By Cheryl Van Eck
Like most Millennial moms, my entire parenting life has been part of the worldwide experiment we call social media. From the first ultrasound to first steps to the first day of school, our children’s lives are being documented and scrutinized in ways they have never been before.
When I turn on Facebook in the morning, I’m bombarded with the usual images: selfies from an expensive date night, a perfect family vacation, maybe even a flawless homemade birthday cake.
Now I know, of course, that these are all from different people. But in my mind, they all melt into one person: The Mom I Want to Be.
Unfortunately, my reality doesn’t reflect that. The kids fight while I’m cooking breakfast. All the other children at the library sit and listen to stories while my toddler runs through the aisles tearing books off the shelves. There’s a smell in the house I can’t identify but I’m pretty sure there’s a sippy cup missing. My Pinterest projects fail. When I finally do get the kids outside for some fresh air, one strips naked and runs through the prickly bushes while the other plops down to eat handfuls of dirt.
The problem is that Facebook makes me think I can—and should—be everything to everyone. But social media only shows each person’s strengths, not their weaknesses. Just because they have a picture of their kids happily playing in a clean room doesn’t mean there isn’t a pile of dirty dishes and a burnt dinner on the stove.
Comparing ourselves to the shrine of perfection that is social media causes undue stress in our lives. Every mother wants to be perfect. Every mother fails. When we fail, we fall into a fragile state, where what we need to do is to reconnect in a real way: To hug our children, listen to them laugh, and know that no matter how unappreciated we might be, we are irreplaceable. But how often do we instead take a “break” with our smartphone? How often do we seek to be nourished by the very thing that is tearing us down?
What’s important is that we focus on our strengths. Every child is born with specific needs, and what they need most is what we do best.
Here are some ways you can simplify by focusing on your strengths:
- Figure out what your strengths are.
What is it that you’re best at? What do you love to do? How can you use that to connect with your children? Maybe your strength is music, or organization, or just having fun. Whatever it is, use it to spend time with your kids.
- Use social media as a search engine. Don’t browse.
It’s easy to get bogged down admiring all the incredible things other people have done on Pinterest. But you can drastically cut down on the time spent there if you only looked up what you needed. The same with Facebook or Instagram. If you know a friend is having a baby soon, search for their name, but don’t feel obligated to read your entire newsfeed every five minutes. And yes, this means that you might not know about it the moment it happens. You might not even know for (gasp!) a few days. But is it necessary to know everything that happens every minute in other people’s lives? Isn’t it hard enough keeping up with events in our own lives? Focus on those immediately around you, and let the rest take care of themselves.
- Time is the best investment.
It’s true, children love the crafts we make. They love sensory bins and science experiments and photo books. But they also love going for nature walks. They love blowing bubbles and singing songs and reading the same books they’ve heard a thousand times. So before you embark on a new project that just looked oh-so-adorable when your friend did it, ask yourself: Would my time be better spent just sitting with my children? Instead of trying to distract them with TV or tablets while I work, could I just be spending time with them?
- Teach them to imagine.
Imagination is the one skill that is now only being taught at home. TV shows depict it, but can’t teach it. Video games sometimes stimulate it, but can’t encourage it. Schools rarely have time to even attempt to teach it. You need to teach your children how to play with inanimate objects. Teach them to have teddy bear picnics and frantic car chases. Teach them empathy through imaginative play.
- Create a team dynamic in your family
Chores aren’t fun for anyone. But by engaging and praising your kids in every effort they make to help, you can build a sense of unity in the family. When kids help around the house, it will never be done as well as you could do it. It’s unlikely that it will be done even as well as they could do it. But when you praise the efforts and emphasize how important each job is to everyone, children will begin to feel like they are needed. Thank them for doing the dishes the night before so that we could eat dinner tonight, or for folding laundry so we could be punctual today.
As parents, the main focus of our lives is always how to help our kids grow into their potential. And the system we know works best? Quality time. Our kids need us…our time, our love, our undying affection. Knowing that they are loved is a great start, but when they see our love in action is when they truly start to believe it. Seek to make an emotional connection with each child at least once a day—talk to them, listen to them, make sure they know that their feelings are important to you (no matter how small or “silly” their worries might be) and everything else will fall into place.
See our book to find lessons related to this topic and learn ways and activities to help your child be stronger!
Available in Kindle or Paperback!Cherylynne Van Eck graduated from Brigham Young University in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology with a minor in English. She has worked as a children’s literature specialist in a bookstore and as a paraeducator in a Special Needs classroom. She has also served on the judging committee for multiple book awards and as an assistant in the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference. She currently resides in Central California with her husband, two children, and more books than anyone should legally be allowed to own.
