The way we see it
We get a kick out of sharing what we think, and even sometimes, what we know about health, fitness, and life. We hope you enjoy it.
Setting our kids up for success from an early age is what we all want to do and there are definite ways that we can help our kids get off to a great start. However, there are also ways that we can be an obstacle to the natural growth and development of our kids.
Unfortunately we do this under the misguided notion that we are helping and the results can be the opposite of what we intend. I came across an article on Twitter,Simplifying Childhood May Protect Against Mental Health Issues. It was one of those articles where it hit at just the right time and connected a lot of dots for me and I wanted to share it with you. Dawn and I said all along that we would be different from the families that over schedule their kids and run from activity to activity each night of the week and even more on the weekends. But sure enough, we soon found our schedules packed each night of the week and our weekends taken for months in advance. The little bit of down time we did have was spent arguing about how we needed to squeeze this in or get that done because things were going to get crazy again soon. We were finding what was supposed to be quality family time was often combative because we all needed time to decompress. This left everyone angry and not wanting to talk. Things were broken. Looking at the article it makes sense. A few ideas from the article that stuck out to me;
We have tried to do this over the past year and have noticed a gradual shift in the amount of arguments that we are experiencing. We have set "down" time after school for the kids to play whatever they want. Sometimes we join them sometimes they play on their own. It is not easy at first. Kids will say they are bored and they have nothing to do. Wait it out and they will come up with something to do. We turn the TV off and limit our kids exposure to the gloom and doom of the days news. No matter what our schedule throws at us we protect dinner time with everything we have. We sit down together and eat and talk. We wait out the desire for the latest and greatest gadget and usually that desire passes in a week or so. We are far from having it all figured out, but have found that these small steps have put some fun back in, not just our kids lives, but ours as well.
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