knowledge that you once knew but seem to forget quickly these days. Think of those preschoolers who memorize all the scientific names of dinosaurs or the rapid creation of a video game using code you don’t possibly fathom by your middle schoolers. Instead of overlooking the technicalities of their knowledge, celebrate it. Have them become the experts and teach you all that they know, well at least one area at a time. Take the passenger seat and try not to interject your ideas too often. Simply enjoy watching your child take pride, develop confidence, expand their expertise, work through problems, grow trust, and see the light in their eyes as they share what they love with you.
For the next few weeks, you’ll find me harborside throughout Cape Cod, binoculars in hand, cheering on two sailors waiting for them to come ashore and explain what I was even watching. The wind is in their sails ❤︎
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Giving is innate for mothers. It’s essentially what we do and who we are. However, given the mundane nature of homemaking, women can become dissatisfied and unfulfilled, often forgetting what purpose there is in daily tasks. “What woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly. What we fear is not so much that our energy may be leaking away through small outlets as that it may be going ‘down the drain'” (40).
Oxford defines homemaking as the creation of a home, especially as a pleasant place in which to live. What an honor to cultivate a loving, respectful, supportive environment for people you care most about. But it is hard work!! To be completely honest, I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. It was never how I envisioned my life, probably because I grew up with a single mother who worked full-time. We struggled financially when I was growing up and I knew putting myself through college and graduate school would provide a better life for myself and my family. Yet God had His own plans for me, which is usually how it goes. It took me years to embrace homemaking and realize the real purpose it holds, the breadth it encompasses, and my value within it.
“Purposeful giving is not as apt to deplete one’s resources; it belongs to that natural order of giving that seems to renew itself even in the act of depletion. The more one gives, the more one has to give” (41). With acknowledgment of usefulness, even without financial gain, mothers gain strength and replenish their sense of self. Homemaking is not a full-time job for all mothers, but we all need to see the immense worth in the care, time, and purposeful thought we heartfully dedicate to our families.
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Walking along the beach is my haven in the summer months. I used to feel it was selfish to steal a quiet stroll alone. But now I have come to understand that this solitude is a gift not just to myself, but for the ones I love.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s, Gift from the Sea, honestly discusses the huge demands placed on modern American women. While she hopes that we will learn to embrace simplicity, she also reminds us of the importance of being alone. Many of us have to re-learn what it means to even be alone as years have been given to juggling school, child rearing, careers, community service, and cultivating a home. “It is a difficult lesson to learn today-to leave one’s friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour or a day or a week…And yet, once it is done, I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before” (36).
Why do women especially find it hard to make time to be alone? Solitude can differ immensely from person to person both in quantity and in essence. I have created a new morning routine for myself over the past year. I’ve always been an early riser but now before I get up to accomplish my list of tasks, I deep breath for a few moments, then read my devotional. The positive affirmations shape my day, focus my mindset. In a way, I feel rejuvenated and excited to greet what is yet to come. But something so small took many, many, many years to start…why? It is the acknowledgment of the essentiality of making solitude a priority that needs to shift for mothers. No guilt. No excuses. Simply because it makes us better versions of ourselves. “Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others” (38). Now maybe that means making time for a daily workout, painting, going to yoga, gardening in your yard, walking in the woods, sipping tea before anyone else wakes up, journaling before turning off the lights for bed…find what soothes your soul. My 15-minute daily wakeup devotional is what I need, but maybe it’s one hour a day for you or one hour per week or even one weekend a year.
My husband and I have found it essential in our marriage to find time without the children. Even when he was a resident, money was scarce and we were away from family, he found a kind-hearted woman working in one of his clinics who would watch our babies one night a week for $5/hour. I recently reached out to her, 15 years later, and expressed my gratitude again as I reflected on what has helped my marriage remain strong…finding time to be alone even when life doesn’t seem to want to make that possible. Now that our kids are older, date night has come back regularly since we don’t need babysitters (what a treat in itself!). We also faithfully take a trip once a year, alone. Some years it will be a fancy vacation, while other times it’s just a weekend in the mountains or simply the kids staying over at Nana and Pa’s. With our 20-year anniversary next week, I know that our commitment to us as a couple has inevitably contributed to our happiness.
