Anxiety and Parenting

Pre-Audrey, I knew how to deal with my anxiety. I would stay wrapped up in the security of familiar things, take it easy on myself, give myself a lot of space and quiet and comfort. Whether that was the familiarity of work and the usual routine, or taking a day to hide at home.

As a parent everything is more difficult when it comes to managing mental health problems. We home educate, so spending a day tucked up at home IS possible - but I don't like to do it very often. Audrey goes a bit stir crazy being stuck indoors all day, as you can imagine. And there is always a lot going on - home ed groups, ballet, music class, swimming... or, like today, SNOW!

Missing out on these things makes me feel guilty - which makes the whole thing pointless, as that only exacerbates the anxiety.

It's a complicated thing to deal with, especially with small children who simply don't have the ability to understand or to agree to play by themselves, and need our constant input.

I don't have any answers to neatly wrap this up with, but I wanted to make this post to say to other parents with anxiety - I get you! It's rough. We can do it, though - we do it every day. You're doing a great job. You're doing fine.

Advent

Audrey has what we suspect is an ear infection, poor thing. We are heading off to the doctor today and suspending our usual busy schedule of music and ballet classes, meeting up with friends, going out on adventures. Instead we're snuggling up on the sofa watching Christmas films and reading stories together, which is actually rather blissful.

We've been getting set up for Christmas. We've put up our tree and strung Audrey's advent calendar up the stair banister - she has a little stocking for each day of advent, with a small gift inside each one; Granddad Steve organises this every year and it really is a highlight of the entire winter for us. Audrey wakes up each morning and the first thing she asks is if it's time to open her advent calendar!

Today, as well as going to the doctor, we have plans to finish wrapping and boxing up our presents to send to family and friends who we won't see over Christmas. We are staying here at home this year, having a restful time (or as much as possible!). We've had one Christmas before where we stayed at home, but we all got very sick that year with a tummy bug that had me in the hospital a few days before Christmas. So awful! I'm really hoping that we don't have a repeat of that this time around. It really was the worst, we couldn't eat anything or see anyone, and our house was a state and we barely had the energy to do anything at all.

I hope that your plans for Christmas are lovely, and that you're having a relaxing advent so far. Keep your fingers crossed for snow!

What it's Really About

Today I woke up with a splitting headache. You know the sort, where it hurts to open your eyes and when you move your head you're pretty sure your brain is leaking out of your ears.

Then, it seemed like Audrey was doing her best to "test my patience" as the obnoxious saying goes. She wanted to do a jigsaw but kept undoing all the bits we'd done and throwing all the pieces around. She wanted to help me unload the dishwasher but insisted on using a big metal ladle to do it (almost breaking my favourite mug in the process!). When I got the painkillers out for my headache she grabbed for the packet and picked most of the foil off before I could get it back off her. It seemed like everything I tried to do, she was determined to make it more difficult.

Yikes! And I could feel myself getting really exasperated. My thoughts at these times are very unreasonable and go something like this - "Can't you SEE that I'm having a really hard time today? Why are you making things WORSE?"

It is a really hard thing to teach yourself to take a step back at those times and really change your perspective around, to de-centre yourself and look at things differently. But it is so worth it.

Here's another version of the story:

Audrey woke up with a headache this morning, but she doesn't quite have the communication skills to tell me that.

Mama is slow and grumpy from the start. Audrey is really craving some motor skills practice/sensory input and makes several very resourceful attempts to get that stimulation - playing with jigsaw pieces, ladling things, peeling tiny pieces of foil with her pincer grip. These are all versions of activities that Mama has deliberately set up for her in the past to work on fine motor, sensory, balance and proprioception stuff.

For some reason all of these things make Mama even more grumpy. Audrey doesn't understand why, so she can't work out what to do "right" next time. She's confused about what she's expected to do and that's upsetting. Her headache is still bad, too! And she's frustrated with herself and with me that communicating all this is so difficult.

I got her set up with an empty pill packet she could peel foil from, and we had a big talk about how and why medicine can be dangerous and so it's not a good idea to play with it. I set up two bowls on either side of the kitchen floor and filled one with dried split peas and gave her the ladle. I let her play with the jigsaw however she liked without getting hung up on "the point" of it being to put the pieces into a picture. We both had fun and were more happy.

