Marginal Gains in Parenting (aka small changes for big wins)

I know you’re psyched about the prospect of marginal gains in the context of parenting, so let’s jump into it! Oh wait, you may not know what marginal gains are unless you work in certain sectors or unless you listen to Freakonomics podcasts. In that case…

Marginal gains are little changes that can lead to big rewards. Additional definition information is here.

Dave Braisford worked with the British cycling team, and by focusing on marginal gains in a variety of ways for the team, he led the team to win the Tour de France… several times. Simple things to improve health included educating team members on how to properly wash hands and having rooms cleaned and disinfected ahead of cyclists arriving to stay the night. Improvements on the actual racing included focusing on body position while riding. If you’d like to learn more about the changes he made, I highly recommend the Freakonomics podcast that tells the story of what he did and why.

The point is that these weren’t major changes, but they all added up. Each one was measurable in some way, and while no single item likely was the difference in winning or not winning the competition, the total helped to create a powerful, champion team.

After listening to the podcast, I’ve been thinking about where I may be able to make marginal gains in my own life, especially for parenting and maintaining a work/life balance that lets me end the day without being totally wiped out. (Hey, it’s a nice thought at least.)

Opportunities for Marginal Wins in Parenting

Here are some of the areas where I thought or heard about tactics to reduce stress, time, or energy and improve the relationship between child/parent:

Morning routine

It can be difficult getting kids up and going in the morning so that you don’t start the day feeling behind. While this isn’t a solution that I’ve personally tried, I have heard of friends who tried having kids sleep in the clothes that they were going to wear the next morning. That was one less task to address in the morning and made it easier to get out the door. What else could be streamlined? The breakfast routine could be moved to the car by having a cereal bar instead of cereal. Parents could not put on makeup. If I’m going to be seen by coworkers, I’m putting on makeup. I feel better with it in a professional setting. But, I have moved showers and cleaning up to the night before instead of in the morning to reduce time variations in how long it takes to wake up and get out the door.

Vitamins and medicine

Fighting because your child has to take medicine that doesn’t taste good? Consider ways to improve the taste without having to buy something totally different (though buying a different flavor cough medicine should be cheap enough that that’s a reasonable thing to consider if that’s your problem). Many pharmacies can flavor liquid medicines for you if you ask for it. My daughter used to take a liquid multivitamin (since New Jersey doesn’t put fluoride in all the water), so the pharmacy offered to flavor it with grape and other options. Another option is to add something that won’t interfere with the performance of the drug. I could add some honey or natural cough syrup to some spoonfuls that I would give to my daughter since the active ingredients weren’t harmed by being combined. Check with your doctor if you’re concerned about this. But, finding something that tastes good or at least okay greatly reduces fighting during what may be a daily ritual of taking vitamins. Arguing with a sick child who needs medicine but hates the flavor is also a drain on the parent and child in what’s already a stressful, tiring situation.

Commuting time

Being in the car or other form of transportation is necessary. Unless you’re lucky enough to walk your children a block to school, you’re likely transporting them on a regular basis. Are they staring out the window at nothing while in the car? Are you talking with them? Conversations are great to have, but we can’t constantly be ‘on’ in that way for kids. Either there’s a lot of traffic so we have to focus on just driving safely, the car trip is too long for that to be a reasonable option, or we need our own personal time to think for a few minutes. Instead of just leaving kids hanging with no stimulation, educational games are a good choice. My daughter has a Leapfrog tablet that lets her practice writing her letters, forming words, caring for sick animals (an Octonauts game), and considering other people’s feelings. These are all skills that she can practice in an entertaining way that I can’t do with her while I’m driving her.

Bedtime

I don’t want to spend three hours trying to get a child to sleep. That’s uncomfortable for everyone involved. At a certain point, I don’t care if the child wants to sleep on the ceiling. If the child is comfortable, happy, goes to sleep well in that position/area, and nothing is causing physical, emotional, etc harm, that’s fine. My daughter wants to sleep with me several nights in a row, but she goes to sleep very easily there versus hours awake elsewhere, fine, just go to sleep. Saves me from being worn out at the end of the day.

Thinking

We can change how we think ourselves and present the world to our children. “Children are often taught to think that mistakes are bad. They get red lines in their books when they mess up. This is why they fear to put their hands up in class and struggle to take risks. But in an experiment where children were taught to think of weaknesses not as embarrassing, but as opportunities to learn, they became more inquisitive and resilient. They also performed better.” Who wouldn’t want to give our kids a leg up in bettering themselves?

I need to think through more ways to have marginal gains in a variety of areas of my life, from the mundane like commuting to changing my mental state. I’d be interested in any suggestions you may have. Small changes. Big wins. Better life.

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.” — Jim Rohn

Resources and Further Reading

• Clear, James. “This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent and Here’s What Happened.”
• Dubner, Stephen. “In Praise of Incrementalism.” Freakonomics (podcast) 26 Oct 2016.
• “Marginal.” Reverso Dictionary. 2016.
• Rohn, Jim. Business philosopher (good for quotes and more)
• “Viewpoint: Should we all be looking for marginal gains?” BBC. 15 Sep 2015.