May We Hold Space for You?
A parenting newsletter from Winona ECFE
Over the weekend, I read a post from Dr. Becky at Good Inside that encouraged parents to model actionable self-care for their children, and engage in it for themselves. I especially appreciated her attainable examples of what this might look like. I used one of her suggestions myself on Sunday, during an hours-long meal-prepping marathon. I left my son with carrots and cleaver (he is 11), made myself an afternoon coffee and told him, “I’m going to put my feet up for a few minutes and drink this while it’s hot.” And then, I did drink it while it was hot! I didn’t visit the microwave even once! It felt like such a treat. Thank you, Dr. Becky!
At ECFE, we have witnessed an increase in parents and parenting professionals talking about the importance of self-care, and that’s a good thing. The problem is, it still feels nebulous or implausible for many of us, much of the time. The truth is, many American parents are doing their most important work of child-rearing in a society and culture that simply don’t provide optimal or even satisfactory support for parents, and according to a Surgeon General’s Advisory on parental stress, published in August of this year, that’s a major problem.
If you feel overwhelmed parenting in today’s world, we hope you know that unfortunately, you’re in good (and abundant) company. If you’re interested, you can read the report (or reach out to us) to learn more about the specifics of parental stressors and Dr. Murthy’s suggestions to alleviate them, but for today, we want to offer three attainable actions, directly from the advisory.
First, show up for each other, in both practical and emotionally supportive ways. Making a phone call, providing a meal, or sharing childcare, errand, or chore responsibilities with parenting peers can go a long way. Second, consider connecting with ECFE! The advisory says that community organizations and schools (that’s us!) can “create opportunities to cultivate supportive social connections among parents and caregivers.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves: that’s what we do! Come join us; we’ve got a parenting group for you! Third, give yourself permission to get after that self-care like you mean it! Dr. Murthy has a great list on page 29 of the advisory; just know that small steps can make a big difference. Put your feet up. Drink your coffee while it’s hot.
Cheers,
Lynnea
For years, research on hyper-attentive parenting has focused on all the ways that it can hurt children.
Now, the U.S. government is reframing that conversation and asking if our new era of parenting is actually bad for the parents themselves.
Claire Cain Miller, who covers families and education for The New York Times, explains why raising children is a risk to your health in this episode of The Daily:
We have one week left in our first term of classes at ECFE, and there has been a lot of learning, a lot of sharing, and a lot of growing!
We are hoping that you will join us for a class in Quarter 2. Check out all of the awesome opportunities on our ECFE website. We hope to see you in our ECFE classroom!