It really is that simple, and I wish I could always remember that and be a good parent, but I don't and I'm often not. One of the things that really helps me, though, is to always remember that Audrey's behaviour (or "misbehaviour" if you want to call it that) is not about her giving me a hard time - it's about her having a hard time. If I change the language I use, even in my own head, then it drastically changes the way I approach these situations.

"Testing my patience" becomes "is struggling."

"Is having a tantrum" becomes "is very distressed and overwhelmed."

"Is acting out" becomes "is trying to communicate something hard."

"Sometimes they are just simply being bad" becomes "sometimes they are just having a bad day - like we all do."

Notice that I'm not saying to ignore these tough behaviours/situations, in fact I'm saying the opposite. Engage with them, try to understand what's at the root of them, and tackle that together rather than just enforcing outward compliance with your wishes and expectations regardless of the circumstances. Show a little empathy, and show THEM that you're empathising. Literally repeat back to them what you think the problem is, and your plan for solving it, and ask for their input.

I find this also helps to keep me accountable. If I am honestly going through that process I might find myself wanting to say "The problem is you aren't doing what I want, so I'm going to shout at you until you're so scared that you do what I say!" Ouch. That stops me in my tracks right there.

Saying things out loud has been very important and helpful to me with my parenting for this exact reason. So I'm sharing it here in case it helps anyone else.

Here's to a much more enjoyable rest-of-the-day!

Treasure

Yesterday was the home ed early years group Autumn Treasure hunt. I started this last year and it went so well that I decided to do it again!

I simply made a sheet of things to find, with words and pictures so that those who can't read yet can still join in fairly independently and printed out a bunch of copies. I handed out colouring pens so that each thing could be circled when it was found.

The list contained: a red leaf, a brown leaf, a yellow leaf, a conker, a twig, an acorn, a feather, a stone, a pine cone, a sycamore seed.

The kids seemed to have so much fun carrying their wee baskets around the Hermitage of Braid looking for the treasures. Many games were played along the way, such as hide and seek in the wooded areas and pretend-to-be-stuck-in-a-tree where one child climbed a tree and the other children all pretended to be firemen coming to rescue the stuck person and worked together to free them.

It was a very beautiful way to spend a day.

Seasonal

The last couple of days we've been working on a project to take down all the beautiful art and craft work on our walls and replace it with new, Autumn and Halloween inspired stuff. The summer is now well and truly over!

I thought it might be worth posting some of the gorgeous photos from this summer here for you to see. We've had so many adventures, lots of outdoor visits and explorations.

It's harder to get outside frequently in autumn. We manage it when we can, but the wind and rain make things a bit unpleasant, even if the leaves are spectacular. It's time for cosy, stay-at-home things. We will enjoy it, even if we do also miss the sunshine we were lucky enough to have this year.

As a little, final goodbye to summer, one of the cocoons we are caterpillar-sitting for a friend has hatched. We were doing some adding up and taking away sums when we heard the soft, flapping sound of its wings. We have since spent the morning watching and feeding it, and learning all about the life cycle of butterflies.

It has been a nice break from colouring in spiders and painting bats, that's for sure!

Beautiful if you want it

This post in honour of our dear friend Terry, who reminds us that "life can be really beautiful if you want it to be."

I'm writing this sat beside Audrey who is in the bath, singing "bubbly bubbles" and pretending her arms are a snapping crocodile who eats bath foam.

This summer was very full - of visitors, of friends and places, shows and play dates and play parks and day trips. It fits. Summer is a time when Edinburgh is crammed full of people and you can't move for art and inspiration and beautiful things and experiences. It fills the city up so much you can hardly move around; every bus is full, every street is full.

It is fun and precious and I'm so thankful to be able to experience it each year. But at the same time, each year by the end of summer I'm glad to see everything quieten down again. The last few weeks have been all about trying to settle back into our familiar routine, to remind ourselves of our limits - limits we might push some times but shouldn't ignore entirely.

We're easing into Autumn. I'm knitting sweaters and woollen dresses by the bucket load, we're making big pots of soup and freezing them in portions for later. We're reading stories, building castles, remembering to bring waterproof coats for our walks in the woods again.

Life has never been so seasonal, for me, as it is with a small child. I'm both more aware and more appreciative of them than I have been before.

I hope you're reading this by a window and that it's raining outside. Or else that the sun is shining and you're able to go out in it. I hope that it's nearly tea time, or perhaps the time to leave work. I hope that something colourful finds you on your way home. At least I hope to be able to remind you that life can be really beautiful when you want it to be.