1. Resolve that one day each week will be a day without television, videos, computers, and electronics of any sort. Shut the things off. Reclaim your homes.
2. Resist the pressure to become your child's day planner, social secretary and entertainment organizer. Allow for days where nothing is planned. Celebrate boredom! Don't protect your child from a day with nothing to do. Day after day filled with adult-organized activities and events destroys any possibility of creativity or self-discovery. Don't allow your child to become the center of your universe.
3. Play together, fantasize together, and get creative together using only the simplest of materials: old clothes, a cardboard box, crayons, paper and glue. Make-up characters and stories - together.
4. Get out of your child's way. Provide her with time, either alone or with friends, that is largely unsupervised and where an adult will only intervene when the screams reach a high decibel level. Teach them to trust in themselves. Let them make mistakes and experience the consequences. Stop rescuing.
5. Intentionally deny your child something he "really wants". Don't just delay its acquisition but never allow the desired object into your home. Have conversations about the experience of disappointment. Share your own experiences of how it feels to not get something you "really want".
6. Plan a long weekend away for you and your spouse and resist the urge to check in by phone every hour. Trust me -- your children will survive and everyone will benefit.
7. Don't buy into the "more is better" culture. Almost always less is more.
8. Remember what life before children was like. Commit to having a life of your own with your own activities, friends and interests. It's not only good for you but a great model for your children.
9. Worry less. Almost all problems self-resolve in time and the small percentage that don't probably couldn't have been prevented in any case.
10. Have faith in something and share it openly with your children. It can be God, the Universe, Love or the inherent goodness of your fellow man. It's one of the greatest gifts you can pass on to your children.
Deepa is a wife, mother, writer and she sometimes masquerades as a lawyer as well. She revels in friendship, humor, champagne, and laughing at herself--often. She never ever reads US Magazine, thinks Rushdie is a genius, wishes she could write one sentence as funny as "Arrested Development," and lives in the Bay Area with her motley crew. She can be reached at deviswithbabies@gmail.com
Great list, thanks for sharing! Particularly like the one about faith.
Oh lord the "reclaim your home" one gets me. I have absolutely no control over my kids love of tv, movies, iphone, video. I know this is my fault but I feel like I have let it go on too long to just take it all away, and how are we supposed to force a ban on the stuff if we use it all the time too? I really want to try I just don't know if it's possible.
"Less is more less is more less is more." Maybe if I keep repeating it I will actually do it. "Less is more less is more less is more."
SUCH good advice. Like so much at the beginning of the year I hope to do it all. I know I won't but it's good to have goals!!
Almost every single one of these is easier said than done. And while I can vividly see how much better life would be with these resolutions in place I can't bear to start a new year setting myself up to fail. Can we really rid our kids of electronics? Not be their social planner when every other mom is a social planner? Are we really going to worry less and deny our children what they want? Do you know any Indian mom who doesn't worry and who doesn't cave the minute her child wants something? I am betting no. I would like to do these things. BUt let's be realistic.