Mothers, you do not have to be walking alone among the sand dunes to find solitude; it is within reach every single day. Make a little time for only yourself, and in doing so, you are giving more to those you love.
People find solace, rejuvenation, and calm from different places in nature. While I like to hike on wooded trails, jump into a cool mountainside lake, and explore botanical gardens, the sea is my sanctuary. Walking along any beach brings instant peace. My thoughts clear, my breath slows, and I feel lighter. The crashing of waves soothes my mind, the soft sand warms my body, and the salt air refreshes my soul.
I happened upon my mother’s copy of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Do you ever feel you come across books that you need in a specific moment of time even if you don’t realize it at first? Well, Gift of the Sea was my muse for the next few blog entries as I process how I felt, what I thought, and how this book resonated with me as a woman, mother, and wife in the middle-age season of life.
Simplicity…A way of life, of being, of living. A simple word yet living simply is one of the most difficult things for mothers to do. Our current society, obligations, careers, and caregiving do not help us reach a life of simplicity but instead of multiplicity. How are we supposed to reach a balance between caring for ourselves and fulfilling everything else? Can we live in grace, with inner harmony? “There is no easy answer, no complete answer…perhaps a first step is in simplification of life, in cutting out some of the distractions. But how?” (23).
Simplifying has different meanings for different mothers based upon where they are in life, how many young children are at home, homeschooling vs in-school, household responsibilities, being employed outside of the home, spousal support, and community commitments, to name a few. At Essentialist Family, we have discussed the importance of taking inventory of where you spend your time. When you write down EVERYTHING you do, you can begin to acknowledge that it’s A LOT, and that some things need to be crossed off your list. Mentally and physically eliminating the most obvious unessential items, is a start. It will give you the confidence to tackle harder decisions. Practice makes this process easier and the more you rewrite your list, the more you’ll be able to let go.
Simplify your worldly life. We all have found ourselves caught up in buying the newest gadget, the tool that promises to save us time, the newer car, the extra pair of shoes because they were on sale, the new lunchbox organizers to replace the reusable snack pouches. But it’s still more stuff! Not less, but more! How can we physically decrease the things in our space if we continue to shop? Does scrolling on Pinterest entice us to buy things we truly don’t need? Are we trying to live up to someone else’s image on FaceBook and purchasing items like our Friends? Give yourself a month or two or three to really think about what you are buying. Remember, the key here is less, so if you don’t truly need it, then wait. Next, go through your home, one room at a time and donate or discard clothes, toys, kicknacks, and books you don’t need. (Read our post: Spark Joy Simply in Your Home for guidance (https://wordpress.com/post/theessentialistfamily.com/326).
Simplify your shelter. I’m not saying downsize your home even though we’ve watched Tiny House to prove it can be done. Instead, it’s all about evaluating the rooms of your current home and getting rid/donating extra furniture, wall hangings, throw rugs, closets full of spare sheets and blankets that don’t get used except when company visits. Taking photos off the bookcase shelves and replacing them with a few cherished memories. You’ll begin to feel the peace in your home when it’s clear. Harmony fills the gaps where unnecessary stuff was. Joy begins where clutter ends. Make a daily effort to keep stuff away.
“Simplification of outward life is not enough. It is merely the outside…the complete answer is not to be found on the outside, in an outward mode of living. This is only a technique, a road to grace. The final answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue, can help one to find the inside answer” (29).
Stay tuned for the next post…
*Please note: Gift from the Sea❤︎ is best read with toes in the sand!
Some of my favorite beaches: Old Silver, Falmouth, Cape Cod; Poipu, Kauai; Long Boat Key, FL; Goose Rocks, Kennebunkport, Maine.
the Essentialist Family 