Parenting children is hard enough. Throw in a couple of disabilities, and parenting can become even more stressful.
Most days, I do very well tending to my daughter, Little Miss Throwsafit, and her hypotonia and speech apraxia and all the doctors’ appointments, therapy, treatments, and other activities that come with it.
Unfortunately, Wednesday wasn’t one of those days. I was frantically tried to get out the door to get my daughter to her speech therapy appointment on time and I failed miserably.
Instead of letting it roll off my back like I normally do, I kind of lost it. I cried the whole way to her therapy appointment, a 40-minute drive. Needless to day, the stress of parenting a special needs child hit me hard.
My reaction was actually quite normal. It’s common for moms of special needs kids, all moms really, to have bad days, so after my episode Wednesday I came up with other outlets for the stress so it didn’t build up and explode all over the place.
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Go for a walk. My kids love to go for walks, but it seems like I just don’t do it enough, so I’m going to commit to taking walks more often.
- Visualization. I know this may sound funny, but when stress begins to build up, I can go into the bedroom, lay down, close my eyes and picture myself allowing the stress to disappear.
- Dance. I should to turn on the radio and dance around the house with great enthusiasm. My kids would love it.
- Take a power nap. Power naps are some of the best naps to take. There are times when both my daughter and my youngest son are napping at the same time. There’s not reason why I can’t nap, too. My husband is around the house full time 5 days a week. Why don’t I take advantage of that more often?
So how do you relieve stress when you’re heading into overload? Click on over to the Blissfully Domestic Special Needs Kids group to discuss this and other topics.
Kim is a wife to Steve and a Mom to three kids. She writes all about her family and her life Up North at her blog Up North Mommy.
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Dear Kim and all the
Blissfully Domestic Gals,
Since the release of my memoir, A Dozen Invisible Pieces and Other Confessions of Motherhood this past spring, I have received tremendous support and encouragement from many women treading the Mommy Blogosphere. After several lovely on-line book reviews, mentions in magazine articles and a featured spot on Blog Talk Radio’s Her Big Idea show, I would like to express my gratitude by offering a pdf version of my book for free to the first 100 Mom Bloggers who download.
eBook Download Link:
http://www.adozeninvisiblepieces.com/momblogger.html
A Dozen Invisible Pieces and Other Confessions of Motherhood is a painfully sweet, blatantly honest, and unabashedly candid look at the joys and perils of early motherhood. It is a story of self degradation and reinvention—one that almost ANY mother can relate to. Ultimately, it is a very personal, and yet totally relatable story of triumph and hope.
In the essence of furthering the on-line sense of community that many woman and mother-centered social networks and web logs promote, I hope you enjoy the opportunity to read my book, and look forward to receiving any thoughts or comments you may have afterward.
Please feel free to forward this invitation to other mom bloggers you may know who you think would be equally interested in taking advantage of this opportunity.
Warmly,
Kimmelin Hull
author of A Dozen Invisible Pieces and Other Confessions of Motherhood
Kimmelin Hull
Pregnancy to Parenthood, LLC
406.599.2794
kmh@pregnancytoparenthood.org
Check out my new book:
A Dozen Invisible Pieces and Other
Confessions of Motherhood
http://www.adozeninvisiblepieces.com
I had lunch with a therapist friend of mine to discuss our common work with ADHD children. While we were talking about how to best help parents, he said half-jokingly, "I notice that ADHD has a way of making the average parent a bad parent at time." He was referring to our frustrations that build up and cause us to say or do something that we know at the time is not the best parenting. Personally, I notice it occurs when I am feeling a high level of stress similar to this post.
Here are a few additional ideas for parents to reduce stress:
Take a hike in the forest and just listen to everything while you walk
Finger paint. Yes, I said use your fingers like the old days.
Use soft-belly meditation. When meditating imagine you have a very soft-belly. This enables you to get more deeply relaxed.
Keep a journal of doodles. Sit down and doodle how you are feeling and/or how you would like to feel. Don't worry about what anyone else will think. They will never see it.
Talk with an imaginary guide.
There are a million more ideas but these are some of the ones that get me and my clients through the day.