Today’s question is who isn’t dealing with stress? It seems as though everyone you know has some type of stress in their lives.
Familiar Stress Situation?
Most families consist of two people who work along with a couple of children. Just the daily task of getting everyone up and out of the door each morning is stressful enough. Then on top of that you have to deal with your job, your boss and fellow co-workers. No wonder everybody is stressed out these days! Once you arrive home in the evening your day doesn’t stop. You are now faced with getting dinner, helping with homework and doing chores around the home. How can you possibly deal with all of this and keep your sanity?
How To Relieve Stress – Tip 1
One of the first things you can do to relieve stress is to prioritise things. This includes homework, after school activities and the housework. For example if you can leave the laundry and vacuuming until the weekend then do so. Then delegate these chores to all your family members. Even very young children can be given tasks to do such as putting away shoes in the closest and helping clean things up.
How To Relieve Stress – Tip 2
If your child has a ton of homework to do then see what needs to be done first. This will also allow you to help them reduce their own stress levels too. Do the homework which needs to be handed in first. This can also reduce the amount of homework that has to be done in one night. Your children will learn how to prioritise their workload, will learn how to schedule tasks.
How To Relieve Stress – Tip 3
Look at just how many after school activities your children are participating in. If it is more than two things maybe it is time to cut back. This frees up both your child’s time and your time. It is important that your children should have some time off from a lot of after school activities. Yes, it is great when they meet and play with other children, when they go after a hobby, when they play sports, and so on. Ask yourself whether you child does have to go for the surf life saving courses, the guitar lessons, basketball, baseball, soccer, rugby and ballet.
How To Relieve Stress – Tip 4
Another important thing to help reduce stress is to make time for the family. Try to plan one evening a week where you do something as a family together. This could be make dinner together or sit and watch a movie or play some type of game.
When it comes to sitting down and eating dinner make use of the time. Ask your kids and your spouse how their day went. This gives the person time to ‘vent’ if necessary and allows you to discover if there are any potential problems lurking around the corner.
By making time for your family and being aware of what each member is dealing with you can help reduce family stress. Communication is essential and one of the best ways to deal with stress before it becomes a major problem.
Got Stress At Work?
This is a different kind of stress, that may affect you in your family life. And, in many cases, stress at home does affect your performance at work. Prioritising your workload is certainly one important task you should apply. If you can delegate that task to someone who can assist, you will find that your level of stress will reduce. In general work situations are similar in many ways how many families are organised, or how families work. There is one major difference though: at work you go home with a paycheck, as a family member there is usually no such thing.
One important key is also to have a balance between work and family, or commonly described as the balance between work and life. If you want to get into creating a successful work life balance, maybe our Instant Action Plan is something for you. Try it out, it is free to download for personal use. Contact us for more information.
