HOW TO BE HAPPIER
In her new book, KJ Dell’ Antonia explores what parents can do to bring more pleasure to their busy days and raise more independent kids along the way
KJ Dell ’Antonia’s new book explores what parents can do to bring more joy to the busy days spent raising kids.
It’s supposed to be the greatest thing that ever happens to us. But having children — especially in this age of over-parenting and over-programming — also comes with a heavy burden of labour and responsibility that can crowd out much of the joy we’d like to feel.
Acclaimed parenting writer KJ Dell’Antonia addresses this
in her new book How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life and Loving (almost) Every Minute of It.
“I’m lucky to have all of this, the house, and the washerdryer and the healthy, loving kids. I want to like it,” writes the New Hampshire-based mom of two teens, aged 17 and 14, and 12-year-old twins. “But up until recently, it wasn’t working out that way.
“The workload was overwhelming, from the laundry to the dishes to the cooking. The children were sometimes cute, but often actively unpleasant.”
Like Dell’Antonia, I think a lot of us want more moments where we genuinely relish our time with the kids, and we feel guilty about the fact that we’re not enjoying it enough.
In an interview with the Star, Dell’Antonia describes what things were like in her household before she began the shift that brought about the book.
“My husband and I were both working full time, we had four very active kids. Our kids all play hockey, during the season, every day we just sort of got up and ‘strapped our skates on,’ as we called it, and started to go. And just went, and went, and went, dropping one kid off here, and one kid off there, and going to work, and sometimes taking off in the middle of the day to drop people in various places.
“It was just crazy, and we were never getting a chance to sort of pause and appreciate; we were just sort of constantly doing what was on the list.”
In her work as a parenting writer for the likes of Slate and the New York Times Motherlode blog, she was hearing about what she describes in the book as “a dismaying level of stress and dissatisfaction among my parenting peers.”
It left her wondering: “How could we bring more joy, pleasure and even fun to those ordinary days?”
Dell’Antonia observed that today we approach parenting in a way that’s focused on an outcome. It’s a strivers’ way of child-rearing, really, all about trying to get through to some sort of finish line where your kid gets into a good university.
As a result, we’re experiencing the madness of shuttling kids to their enriching activities, helping with homework and refereeing sibling squabbles, “but not anything else, really.”
In some families, the key to raising enjoyment and lowering stress may hinge on taking a sober second look at the number of activities your kids are enrolled in and dropping a few.
For others a perspective shift can work wonders to reframe the day-to-day busyness in a way that’s more accepting and even celebratory of this season on our lives, she says.
“Sometimes it’s just a case of going, ‘You know, this is what I wanted. This is the good stuff.’ And sure, some day they’re all going to be out of the house and I’m not going to have any place to drive anyone. But right now, we’re in the thick of this, and instead of feeling sort of beleaguered and put upon, and sitting down at the end of the day with my husband and arguing about whose day was worse, let’s look at it differently and say, ‘You know, actually given that my kids all have a hockey game, or a doctor’s appointment, or whatever, would I really choose to be somewhere else? No.’ So let’s try to savour even that craziness when it’s what we’ve chosen.”
Having an understanding that these are shared challenges can also go a long way to a sunnier outlook. When you know you’re not the only one buying a pair of indoor shoes several days after the first snowfall, or who couldn’t find time to bake for the fundraiser, it’s easier to take — and we might just be kinder to ourselves about it, too.
The research Dell’Antonia’s did for the book uncovered four main characteristics of happier parents:
They shift from heavier involvement to fostering independence in their kids over time.
They don’t put their chil- dren’s everyday needs above their own.
They look for the good in day-to-day experiences.
They’re good at sorting out what’s important from what’s just “noise and fury.”
But it’s one thing to strive toward loosely defined principles of happiness and positive thinking, and another to maintain your cool on a whiteknuckle drive through traffic to get to daycare or an arena on time. If we’re going to change the way we think so we can look upon our days with the kids from a happier vantage point, we’ve got to change some of the things we do, as well, she says.
So Dell’Antonia identifies nine major “pain points” (from the morning rush to enforcing chores, sibling fights to homework battles), considers what lies underneath the challenges,
Brandie Weikle writes about parenting issues and is the host of The New Family Podcast and editor of thenewfamily.com. Follow her on Twitter: @bweikle
and offers tangible tips that mix expert advice with the strategies formed in-thetrenches by parents just like you and me.
In closing How to Be a Happier Parent, Dell’Antonia reveals that working on the book about happiness has indeed made her a happier mother, one who’s learned to leave some space for her own needs and to spend less energy managing every aspect of her kids’ lives.
“When we’re not putting all our energy into getting our kids to eat, or study or do anything else exactly the way we want them to do, we can put them into a much more positive place.”