Although the trend towards perfectionism is not limited to young people, it is particularly painful for parents to watch our sons and daughters strive to be perfect, especially in comparison to those around them and on social media. The truth is, perfection is a moving target. There is no perfect. Instead, there are just practices that help you to orient back to yourself and what is important, bringing you back to your center and a place of relative calm. As Parents, we can practice these ourselves, and help our young people understand the value of them as well.
Know your values. By assessing what is truly important, we can determine if our life choices are aligned with those values. They are our guiding light. It is easy to compare your life to others and feel pulled off center, ashamed, or lacking by what you don’t have. Knowing what your own individual or family’s values are can help pull you back to a more centered, grounded place within yourself.
Don’t take 100% responsibility for everything.Allow others, who are capable, to take responsibility for themselves and their own lives. Allow others to have their own emotional response to your choices without trying to control it, make it better, or take it away. Take care of your own emotions.
Savor something at the end of the day.Set an intention at the beginning of the day for something to savor at the end of the day. A fulfilling life takes a lot of effort! So, in order to honor all of the effort you make throughout the day to live a meaningful life, allow yourself to enjoy the sweetness of the life you have built each day.
Make yourself laugh. Laughter is a present moment experience of our life energy, our vitality! What a gift we have been given! Being able to laugh at your shortcomings or your mistakes or your embarrassing moments is one of the best ways to take the power out of them. Laughter diminishes shame and self-criticism, because we learn to not take ourselves too seriously.
We can’t control what happens outside of us, but the more we relate to our inner world, the more we realize that our imperfect unique humanness is far more interesting and beautiful than any airbrushed and “perfected” version of ourselves.
Harmony Barrett Isaacs, MA, LPC has a counseling private practice in Boulder and Lafayette specializing in teens, young adults and parents.
I don’t know about you, but as the school year ramps up, my overall stress has also been ramped up. It’s just a lot to manage, both as a parent and as a young person. We are all feeling the stress of transition. And then we add in all of the other fear and uncertainty going on in the world and it is hard to find any peace in our systems. We can’t control everything going on around us and we can’t control everything that our kids are going through, but we can build our own ability to cope and be resilient in the face of it all. As our nervous systems become more regulated, we are better able to stay calm, think more clearly, and move through stressful situations with more ease. Additionally, if we are regulated, then it is more likely that those around us (kids, partners, co-workers) will also be able to feel more regulated too.
So, when you notice your shoulders tensing and thoughts racing and your irritation growing, take a moment to breath by focusing on your breath coming in and out of the area around your heart at a count of 5 on the inhale and 5 on the exhale. As you do this, focus on a feeling of love or ease and let this feeling wash over you for a few minutes. Practice regulating your nervous system by calming your breathing a few times a day and notice if you start to feel a increased overall sense of calm or at least, the ability to calm down more easily.
While most students strive for academic success, many struggle to consistently perform at a level commensurate with their potential. Each year, so many students start out strong, but as the school year progresses they hit a slump and may even struggle to pass their classes at the end of the school year. Too often parents find themselves relegated to enforcer and chief; frequently checking on progress, providing endless reminders to get homework done and make-up missing assignments, which usually leads to arguments rather than desired results. A more effective approach is to use an empowerment strategy where your child takes increasing ownership of their academic responsibilities, so that when college rolls around, your child has the skills necessary to meet with success. This effort should start early. While some students have unique learning challenges that may require special consideration, by the beginning of middle school if not sooner students should be in charge of their academic life. As parents we play a critical role of providing support and advice, but should not be overseeing everything… that’s their job. Consider the following approach:
At a positive moment, initiate a discussion with your child about the upcoming school year.
Allow everyone to share what went well and what didn’t in years past.
FIRST, offer to change your approach as a parent and encourage your child to provide constructive feedback and more specifically how you can better support your child in the future. Agree to try and implement any/all reasonable suggestions. AFTERWARDS, provide feedback to your child and offer your own ideas and suggestions.
After mutual agreement/negotiation, agree to an “Experiment” for a finite period of time (e.g 2-4 weeks) to try and implement the agreed upon suggestions, with a feedback session scheduled on the calendar when that timeframe is reached.
At the feedback session, try and focus first on any/all positives and only then focus on areas in need of improvement. Only make modifications that are mutually agreed to and restart the experiment clock.
Our priorities in life not only drive our day-to-day activities but also directly influence our life goals, thoughts, feelings, and interactions with others. For better or worse, our culture steers us towards achievement, prosperity, and material wealth. Who doesn’t want to live in a big house full of cool stuff? But sooner or later we come to realize that the old adage that money can’t buy happiness remains true. How would the quality of our lives change if we made experiencing joy and laughter a priority? The Mayo clinic reports that laughter not only feels good but also is good for your health. Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen, stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles, increases the release of endorphins, and improves your immune system. Laughter also stimulates circulation and enhances muscle relaxation, which reduces the symptoms of stress. Also, in addition to reducing depression, laughter can improve our ability to cope with challenges in life and relate better to others. When people are asked what they would do if they had only six months to live, most opt for doing fun things, not making more money and buying a bigger house. That’s a clue that for most of us, our priorities are out of whack. And while we likely have more than six months, our time is more precious than we realize and we would all be well-served by making joy, laughter, and fun a bigger priority in our lives.
This dynamic impacts family life as well. How much of our family time is joyous? Do we over-prioritize the small stuff like getting to bed on time, brushing teeth, and room cleaning instead? These things are important, but more important than experiencing joy and happiness as a family? Assuming we all just have six months to live, let’s make this, our last Spring Break holiday special. Let’s make our family’s joy, laughter, and happiness the priority this year. And if we are really lucky, maybe we will get to do it again next year, let alone throughout the year. Interestingly enough, if we did so we are also likely to see our achievement and prosperity increase as well. So get out there and have a few laughs and take a moment to appreciate the wonder of life and the joy of family.
As parents, we all share in our child’s roller coaster ride of transitioning up the educational ladder from preschool right up to college. How we transition from one rung to another can be the difference between success and failure. This month’s newsletter focuses on transitions, with great advice inside for helping both elementary and secondary students experience success.
In addition to focusing on transitions like moving up from elementary to middle school, or middle school to high school, our children, as well as ourselves, are all going through constant transition, whether we are aware of it or not. The word “Transition” literally means “The process of change” and transitioning successfully is really about how we adapt to change. While it is difficult to be fully aware of it, from moment to moment, everything is in a constant state of change: our bodies, technology, our planet, everyone we know, everything that exists. At the same time, many people are actually resistant to change, typically because there is comfort in what’s familiar, along with a fear of potential negative outcomes. Moreover, when we struggle with transitioning, it is often because of negative expectations, worries, or fears, like the elementary child panicked about being able to open their locker in middle school. What makes things even more challenging is that most of us have a tendency to focus on the negative more than the positive. Thus negative expectations come naturally and positive ones take effort. The good news is that with just a little effort we can make small shifts in our expectations from negative to positive, which can cumulatively have a profound impact on our ability to successfully adapt to the ongoing transitions in our lives. Our dreaded anticipation of future challenges around the next turn can be transformed into seeing life as an adventure as we head forward into the great unknown.
If you want your child to be confident and successful with transitions, what better way than to model it yourself. Take time to point out the fun and adventure in things. Get into the habit of talking about positive potential outcomes in response to life transitions and brainstorm, with your child, ways to help make it so. Resisting change is like resisting life itself. The more time we take to stop and smell the roses and try to reflect on the changes going on around us, while embracing future possibilities and the blessings in our lives, the better we will be able to enjoy what is, and look forward to what will be.
