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“Slow down. Realize not everything needs to be done now and in a hurry, and just enjoy life rather than scheduling and rushing... Why do you want your child to hurry up and finish? Is it because you are done and figure he’s had long enough to finish? Is it because you have something else to do? If so, can that wait so that you can give your child the time he needs? Is it because you have promised to be somewhere? ... If you are constantly rushing from one place to the next (doctor’s appointment, haircut, playgroup, music lessons, swimming lessons, coffee date) have you taken on too much? Should you plan more downtime into your schedule so that you have more time to be patient? More time for play and cuddles?” - phdinparenting.com
We all know that life is too busy. We take it for granted that we're always rushing from one thing to the next with a never-ending to-do list that keeps us from breathing, never mind noticing the sunset. But it costs us. And it costs our kids even more. Our society is so hooked on adrenalin that we don't acknowledge the high price our children pay for our lifestyle. Rushing children:
1. Influences the developing brain, reinforcing neural
pathways in the daily context of stressful hyper-stimulation. Some
neurologists hypothesize that this creates a brain with a life-long
tendency to anxiety and hyper-vigilance.
2. Increases the levels of stress hormones in their bodies, which contributes to crankiness, difficulty falling asleep, weight gain, and immune suppression.
3. Constantly interrupts their developmental work of exploring the world, so they lose their curiosity.
4. Overstimulates them so they can't process everything coming at them, which undermines learning.
5. Habituates them to busyness, so they become easily bored, craving electronic stimulation.
6. Overrides their natural inclination to "do it myself," sabotaging the achievement of competence.
7. Creates a chronic feeling of incompleteness, which steals the joy of mastery.
8. Makes them feel pushed and controlled, which triggers power struggles.
9. Keeps them from noticing and feeling emotions as they come up
throughout their day, so they end the day with a full backpack of
feelings pressing for escape, which triggers meltdowns and can
eventually lead to addictions like food, media consumption and shopping,
which distract us from our emotional baggage.
10. Keeps them from discovering and pursuing their own passions, which is necessarily a slow, organic process.
11. Forces them out of the groundedness of the present moment, into the breathlessness of scrambling to keep up, which undermines their authenticity and connection to meaning.
Not to mention, rushing makes us less patient and less nurturing with
our children, so it's impossible to parent well. A mom wrote me the
other day that after she got into a fight with her daughter, she
realized she had been “too distracted, too busy, to slow down and just
be kind.”
This week, notice how often you rush yourself and your child. Notice
the price you both pay. What can you change to slow life down?
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compelled to pick up sticks or toys or something, to "use my time wisely." But just resting is necessary and we need to teach our children that it is good, sometimes, to simply enjoy resting, sitting, thinking, wondering, appreciating. Keeping busy teaches
rush, rush, rush and I really think the more we rush, we often get less done in the end because our quality of work suffers for our hectic attitude. Blessings.