Any job can be stressful and parenting is no different. You’ll be familiar with the concept of ‘caring for the carer’ – especially important if you care for a special needs person, since this brings extra emotional and physical stresses.
These stresses are “normal” for us, but they are often much greater than what parents of non-special needs kids have to handle. In fact, if you feel like sometimes you’re a front-line soldier – guess what? Your stress levels are comparable! Hooray – now, how to describe those hyper-alert senses on my CV…?
We need to make an effort to look after ourselves. To take the “oxygen mask” approach. Those who have been on a plane will have heard the safety instruction to fit your own oxygen mask before fitting your child’s. Meaning, you need to look after yourself first, so you are in a better position to look after those who rely on you. In reality, this is often hard or nigh on impossible. However, if we are to look after our children as well as we want to, it’s critical that we also look after ourselves and prioritise ourselves in the same way that we prioritise our children.
Stress and its effects
Recently, I read a reflection from a mum who reached the end of her tether. Her challenges made mine seem completely insignificant, although I know – one shouldn’t compare. One of the important points that she made was that sometimes we just “internalise the stress for too long and it builds up until [we] can’t take it any more.” At this point, we aren’t any more help to our children – and we’re not much good to ourselves, either.
Stress has a very real, physical effect on our bodies. You can just feel it , can’t you? And it takes a physical effort to control this, which is hard when you’re at the end of your physical and emotional tether.
Finding the time to de-stress
I find it challenging to make time for myself. Currently, between three of the four Wombats, there is at least one thing on every night of the week. While my husband helps with driving when he can, it’s more often than not “Mum’s taxi”. Train Wombat grumbled recently that perhaps his siblings should be involved in fewer activities. However, most activities are important to essential, so we can’t really drop them. Two nights are swimming lessons – for our two weakest swimmers. Dancing Wombat has activities to help her develop her independent skills and her fitness – important. Free-Running Wombat has gym classes which fit around the two swimming nights – okay, not essential, but as the “neurotyp” of the bunch, he also has needs which must be considered.
Fast forward to after dinner, then it’s homework check-up, helping Dancing Wombat get to her “step” target, reading to Littlest Wombat and trying to settle him to sleep. Aaargh! Like many Aspies, he finds this really difficult and will come out several times over the course of a couple of hours. (And no, Melatonin hasn’t worked for us.) If I’m out, he stays awake until I’m home. I’m lucky to be working part-time, but the days are quickly filled with household chores, dog walking, dinner preparation, other responsibilities, lesson planning and various things that can’t be done once school is out and the taxi service has to start up.
Care for the carers – basic how-to!
We need to do several things to look after ourselves. They’re pretty basic, really. Eat properly. Get as much sleep as possible. Exercise. Do something that gives you life. Maybe it’s a crossword. A jigsaw puzzle. Craft. Gardening. Woodwork. Bee-keeping. Walking the dog. Having a massage or a hair cut. Taking a bit of time to look and feel “nice”. Catching up with a friend – face to face, not Facebook to Facebook!
I love gardening, but music is my passion. Until Littlest Wombat was born, I had always managed to keep involved in one choir or another. After he arrived, it just all became too much. However, for a few years now, I have been contemplating getting back in the musical groove and feeding music to my hungry soul again.
One of my brothers plays trumpet in a couple of local bands, and we’ve often discussed the joy of being in a musical group. For a brief time at high school in Canada I played French horn in our school marching band. The idea of learning a brass instrument slowly grew in my mind until I decided that this was the year to act. This would be the year for “me”. Well, not just me, but the year when I was going to be more deliberate about looking after myself. It wasn’t just going to be a optional extra.
My brother sourced an instrument. My husband encouraged the evening out. And I’ve now been to two band rehearsals and have my first gig this weekend!
I’ve loved setting time aside each day to practise. Suddenly, scales – which were such a drag when I was younger – are a tantalising challenge to master. I feel revived after a good half hour blowing my horn (!). I’m more relaxed and in a better frame of mind. Also, my kids realise that my world doesn’t entirely revolve around them, which is a good thing.
Nike – or,”just do it”!
You could spend a day looking up information on stress, how it happens, what it does, and how to manage it. I wouldn’t recommend doing that though – it would be far too stressful! I reckon we all know what causes our stress. You don’t need a research paper to tell you that. I figure also that we know what we need to do to help alleviate the stress in our lives.
The challenge for people who are used to putting others first is to put themselves first. It’s the best way to help our kids. Let’s face it – some will grow up to be independent, but others will be with us for a long time, so caring for the carers – ourselves – not an optional extra.
So until next time, good luck with the stress reduction and Happy Wombatting!
P.S. This link has some good, sensible and simple tips on managing stress. Feel free to share any others you recommend on the Dancing Wombat Facebook page.
