Dear Parents, we see you: How to relax and give yourself some grace while parenting in a pandemic

Posted on September 24, 2020 | Hot Topics

Put a finger down if you’ve needed a nap before 11am at some point during the last five months. Now, put another finger down if you’ve become your child’s personal assistant as they’ve been adjusting to online school. Last one, put a finger down if you have been forced to take multi-tasking to a new level. 

We see you.

We see you, students, showing up to your dental treatments with your tablet in-hand, participating in Zoom class, gauze-in-cheek. We see you, moms, bringing your kids into work, and still doing a phenomenal job serving clients and peers. We applaud our own staff who have had to clean teeth, take x-rays, and comfort patients, all while parenting their own children! In this crazy season, we’ve been continually amazed by the hard-working dads, moms, and kiddos somehow making it all work. 

So, in light of all you’re doing so well, we thought we’d do our part by saying, you deserve a little grace, relaxation, and (most of all) appreciation!

So go ahead, relax and unwind as well as give yourself a little grace:

1) Set your alarm
For all you night owls, this suggestion might not seem attractive or practical, but giving yourself just an extra thirty quiet minutes in the morning before the hustle starts, can really go a long way. We can fool ourselves and think we’ll take that time at the end of the day, but starting your day with that extra window of time can get your day started on the right foot.

2) Make exceptions
All of us start out a new week with fresh intentions, and new goals. That’s not a bad thing. It’s in our nature to want to start over and do better this week. As the week carries on, it becomes easier to adjust those goals to fit in more practically to our week. Maybe it’s a meal we planned on cooking at home, but decided on ordering a pizza instead. Maybe it’s doubling up on plans, and now our kids have to take school on the road with them. Whatever this change is, we can beat ourselves up about this. How about instead of seeing the adjustment as a failure to complete the goal, we allow for these exceptions. Plan your week out in pencil. Know that things will come up along the way. If you plan on that, then it’s not a failure. 

3) You don’t get a grade
Sometimes, we forget that parenting isn’t an assignment we get a grade on. It can feel like there are critics, but really, it’s often only self-made standards making it harder for us. We see the put-together first day of school photos that our friends post to social media. Then, we instantly compare and stack up our experience right next to what we see of theirs. What we don’t see in those photos is the hour-long struggle that took place before the 2 second photo is taken. Be careful to not compare your experiences to others’ highlight reels. Remember that you’re not looking to graduate parenting with a 4.0.

Just in case you skimmed past any of the above points, take away this one thing: one day your kids probably won’t remember the madness of their schedules, but they will remember the times you slowed down and spent time with them.