Lighten the load

SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO TAKE THE FOOT OFF THE PEDAL, SLOW THINGS DOWN AND PRIORITISE WHAT’S IMPORTANT, WRITES DR JUSTIN COULSON

MY wife and I are parents to six daughters. Yes … six.

Yes, we intentionally conceived them. No, we weren’t trying for a boy. Yes, we do own a television (which we clearly do not have time to watch).

Some years ago, before the arrival of daughter number four, I was trying to do more around the house to help my wife, Kylie. I decided to wash the clothes. I was off to a good start, with whites in one pile and coloured items in another.

Extra points because I took all of the delicate and wool items out of the general washing pile too.

Our washing machine was large. We needed it. Our family was getting bigger. Being mindful of the environment, I was determined the machine would not run unless it was full. I loaded it up, poured in the powder, pushed the buttons and congratulated myself on my domestic prowess. I felt … noble. An hour or so later the machine stopped, but when I went to hang the clothes out I found they were not clean! I had done everything the right way, but something had gone wrong.

Kylie soon worked out the problem: I put too many clothes into the machine. In my effort to conserve water, I was now going to have to wash all of the clothes again but this time in two loads instead of one.

As parents, we often find ourselves treating family life the way I was treating the washing machine. We are increasingly loading up our lives in an effort to fit more in. We try to maximise efficiency.

But relationships don’t work on efficiency – or on overload.

Our families don’t work properly when too much gets crammed in. Our capacity to be effective parents is reduced, our emotional bandwidth gets taken up with all of these “things” – even worthy things that matter, like music or sports – and it reduces the space we have to be emotionally available to our children.

Eventually we either do things poorly, inefficiently or not at all, just like my efforts with the washing machine.

The impact on our children is similar. The more we demand of them, the more controlled and pressured they feel and the poorer their behaviour. They get hungry, angry, lonely, tired, stressed, or sick. That makes things even tougher for all of us.

The idea of reducing control and slowing down is intuitive and attractive to most of us. But the reality is that sometimes we aren’t choosing to speed things up. Life does it to us. Children’s obstinate behaviour means we have to do more in a more challenging environment.

Work pressures, school pressures and busy schedules compound until we feel like we are in way too deep and there is no way out.

In the same way that I had to take clothes out of the load to reduce pressure on the machine and get a positive result, sometimes we need to take commitments out of the load we (and our children) carry to reduce pressure on the family and get a positive result. This is not always easy. Sometimes it’s not even possible. But it’s a question worth asking ourselves: if we don’t do this, will the family fall apart? Often, the answer is no.

So say it: “No. We won’t be able to make it to that event. It’s family time.”

“No. We aren’t going to do swimming lessons this term. We need the down time.”

“No. We aren’t going to school today. We need a sleepin and some time to be ‘people’ again.”

The lesson in this is challenging to act on when things are tough, but it’s so very important: for a happy family, don’t try to stuff too much stuff in. You’ll get better results for yourself and your family if you work within your capacity, physically and psychologically.

WORK PRESSURES, SCHOOL PRESSURES AND BUSY SCHEDULES COMPOUND UNTIL WE FEEL LIKE WE ARE IN WAY TOO DEEP AND THERE IS NO WAY OUT.