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Six Steps to Stress-Free Parenting (well, almost!)
Ron Huxley offers parents to better manage stress
which means stress-reduced parents!
Get 300 strategies for managing stress today!
Nothing describes parenting better than stress! As far as I can tell,
there are no stress-free ages or stages in raising children. Oh, some
might be a little less challenging but they all have their ups and
downs. Experts tell us that some stress, in moderate doses, actually
increases performance. It is supposed to keep us sharp and ready for
action. Too much stress and it will destroy our health and
relationships.
Stress is defined as any physical or emotional demand that you feel
unable to handle. These demands encompass all of the little hassles
you experience every day, from the moment you try to get children up
for school to the moment you finally get them to bed, at night. What
makes daily hassles so dangerous is that they are too often
considered trivial. Simply because they do occur every day, we
disregard just how serious they can be to our overall wellbeing. Over
time, these hassles of modern parenting add up, building in pressure,
until we have an explosion of anger and frustration. In the
aftermath, our family members stare at us in bewilderment or
retaliate in defense.
In contrast, we take more seriously life's major hassles. The big
three are major illness, death, or a divorce.
No one questions us when we react strangely when these hassles rear
their ugly head. We even get lots of sympathy cards and support in
our time of need. But what happens when a major hassle is a cause of
celebration or even desired. For example, when we get married, move
to a bigger house, get a promotion, or have a baby, these are all
joyous events, right? Yes, but they are also stressful!
Remember our definition: Stress is any demand you feel unable to
manage. Can a marriage or new home be difficult to manage? Of course
it can. If you do not have the management skills needed to cope with
a particular problem and/or you are experiencing so many demands that
no amount of skills are adequate to prevent you from being weighed
down, you will experience stress. To help you better manage stress or
prevent it altogether, here are six steps to stress-free (well,
almost) parenting.
Managing Stress Skill #1: Be aware of stress.
Sounds obvious don't it? You would be surprised at the number of
parents who are unable to recognize the early warning signs of
stress. For some parents, these signs include feeling over tired,
irritable, or restless. For others, they observe family members
attack or withdraw from others more quickly. Make a list, as a
family, of how each person feels when under a lot of stress. Use
recent examples to clearly identify the early warning signs. Have
members describe what was going on in their body when under stress.
Talk about how devastating stress can be on us physically and
emotionally. Post this list on the refrigerator and remind each other
of the telltale symptoms rather than blow up at one another.
Managing Stress Skill #2: Take a time out.
These aren't the only ways to minimize stress in your life. They
won't make your life stress-free. Expert's claim that living stress-
free isn't be good for us anyway (although I would like to try it for
a while). The reality is it isn't gonna happen! So, pick one skill
and start managing you and your families stress.
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