Sure, they’re costly, noisy, and time-consuming. But home renovations can also get under your skin because they’re out of your control.
Here’s why doing a reno can be maddening (even when they’re exciting!), and some steps you can take to keep yourself calm during the demolition drama.
The final few weeks before the winter holidays can be full of stress. That makes it peak time for burnout. If burnout is creeping in for you or your team, practicing a few resilience techniques can mean the difference between losing your cool and feeling peace on Earth.
The end of the year brings with it stressors that no other time of year seems to. At work there is often budgeting, fitting in last-minute meetings, and strategic planning for the next year. At home there is frantic shopping, too much baking, and a whirlwind of parties you are expected to make room for in the busy calendar.
When we’re stressed, our brains produce the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. When we add these stress hormones into the mix, our brains become worse at higher-order processing, the very skill we need to perform most jobs. So when we’re frantically crossing things off our to-do list, we probably aren’t completing those tasks at a very high level. To be at our best, we have to stop and breathe. We have to take a moment to let the adrenaline and cortisol clear out of our systems.
School teachers have known for years that the weeks leading up to the holidays are the exact wrong time to try to cram in last-minute work. So take a cue from their playbook and schedule your day with fewer tasks and more breaks, getting done the very most important things and letting the others slide. Find time to stop and take deep breaths in the middle of the chaos. The pile in your inbox will still be there the first week in January.
We have a rosy picture of how the holiday season is supposed to go. When it doesn’t meet our expectations, we’re filled with frustration. But that frustration is of our own making, so being realistic on the front end can curb that freak-out feeling on the back end.
A large chunk of holiday stress comes from the mistaken belief that this time of year is going to be magically perfect and everyone should be happy. But people can’t be happy when they’re held to unrealistic standards – including you!
No, your toddler twins might not sit still for a greeting card picture, so don’t expect them to. Your grandmother’s holiday roast recipe might not turn out as juicy as you remember it. And your extended family might squabble from the stress of sharing one bathroom. If you prepare for reality to be… well… real in advance, and leave room for humans to be humans, and traffic to be traffic, and work to be work, and life to be life, you may find that some of the holiday screwups lead to the best stories that you’ll laugh at for years to come.
Check back after Thanksgiving for 2 more strategies to sidestep end-of-the-year work burnout!
If you’ve got kids who are constantly pushing boundaries, it’s frustrating.
BUT…
It’s actually GOOD news!
Pushing boundaries is how kids develop a healthy sense of self-efficacy and an internal locus of control. Quick 4 minute watch while I explain what those two things are, how they help kids turn into successful adults, and basically just make you feel better about your kids always pushing boundaries.
The bottom line is this: I swear your kids are normal!!! 😉
As kids head back to school, families want to set their children up for success. If you want to help your kid have a productive school year, try teaching some of these resilience lessons. Each one will help make your child more capable of navigating school year stressors.
School isn’t meant to be easy. If you knew everything already, you wouldn’t need to go to school! Learning something you don’t already know how to do is the whole point of an education. But for lots of kids, if something is difficult, they interpret that difficulty to mean they must not be good at that task, or they must be stupid.
There’s an emerging school of thought called “growth mindset,” which focuses on our capacity to learn and grow. Often in our society, we praise children for their innate gifts and skills, saying “oh, you’re just so smart!” “you’re a good artist!” When that happens, we accidentally deliver the message that a child’s success is because they’re naturally good at something. Children are then at risk of developing a “fixed mindset”, which is the opposite of a growth mindset, and tells them that their skills and talents are fixed and can’t be changed. Help your child develop a growth mindset by encouraging work that is just beyond their current abilities, showing them a path to solve the problem, and then praising them for the effort they exerted, showing them how that effort got them the outcome they wanted.
Has your child come home and said “my teacher gave me a C on my project! I don’t know why!”? That’s language you want to catch and correct. Saying “my teacher gave me thus-and-such grade” isn’t usually accurate. Except in the rare case of a disconnected or vindictive teacher, your child most likely earned that grade. When a child phrases their grades in a way that places responsibility on the teacher instead of themselves, you’re seeing something called “external locus of control.”
People can exhibit either an internal locus of control or an external locus of control. People with an internal locus of control believe that they have some measure of control over the outcomes in their lives, and they take responsibility for doing their part. People with an external locus of control think that what happens to them is out of their hands: it’s all because of luck, fate, their boss, their mom. Listen to how your children talk about their grades, because it may be the first time you hear whether your child is prone to an internal or external locus of control, and you can help guide them to take more responsibility for what happens in their lives.
For very good reasons, schools and communities are now intervening much earlier and more seriously when it comes to bullying. Childhood bullying can cause long-term stress that even carries into adulthood, and the growing awareness of bullying is a great thing that protects vulnerable children.
But there’s one unintended downside to the rise in awareness against bullying. As children are being taught not to bully, their developing brains aren’t great at understanding what bullying really is. To a 5 year old, anyone doing something that makes them feel sad or angry feels like a bully. So saying “no, I’m not going to give you my favorite doll,” could be bullying to a 5 year old. We know better, as adults, but kids can’t always see the difference.
