Take Time for YOU: 4 Important Reasons You Should

Why should you take time for you when there’s so much to get done?

It’s common for parents today to juggle a million tasks every day. To be constantly busy and consequently – stressed. They tend to their children’s needs, work and responsibilities with rarely a moment to themselves. They don’t eat right, they don’t exercise, they don’t get enough sleep and they rarely focus on self-care. This is all in the name of love and responsibility, but it has a way of backfiring if you’re not careful.

Sage 6, Jewel 4, Violet 3, Lilah 5 mths, & mommy

Here are four reasons it’s important to take time for you.

1. While unaware of what is happening, this constant care-giving and self-neglect can build into a subconscious resentment and an unmet need for personal space. These buried emotions can be pushed to the surface, fueled by daily parenting frustrations; they can erupt in a moment of anger.

2. Busy parents must continue to function no matter how they feel. Tending to children, running a household and working a job keep them busy from sun up to sun down, and often throughout the night as well, tending to a sleepless child. Parents must push on through sleep-deprivation or pain, such as a headache, backache, head cold, symptoms of pregnancy, post-partum depression, or other discomforts. Human beings have a natural tendency to have a shorter fuse when dealing with their own physical problems.

3. Children, of course, don’t understand or comprehend their parents’ pains, so they continue with their normal fussing, whining, bickering or nagging, and push a suffering parent past patience. Even innocent, happy play that is noisy or rambunctious can trigger an angry response from a parent who is dealing with pain or exhaustion.

4. Repeated episodes of uncalled for anger can result in inconsistent, confusing parental behavior which can interfere with good discipline practices and possibly damage the parent-child relationship.

The best answer to avoid these pitfalls? Stay in tune with your own needs. Take time for you. Nurture your physical self with healthy eating and adequate exercise. Take a little bit of time for yourself to catch your breath and center your emotions.

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Taking care of yourself is not selfish – it’s the way to fill your own needs so that you can, in turn, take care of everyone else.

Ideas from The No-Cry Discipline Solution: Gentle Ways to Encourage Good Behavior Without Whining, Tantrums & Tears

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