You will often hear me talk about not pouring from an empty cup, making time for self-care and feeling personally connected, but allow me to offer a contradiction: Having happy children will mean fewer worries for you.
I don’t mean that you need to give in to your children’s every whim or spoil them because you want the temporary peace that comes from giving in. I mean creating a happy environment, being present and supportive. So how do we facilitate that? The idea is to make it easier, not to pile on the mum guilt by telling you that you need to be at home more, or do every school pick up. Instead, look for ways that this present, happy environment for your children can become the norm, ways that the world of business can progress and really hold family values in high priority for their employees, at all levels.
If you’re wondering why it’s so important that the business and family world combine, it’s for employee well-being! As a working mother, can you truly focus on your work if you’re thinking about your children’s well-being or needs? The answer is typically no, while you’re sitting in a meeting thinking about a uniform that needs washing, a homework deadline or paying for that school trip that you keep forgetting you’re not focused on producing your best work. Similarly, because you’ve been multi-focusing all day every day, you feel the mental overwhelm harder, you’re tired and by the time you’re home all the stress is bubbling away at the surface. Then the children go to bed, and you beat yourself up about snapping at them, maybe losing patience during the homework, or worrying that you didn’t make them a good enough meal.
This is where you need to stop, and this is where companies need to lead the way in facilitating a better framework for working parents.
So how do you meet your children’s needs, to make them happy and you worry less?
Where possible book your annual leave around the school holidays so that you can spend time with them without distraction. There’s nothing more jarring than realising you have to deliver a major project slap-bang in the middle of your children’s holidays.
Speak to your children, openly communicate. Affective Neuroscientist Jack Panksepp says there are 9 key minutes to your child’s day that will hugely benefit their emotional development:
- The 3 minutes after they wake up.
- The 3 minutes after you pick them up from school.
- The 3 minutes before bed.
These are your windows for optimal, prime time talking. Don’t let this just be about asking them questions, share your day too, tell them something good that happened at work, or something challenging. Ask them to tell you something good and challenging too. Maybe as these conversations develop, you’ll see correlations or similarities between you and your children?
For example, I recently found out that my bright 10-year-old who is very capable actually struggles with sitting still and writing for periods of time. Well, guess what? I’m exactly the same!
When faced with a writing task and a blank page I struggle, so I was able to share with him some genuine helpful tips; recording audio notes, brain dumping and making 10 bullet points to just get started and shape his work. This really helped him to feel seen, heard and understood.
If you can nurture a joint hobby as parent and child(ren) to do together then that is an incredible way of increasing connection and enjoyment, creating core childhood memories. If you can’t, if for example they love rugby and you really don’t, how about you create something positive around it? Go for a treat afterwards, make a pre-game playlist together to listen to on the way to their game. These are small acts, but ones that nurture a connection, so even if you are busy with work, you know you have this meaningful time together that your child loves and appreciates, and it removes the mum guilt that many working mothers face.
Remember, you don’t have to do any of this alone, encourage similar activities with other family members, or even ask for ideas from their teachers.
This is not saying “you must be a better mum on top of everything you are trying to do, even though all that you do is for them and their life…” This is simply saying, small things go a long way to make a happy child, and a happy child is one less worry for you.
