Dear parents: Your to-do list can manage without you!
As parents, we ask ourselves what we want to give our children for their lives. This includes love, a healthy self-esteem and perhaps a good education.
But we can also ask ourselves what we want our children to keep for as long as possible and what we want them to learn. For me, this includes the ability to enjoy and marvel. After all, young children are true masters at this.
How do you make time for enjoyment?
In order to enjoy something, we have to be able to engage with it. And we have to treat ourselves to it. As busy parents, this is not so easy. Especially not if you have internalised the saying «Work first, pleasure second!».
In the age of the internet and e-mail, it has become difficult to leave work behind completely after work - and at home, most of us have a full to-do list waiting for us again. Many of us would have something to do around the clock. If we only take a break when we are too exhausted to continue, we are not creating the right conditions for enjoyment.
Online dossier on mindfulness and slowing down
Perhaps it would be useful if we questioned this philosophy and interspersed moments of pleasure here and there in our everyday lives without having to earn them by working through all our tasks first. It would probably also be helpful for our children if they learnt that work and pleasure can alternate - or that work and pleasure are not opposites at all, but that work can also be a pleasure.
We can even ask ourselves how we can make work that we don't like doing more enjoyable. Are they perhaps more fun when done in pairs? Or in a beautiful place?
Don't wait until you find time to enjoy life. Treat yourself to such phases right now and let the to-do list wait. The nice thing about work is that it doesn't run away from us and usually nobody takes it away from us if we don't take care of it for a while. After a great experience, you can take the energy with you and get going again in a good mood.
How do you find pleasure in everyday life?
Enjoyment has a lot to do with a certain attitude and dedication. If we set our minds to it, we can enjoy almost anything: a car or train journey, a cup of tea or coffee, a little extra sleep in the morning when we set the alarm a little earlier so that we can snooze a little longer, the sun or the rain. When we give ourselves and others time, we can enjoy other people: our partner, children, friends.
All we have to do is think about what we would like to enjoy doing in the next few hours. This question helps us to experience the moment more consciously and to sprinkle in a little extra enjoyment here and there: the car journey becomes more enjoyable if we either concentrate fully on the driving experience or enrich it with our favourite music or a captivating radio play. A walk with the child becomes more interesting when we open our eyes to nature and discover plants, animals and beautiful stones together.
«Childish is a word that boring people use to describe funny people.»
Will Ferell
More courage to make nonsense!
Many of us adults are imbued with the idea of always making ourselves useful. «Do something useful!», we shout to our children. However, constantly optimising ourselves and our lives and constantly chasing after some goal or duty can tire us out.
Every now and then we should have the courage to waste our time and indulge in some nonsense.
Because pleasure often lies in things that are neither healthy nor sensible: a good glass of wine, sweets, greasy food. If we indulge in these things without having a guilty conscience, we don't eat or drink more of them - but we enjoy them more.
The same applies to the somewhat stupid hobbies that we like to keep secret from others.
When I'm tired in the morning, it's often because my children have woken me up several times during the night. Sometimes, however, Geralt is to blame - my witcher, with whom I roam through the beautifully designed world of «The Witcher 3», fighting monsters and bandits with silver and steel swords and capturing the hearts of beautiful sorceresses along the way. An adventure like this can last until 2 o'clock in the morning. Embarrassing? Yes. But exciting! And the splendidly animated landscapes of this game are «so good for my eyes».
Many of us enjoy something that we find embarrassing from time to time. The Americans use the term «guilty pleasures» to describe the things we like - and at the same time feel we shouldn't like. I placed the Playstation so that my parents wouldn't see it when they came to visit. I don't really want to hear the phrase «I hoped you'd got through this phase!». Instead, I know why my mum gets restless when she's on the phone: «Rosamunde Pilcher» is playing in the background and she doesn't really want to admit it. My wife loves vampire novels and my colleague watches The Bachelor and Between Tulle and Tears in her spare time.
If we have to hide these hobbies and preferences from others: At least we could admit them to ourselves and indulge in them with complete delight and red ears. And perhaps we can allow our children and young people to enjoy these moments to a healthy extent without telling them «Do something useful!».
4 tips for more enjoyment in family life
- Start the day with the question: What are my plans for today?
- Ask your children when they come home from school: "What would you like to do today? "
- Treat yourself to relaxing moments - even if not everything is done yet. Your to-do list can manage without you.
- Plan your enjoyment. Choose the film you would like to watch at lunchtime - instead of just zapping it on in the evening. Ask yourself how you could sweeten your train or car journey to work and back.
- Don't spoil fun moments for yourself and your children by devaluing seemingly pointless pleasures as childish, useless or embarrassing. Instead, stick to the quote from Will Ferrell: «Childish is a word that boring people use to describe funny people.»
About the author:
Fabian Grolimund is a psychologist and author («Learning with children»). In the «Parent coaching» section, he answers questions about everyday family life. The 37-year-old is married and father to a son, 4, and a daughter, 1. He lives with his family in Freiburg.
www.mit-kindern-lernen.ch , www.biber-blog.com
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