The life of a parent is often stressful in different ways, ranging from the stresses of work, to unexpected bills, parking fines, and a myriad of other things.
No parent wants to express negative energy towards or create a negative environment for their children. Even in the midst of something truly difficult like a divorce proceeding, it’s natural to try to ensure that your kids don’t see more of what’s going on than they have to.
Here are just a few tips for staying positive for your kids and also when you are under a greater than normal amount of stress in your everyday life.
Stay busy and active. Don’t give yourself too many opportunities to ruminate
It’s great to be able to reflect on things, and to get in touch with your own thoughts, but there’s a fine line between practicing a level of introspection and self-awareness and giving in to the tendency to unhealthily ruminate and dwell on your frustrations.
Often, this sort of rumination only makes things worse, and contributes to you feeling more frustrated, whatever the situation may be.
The antidote to this is to stay busy and active and to ensure that you are doing things and interacting with the world around you, regularly. Most times, you can work through your frustrations or hang-ups – or burn off energy associated with those things – more effectively by staying busy, than by sitting in your room stewing.
Always have worthwhile goals that you’re working towards
It’s difficult to stay to frustrated or upset with a temporary setback in your everyday life, if you have various worthwhile goals that you are working towards, that take up a fair amount of your attention.
On the other hand, if you only have one goal or hobby – or even none at all – then any setback that you experience is bound to feel far more dramatic, and to take up a lot more of your attention and emotional energy.
Keep many irons in the fire and always have something to turn to and invest your energy in. This is likely to make you a good deal more positive, and a good deal more resilient, too.
Find healthy mechanisms for releasing stress and tension
Sometimes, you are going to feel anger and stress, in a way where trying to talk yourself down won’t be particularly effective.
In these situations, it is essential that you have healthy mechanisms for releasing that stress and tension, so that you don’t end up snapping at the people closest to you or creating a negative environment wherever you go.
Exercise is great for releasing stress and tension. Martial arts, in particular, may be the best possible form of exercise for that purpose. You will need to discover systems and approaches that work well for you, personally.
A lot of the time, the opportunity to “vent” in a constrained and healthy context allows you to stay sane and remain positive.