Family Values:
1. Spend time together as a family!!!!
- Eat meals together
- Cook together
- Play board games together
- Go on hikes, bike rides, kayaking
- Go sightseeing and museums
- Travel together
- Visit grandparents, great-grandmother, and cousins
2. Have a life that's enjoyable:
- Minimize stress
- Focus on each other (1:1 time)
- Get plenty of rest (early bedtimes)
- Socialize with friends
- Alone time
- Exercise
- Go to concerts
- Travel
- Cook and eat healthy food
3. Do something useful
- Participate in our community (volunteering)
- Help out at school and synagogue
- Clean the house, do the laundry, etc
- E: running (cross country and track), violin, youth orchestra, (plus possibly school clubs)
- H: rock climbing, piano, teacher helper at Hebrew School (plus probably school clubs, maybe diving, maybe track)
- C: soccer, cello, swimming, Hebrew School (plus probably school clubs later in the year)
- School work support, homework help as needed
- Encourage kids and have conversations about college, financial aide, careers
- Help kids explore and find internships, summer jobs, etc
- Enables kids to explore the world (travel, museums, historic sites) and encourage the sense of wonder.
The problem with the above values is that all too often they contradict each other. For example, eating meals together does not go too well with multiple kids being in multiple schools, sports, music, etc.
Example: Tuesday afternoon.
4:45 - warm up dinner while finishing up work
4:50 - tell the girls to set the table - I'm still working
4:55 - girls did NOT set the tables; I am annoyed
4:57 - E called - he is done with cross country practice; ladle the soup for C and H and ask them to serve themselves chicken and squash.
5pm - go pick up E from cross country practice.
5:15pm - back with E; girls are done eating (except - did they actually eat much? no idea)
5:20 - sit down to eat with E; girls join us and we chat about the day for a few minutes
5:25 - tell C to get into her swim suit and get her stuff ready
5:35 - leave with C for swim practice; husband gets home (he'll be taking E to youth orchestra rehearsal this evening).
So.... yes, kids got to and/from their activities. Everyone got fed (more or less). But things were rushed (why is it that work explodes at 4:30 pm and there are 1000 things to do?) and I felt frazzled. We didn't really get a chance to all sit down and talk at the table... it was more of conversations snippets here and there. So while some of the values are being upheld, other values are broken (including "minimize stress").
Perhaps I should print out my current Values List and do tally marks - just to see what we actually get to implement and how often... Perhaps the Values will need a personality adjustment. Or perhaps I will need to change the way I do things.
How do you resolve conflicting priorities and values? Do you have a hierarchy of values?
I read your post last weekend and only commenting now. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteWhen I am crazy busy, when T is away and I have three back-to-school nights (one for me, two for the kids), when the holidays are happening, I do the following to ground myself:
1. Trim the fat off my days, get back to the basics - sleep, food, house, family, self. Everything can can go f**k itself. I hunker down, almost when someone has a flu they hunker down in bed, I hunker down mentally.
2. I put my phone away since it can be triggering. In overwhelming time, I even drive with radio on silent.
3. I say no to social engagements (not like I have SO MANY to begin with). It's sad but I just cannot be fully present when my anxiety is through the roof.
4. Alone time is vital for me when I am in the season of overwhelm.