It’s important to help your kids navigate a world where everybody doesn’t want to be their friend. Your 9 year old may want to be friends with somebody who doesn’t want to be friends back. And it doesn’t necessarily make the other kid mean. It’s just a fact of life that we all prefer some people over others, and children are no different. So at home, if you hear about meanness or bullying, try to really tease out the actions that took place, before you get upset. (Because if you get upset, your kid will get even more upset!) Their teenage and young adult years will be filled with change friend-circles and romantic rejection, so this is great practice for what lies ahead.
Help your child develop more resilience by repeating these three mantras whenever they need a little nudge back on track. School-year stress is a real thing, but with a little guidance from you, your kid can grow into a hard-worker and a self-starting student!
I get asked this question ALL. THE. TIME:
“How do I help X person in my life get a better perspective? How do I help them be more resilient?”
It’s a tough question, because there’s not a perfect answer. You can’t GIVE somebody else perspective.
But because everyone seems to want to know the answer, I’ve done some research and some thinking, and there are 3 things you CAN do to help.
#1 is probably the toughest, because it requires vulnerability that we may not want to show.
If there’s someone in your life (your child, your employee, your sibling…) who could stand to be a bit tougher, check out this 4 minute video on what you can do to help them find resilience.
Here’s a personal look at my favorite moment of this past year!
The reason I loved this moment SO MUCH is because I had planned this surprised for months, which triggers a psychological mechanism called “savoring.” When we anticipate an exciting time, it helps us feel enjoyment even before the event happens, giving us double the good feelings!
As you head into the new year, look for ways you can savor and enjoy the things you have planned for 2019. The more you savor, the happier you’ll be.
For many parents, the thought of seeing your kids’ faces light up on Christmas morning has been keeping you going for the past several busy weeks. But now Christmas is over, the gifts are unwrapped, and for many families, the trouble is just beginning.
If your family is starting a post-holiday meltdown, and you’re counting down the days until school is back, don’t worry! Here are some ways to combat the most common after-Christmas behaviors in kids.
For younger children, the threat of Santa watching can encourage good behavior for several weeks leading up to the big day. But once that red-suited incentive is removed, there’s QUITE a lot of pressure built up in your little ones, just waiting to explode! Instead of being frustrated at what feels like an about-face in their behaviors now that Santa isn’t watching, give them physical outlets to get their sillies out now that the day has passed (yes, even if it’s cold outside!). It’s practically a biological certainty that there’s going to be a rebound effect after prolonged effort to be good, so don’t get caught off guard, and be prepared to intervene with lots of active games to channel the wildness.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some kids get ridiculously lazy after Christmas has passed. This can happen for one of two reasons: First, many humans (of all ages) experience a health dip after big events. Don’t you remember those days when you managed to power through college finals but then get the flu break? Our bodies sometimes just give out on us once it’s “safe.” The second thing that could be happening is a bit of situational depression, where your child may be experiencing a “let-down” now that Christmas is over. If your kid is channeling a sloth, it’s best not to take it too personally. Chores have to get done and showers must be taken, but what’s wrong with a little rest time (other than how jealous it makes you!) Just keep an eye to make sure that seasonal or situational depression doesn’t linger any longer than that.
Cookies aren’t the only thing left over after Christmas. You may find that the holidays have left behind a seriously smart mouth on one or more of your kiddos. Older children may not have been behaving nicely because of the threat of Santa, but they likely DID feel the pressure to get along and be sweet, because “that’s what Christmas is all about.” Kids see and internalize that societal pressure for family harmony at the holidays. Once Christmas is over, then, there can be a rebound effect. You don’t have to accept rude treatment ANY time of the year, so ignore the proximity to the holidays and just address the behaviors the way you would any other time of year, without adding in any extra “but it’s Christmastime” guilt. Kids who internalize that everyone has to get along at Christmas just because can grow up into adults who make themselves crazy at the holidays trying to make everything perfect.
Christmas can be an amazing time to look at the world through the eyes of a child. But December 26th can be meltdown city, so be prepared in advance with strategies to head off these common post-Christmas behaviors.
It’s the Christmas home stretch!
… sooooo… you’re probably feeling major stress to get everything done.
If you’d rather be feeling the holiday spirit than feeling so much stress, I have 3 really simple tips you can try, that will keep holiday stress at a minumum.
The first thing you can do is be more realistic!
Try these 3 steps over the next few days and see how much better you’ll be at keeping the holiday hoopla in perspective.
The holiday season is SUPPOSED to be full of cheer.
But if you’re grieving a death, a loss, or a major change, you may not feel “up” for the falalala hoopla.
There are two strategies that have been shown to be very successful at navigating grief during this time of year, and using one or both can help you cope when everyone else around you is in the holiday spirit.
I had this realization about Thanksgiving, and it’s kind of a metaphor for SO MUCH!
Have you ever had one of those times where you just have to push and get through, in order to get to the reward at the end? Well, that’s what I’m talking about! (for me, it’s kind of like how I feel about the Thanksgiving meal).
