Parenting your way through a COVID Christmas

When we set our new year’s resolutions back on 1st January 2020 I’m not sure any of us would have thought “I’d really like to up my multi-tasking skills by challenging myself to continue my job while also home-schooling my children…”. And yet, come March this is what many of us found ourselves doing. Trying to maintain a level of professionalism in a Teams meeting while your children demand snacks / TV time / United Nations-level negotiation skills to resolve a sibling argument has pushed many of us to our limits.   

 

We’ve all had to dig deep to find the energy and patience needed to get through this year, sometimes even just to get through the day. We might have made choices or taken short cuts that we feel wouldn’t recommend us for Parent Of The Year. But, as the year comes to a close I think every parent and carer out there should take a step back and look at all they have achieved.   

 

Your Instagram feed may not be full of cute pictures of you creating beautiful nature-inspired arts and crafts with your children, and your online receipts may reflect the odd stress-purchase (I mean, I’m not saying that I *did* buy more wine and chocolate than usual in the weekly shop during lockdown, but I’m also not saying I didn’t…). However, if you’ve been able to log off in time to sit down to a family meal together, or be there for a bedtime story, or get out for some outdoor exercise together once in a while, then I’d say that you’re winning.    

 

And now, as the festive break draws nearer, you might be feeling the pressure to try and create the ‘perfect’ Christmas to make up for the previous less-than-stellar nine months. Just remember though – this is your holiday too. You deserve to try and relax and decompress too. So maybe this year you delegate some of the tasks to those around you, bring your expectations down a notch, and try and focus on having fun! We started the year reminding each other to #BeKind, maybe we end the year by being kind to ourselves.