4 WAYS TO BE A HAPPIER PARENT
Jessica Grose, a Co.Create contributor and new mother road tests some wisdom from happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky’s latest book in her own daily child-rearing experience. Here’s what she learned about parental happiness.
TIP #1: LEARN COPING MECHANISMS FOR MINOR ANNOYANCES.
Lyubomirsky points out that sometimes the bad parenting moments can be more aggravating than major problems. For example, you’re more frustrated and pissy about your toddler’s supermarket temper tantrum than you are about a serious illness your baby is facing--because you rise to the occasion and get social support for the latter. No one is going to be particularly sympathetic when your son is throwing cookies from the grocery store shelf.
TIP #2: REMEMBER TO BALANCE YOUR OWN NEEDS WITH YOUR CHILD’S NEEDS.
When you have a life with myriad personal and work obligations, sometimes inserting a baby into the picture feels overwhelming. As Lyubomirsky points out, there are a lot of conflicting emotions involved for parents when it comes to negotiating all of life’s responsibilities. They might feel guilty about not spending enough time with their kids, or pissed at their spouses for not pulling their weight. “The secret,” she says, “is not necessarily in airing these feelings but rather in the actual writing about them--the words themselves . . . putting our emotional upheavals into words helps us make sense of them, accommodate to them, and begin to move past them.”
TIP #3: REMEMBER THE BIG PICTURE.
Lyubomirsky counsels us to “contemplate the ‘big picture’ perspective--why we chose to have children in the first place, how our parenting experience will shift and improve with time, and what we wish to contribute to society and to future generations.”
“If we are burned-out and unhappy--or worse, depressed--we simply cannot be outstanding parents,” she writes. “Taking a break from the daily grind can revitalize us, restore us, fortify us, and remind us which are the big rocks in our lives.”
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