Purposeful Parenting
The Value of Tradition as a Working Mom
It is so easy to let everyday life take over your mind and prevent you from keeping your eye on your family’s welfare. Being the hard working woman that you are, you might feel that you need to work to keep your family happy; when all your family really wants is your presence, love and affection.
Tradition is valuable for working moms. Traditions can bring your family together, and allow you to create bonds that last for generations. With the holidays approaching, it’s important to recognize the value of tradition to ensure that you don’t miss these important moments to bring your family closer together!
Tradition Defined
Tradition is defined as something that is handed down through generations, via verbal means or by practice. Common traditions that are practiced by many families include opening presents on Christmas morning, making breakfast in bed for mom on Mother’s Day, or dressing up for Halloween.
Practicing tradition as a working mom doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. It also doesn’t have to revolve around the holidays. You can implement tradition on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis. Tradition is something that should be exciting and looked forward to; not dreaded by your schedule, bank account, or stress level.
Let’s discuss why tradition as a working mom is incredibly valuable, and how you can start your own traditions.
Bonds of Steel
Family traditions strengthen the bonds of trust, respect and love. Practicing traditions allow for valuable family time, in which everyone in the family is able to have time to reconnect with what really matters: family. Creating and maintaining bond that focus on the importance of family happiness can help you to focus on your family’s welfare, and how you are best able to achieve success for them.
Tradition builds bonds of steel that will last for generations.
Keeping History Alive
Speaking of generations, if you are keeping up with family traditions, you are probably implementing traditions that were practiced by your parents, grandparents, and beyond. Sharing this history with your family strengthens the importance of the concept of lineage and family history.
It’s important to know where you came from, and practicing tradition helps to keep the history alive. You might practice traditions that your Great-Great-Nana practiced in the Old Country! How cool is that?! Not only does this teach the importance of family history, but cultural traditions as well!
How to Start A Tradition
Maybe your family hasn’t really had any traditions throughout the years. That doesn’t mean that you’re out of luck. You can start a tradition at any time! Traditions can be implemented at any time. They don’t have to be expensive, complicated, or stressful.
Tradition could be something as simple as Taco Tuesday, or going for a family walk on Sundays. Tradition could mean baking cookies for teachers at the end of the school year to say thank you. Tradition could mean running a family 5K at an annual fun run for charity or fundraisers. Tradition could mean decorating the fireplace for the various seasons throughout the year.
All you need to do is create a tradition, and stick to it! Remember, family traditions don’t have to break the bank (and they shouldn’t). Traditions also shouldn’t be stressful. The last thing you want is for your kids to grow up hating the tradition of making cookies on Christmas Day because you were a tradition crazed fascist who wouldn’t let them just eat the cookie dough. C’mon. Live a little.
How do you implement traditions in your home?
Duh, duh, duh….the dreaded meltdown. With one kid, this can bring the strongest mommy to her knees. With multiples, well…the word “epic” takes on a completely new meaning. In the worst possible way.
Moral of the story? A little organization and forethought can go a long way. Considering WHY my kids were throwing tantrums and then exploring what I could do to prevent them before they started has saved me a million tears. Like I said, it’s not a perfect system. But every little bit helps.
Every day I pick up my children from day care to hear “They are such great kids! They had a blast today and are some of the best listeners we’ve ever had. They’re so well-behaved!” Yay, Mama win! And then we go home and they act like total demon-infested, hell-raising psychos and won’t listen to a word I say. Weekends can be brutal and I sometimes find myself praising Jesus that I decided to keep working and not stay-at-home.
sweet kids from day care?
Best Thing I Ever Did: I went to pick the kids up one day and they were enjoying themselves, so I decided to just sit and watch for a bit and let them play. Funny thing happened. I started listening to how the day care teachers communicated with my children and how they responded. And the light bulb went off. I don’t know how to speak the language my kids understand.
I started listening harder. And then I came back the next day and did it again. Now, every time I drop off or pick up, I listen. How are they talking to my kids? What are they saying? How are the kids responding? And then I mimick it at home.
Major win!!! My kids are starting to see an extension of their daily routine back into the home and it’s making sense. I say certain words they’re used to hearing and like magic, they listen. Not every time (which I suspect also happens at day care), but the majority of time. Major improvement. We are starting to speak the same language.
Sometimes I forget (or refuse to admit) that I am not my children’s primary care provider. For those of us that work outside the home, most often our kids spend the majority of their time somewhere other than with us. Sometimes, being reminded of that hurts. A lot. But truth is, they develop routines, cues and references that we’re not familiar with. We need to learn the language they are used to hearing every day so that we can communicate our needs in a way they understand. I need to speak my children’s language.
Phrase Adjustments that Worked for Me:
- “Walk away please” instead of “No!” or “Don’t Touch!”
- “Are you using your listening ears?” instead of “Listen to me!”
- “I’m going to go to work for awhile, but Mommies always come back!” instead of “Say bye to Mommy. I have to go to work.”
If you’re just connecting with the Emily Speaks series, be sure to check out her first post, Cyber Bullying and Self-Harm, to catch up. Today, Emily will be sharing 11 alternatives to self harm to help those hurting to make healthier choices to cope with emotional struggles.
I know it can be hard not to self-harm if you’re being bullied, but you need to try to think of other ways to deal with the pain. Cutting leaves angry scars on your body. You should try to deal with your hurt in other ways. Here are 11 good examples that will hopefully help you out a little bit.
1. Try talking to somebody about what’s going on so that you can get it out of your system.
2. Go outside where nobody is around and just scream as loud as you can for as long as you want.
3. Take a rubber band and keep it on your wrist so whenever you feel like cutting you can just take that rubber band and snap it on your wrist (softly – not to where it harms you).
4. Get an old teddy bear or stuffed animal that you don’t want and take your anger out on that.
5. Go on a jog or go out and ride your bike or long board or whatever you have and just ride around to calm yourself down.
6. Go hang out with your friend(s) and get your mind off things that would make you want to cut or do anything else to harm yourself.
7. Sleep it out and take a long nap and see how you’re feeling when you wake up.
8. Go hang out with your family and just relax.
9. Listen to some music.
10. Read a book.
11. Get an art journal and draw out your feelings. You can paint, draw pictures, even just scribble hard.
These are some of the ways that I stop myself from cutting, because I do still think about it when things get rough. When that happens, I try to do these instead and it helps. It does! You need to do anything that would take your mind off of any bad thoughts you are having and make you want to hurt yourself. This might not be the best list of ideas, but if you take a chance and try them out, they might end up working for you. You’re not only helping yourself, but you’re helping everyone else around you by making a better choice to not self-harm.