How Can Moms Create a Calm, Less Stressful Home?
Parenting
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By Michelle S. Lazurek, Crosswalk.com
As we all know, children face more stress now than ever before. Not only do children deal with the regular stressors of growing up, learning new things, and navigating the world with their newfound independence, but they also face additional stressors. My children today deal with other competing issues, like poor nutrition or food insecurity, health crises, financial struggles, cyberbullying, overuse of technology, etc.
Since COVID, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed in children. Many kids feel overly stressed and overwhelmed with life. Although this is not God's intention for his children, it is an issue that needs to be solved. Moms can play a pivotal role in limiting or even eradicating a child's stress at home. Here are some ways moms can play a crucial role in reducing stress in the house:
Take Their Fights Elsewhere
Divorce is at its highest rate in decades. Kids fear their parents will get a divorce. Yet they don't always verbalize that fear to others. When moms fight with their spouses excessively, it causes stress among children. This increases their belief that their parents will get a divorce, and their family will be severed forever.
If you and your spouse are fighting constantly, there are ways to be heard and resolve your issues without involving your children. The most popular way is through counseling. Seeking the help of a professional who can improve your communication, help you fight effectively, and reach solutions beneficial to both parties is crucial for keeping a child's stress level low. Most parents believe that, because of the financial cost or stigma around counseling, they should try to resolve it on their own. However, their increasing conflict around the children causes them immeasurable stress.
If you can't afford counseling, go to your pastor or a trusted leader in your church. Have private meetings with them outside of the home and express your concerns about each other to them. Listen to their counsel and heed their instructions. Accept responsibility when appropriate and don't simply blame all your problems on others. Seek where you need to take responsibility. If you are unsure about where that is, ask the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants a happy and intact home. He will reveal to you the areas of your life that need help.
By accepting responsibility, de-stigmatizing counseling, and helping each spouse express their needs and reach viable solutions, keeping stress at a minimum is key.
Reduce Work Hours
In the 50s and 60s, it was commonplace for women not to work outside the home. Their primary job was to care for children and organize and run their home efficiently. In the 80s, moms began working outside the house, and the increased responsibility that came with that increased the stress children felt. Today, both parents need to work and often work more than one job to make ends meet.
If you are financially comfortable, consider reducing your workload. Working outside the home is difficult enough without having to come home and run a household and care for children in addition. Kids need stability in their lives. Having one parent at home most of the time will help reduce their stress. This will create the stability they are looking for and crave.
Not only is stability vital in reducing stress levels, but it will also increase the chances that your children will grow up to be teens and adults who want to talk to you about their problems. If you merely talk at them or give them solutions without really hearing what they have to say, more than likely, your children will clam up and find other places where they feel accepted to speak freely.
By reducing your workload, you are merely assuming more responsibility at home. Being the person who can drive them wherever they need to go, provide good nutrition and hot meals at home, and be their support system wherever they need it will increase the chances that a child will feel safe with you and reduce their stress.
Add Margin to Their Routine
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Trevor Williams
Kids have overpacked schedules. Often, children run from school to extracurricular activities, only to fall into bed completely exhausted at night. Sometimes, kids are trying to catch up on their homework or other chores in what little spare time they have left.
Kids don't have time to be kids anymore. But it doesn't have to be this way. Because other people choose to live their lives this way doesn't mean you have to. Do what works for you. Add margin to your schedule by allowing your child only one extracurricular activity for the year.
Often, parents participate in extracurricular activities each quarter, and that is per child. Usually, parents are running from activity to activity, leaving little time for downtime or reducing their stress. High levels of cortisol are to blame for increased stress. Allow children to lower their cortisol levels and regulate their emotions through downtime or playtime. Allow kids to use their imagination and avoid boredom. Children do not have to be doing something all the time to be productive and valuable in society as adults.
Kids who are allowed to use their imagination and create their own games without having it fed to them through technology tend to be more intelligent, more creative, and more productive in society. Be a parent who chooses not to go with the flow, but creates a schedule based on their children's needs.
Additionally, moms are the ultimate role models and examples in the home. Kids will more than likely follow their mother's example because she is home. Be a person who has regular downtime, observes the Sabbath, and avoids running from activity to activity. Allow yourself time to be quiet and still. Be a mom who is seen reading the Bible, praying for her kids, and listening to the Holy Spirit. When you allow the Holy Spirit to order your steps and direct your daily life, you will more than likely find that your stress level and your children's stress level will be reduced.
Listen Before You Speak
As moms, you are tasked with raising your children and helping them shape their character. This often means dispensing advice and telling children what to do. However, as they grow, they will need less of you telling them what to do and more simply listening to how they feel.
Assess your child and discover at what age they might be mature enough to let you listen to them and have them express themselves freely. Be a mom who listens more than she speaks. Listen carefully, ask clarifying questions, and let your child know you understand them.
In the same way children want to be heard, you want to be heard. Ideally, your spouse will do the same for you as you were doing for your children. Model this example and ask your spouse to do the same. You may find that not only do your children come to you more often and talk about hard things, but you and your spouse are engaging in a more intimate level simply because your spouse listens to you and doesn't give advice or talk at you.
In today's world, being a parent is more difficult than ever. However, by not allowing your fights to contaminate your home, listening to your children carefully, creating a routine where children can reduce their own cortisol levels, and reducing your workloads so that you may be more present with your children, you’re helping reduce your children's stress level, and in turn, yours as well.
Photo credit: GettyImages/Vera Livchak
Michelle S. Lazurek is a multi-genre award-winning author, speaker, pastor's wife, and mother. She is a literary agent for Wordwise Media Services and host of The Spritual Reset Podcast. Her new children’s book Hall of Faith encourages kids to understand God can be trusted. When not working, she enjoys sipping a Starbucks latte, collecting 80s memorabilia, and spending time with her family and her crazy dog. For more info, please visit her website www.michellelazurek.
