4 Self-Care Tips for WFH Parents
Have you been neglecting your needs while caring for your child?
The past nearly two years have been unrelenting for all of us but, as the classrooms and offices retracted into laptop screens, working parents have been struggling to juggle their child’s home-schooling, their jobs, and household chores.
Modelling the roles of a playmate, educator, disciplinarian, referee, and psychologist for their children every day while holding their personal spaces has been a tough transition for many parents, often causing burnout.
However, as we begin to finally emerge from the pandemic, a lot of parents are hopeful about their ‘re-entry’ into normal lives but the question of
“What now?” still remains.
Heidi Pitlor, author of the book Impersonation writes,
“After so much time spent facing the fear of this new disease, isolation, a steady unweaving of our social fabric, the illness itself, and mass death, we wonder about the impact on our children and whether we did enough.”
As a parent, if you are struggling with recovery and re-entry, here are some ways that might help:
1. Be compassionate to yourself and others
According to a Forbes report, “The transition to remote work has been a challenge to many workers, however, for parents juggling childcare with their remote workday, things have been especially tough.”
When times have been that tough in the past year, showing compassion can be difficult.
Start with celebrating yourself for the little wins. Ask empathetic questions to your partner and to yourself like — “What was the best part of your day today?” or “I am proud of (a small accomplishment) that I achieved today.”
Allow yourself personal space and regular breaks from your routine, and encourage others to do the same.
Replace self-criticising statements like, “I don’t think the pandemic is an excuse for me to slack at work” with more empathetic ones like, “If I feel I won’t be productive today, I think I should take some space for myself.”
2. Start socialising again but slowly
While a difficult phase such as the pandemic with limited social interaction can encourage certain impulsive plans, I would suggest starting slow.
Identify, acknowledge, and accept your new boundaries, altered needs, and differentiated capacity to manage social situations.
Expect changes in how you navigate these.
Know that it’s okay to have a less ambitious social bucket list and more time for yourself.
Starting with a plan might help make this transition easier for you. Encourage practices like a check-in with yourself with questions like, “Am I really comfortable going out? Or am I doing this under pressure?”
3. Identify distress from discomfort
As we re-enter into our ‘normal routines’ post-pandemic, discomfort is certain to arise.
For instance, children going back to school might involve nervousness for parents as well. Take a step to validate this discomfort and co-create a solution with your children and partner.
It’s also important to identify where the discomfort changes into distress. It is often accompanied by feelings of being overwhelmed and the inability to cope.
Erin B. Bernau,a parent coach, writes for ParentMap,
“A discomfort is a place we can often learn from, but distress is a completely different beast. We don’t grow if we don’t work on walking that line between discomfort and distress.”
4. Create a self-care routine
Being a working parent during the pandemic has been one of the toughest jobs for all where creating a safe environment for children has been a priority for most.
But creating personal spaces for self-care as a parent should also be on your priority list.
Indulge in physical exercises that enhance your health while giving you the space to feel relaxed and less anxious like yoga, meditation, etc.
If the pandemic has affected your sleep schedule, interrupt the cycle by altering your bedtime rituals. Limit your screen time, and invest more time in a hobby like painting, sculpting, cooking, etc.
Conclusion
As we prepare to leave the pandemic behind, it’s also important to slowly move out of the challenging environment it created for most of us. That’s why at Learning Matters, we host multiple sessions for the children’s parents as well.
As a parent, it’s crucial to start learning how to prioritise self-care as the behaviour you model directly impacts your child too.
So, whether you are facing resilience fatigue that often surfaces after emotional, mental, or physical depletion or parental anxiety, this is the right time for you to prioritise your emotional and physical well-being.
