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Roots and Wings - Summer 2013
For Mums Abroad
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Dear all A warm welcome to the "School's Out" Summer Edition of Roots and Wings. This month I'm writing about "surviving" summer, handling boredom and giving yourself an end of term report. June can be a busy time of year with school age children - there can be an overwhelming schedule of concerts, school trips, shows, leaving parties, social events "before the summer". We go into event overdrive - wondering how we will keep on track and dreaming of inventions that allow us to be in three places at once (one of which being our bed). And then, as if by magic, it all comes to an end. Your calendar is back under your control, and you decide where to go, what to do when you get there, and how long to stay. Perhaps you choose a holiday, plan a trip home, maybe some quiet (!) days at home, or a chance to welcome visitors and enjoy their company. See if you can take a moment to enjoy, even for a short time, that feeling of freedom from the term time routine. Briefly, before the first cries of "Mum, I'm BORED" come up the stairs! Each end of year is a milestone marking our children's progress in their journey through school. Give yourselves credit too for all you've contributed, facilitated, made happen during the year - why not take a moment to do your end of term report? And just as our children count down days to holidays, there are sometimes certain points in the holidays where we mums start counting down the opposite - days till we can get back into the term time routine again. Yes, let's admit it, much as we enjoy our children and our holiday time together, we can and do crave relative normality again - and, if you have work to do, the chance to do this uninterrupted, or to go there and not feel you're missing out on something fun happening without you! Check out "Surviving" Summer! In an unprecedented fit of being organised, I've already scheduled most of my Autumn workshop programme, Autumn Workshop Schedule - and am starting to collaborate on a couple of new ventures too for the Autumn. So, lots to look forward to after the Summer - more in Roots and Wings towards the end of August. A massive thank you to all those who have supported me this year - this has been my busiest, funnest and most fulfilling year with Alive to Change . . . so far! I look forward to continuing to develop my work for you "next term"! In the meantime, I wish you a safe and a splendid summer. Mark your diaries now for Thursday 19th September - it's the next Alive to Change Open House. all the best Kirstin www.alivetochange.comwww.facebook.com/alivetochange READ TO THE BOTTOM FOR YOUR READER'S OFFER: 25% off Mum's Life Audit |
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Surviving Summer
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| Of course it's crazy to imply that Summer is an ordeal to be endured, isn't it? Yet, as enthusiastically as we kick off that first day of the holidays, there is usually a point where we start to look forward to getting back into our normal lives again. Surviving summer is a question of balancing:
Planning vs not planning: Our term time lives are overrun with plans and timetables, so we often crave a little freedom over the summer. Even if it is just to see a few days without any agenda except flopping around aimlessly or random explorations. Yet sometimes we get sucked into planning our summer in even more detail than our term time - in order to make the most of every free moment. Which aspects of your holiday can you leave to chance? Which do you really need to fix down?
Family time vs time alone: We welcome this opportunity to spend lots of fun, relaxed time with our loved ones, to reconnect, to laugh, enjoy each other's company . . . until, sometimes, we crave our own time, in the silent company of a good book. Being fun with others requires energy, and, if you're anything like me, full time with other people (even the people we most love) can be tiring. Programme in some sneaky solo walks, a solitary swim, or stick your headphones on in the car and zone out!
Work vs no work: If you've been working hard all year, you want to forget all about work for a little while. Great in an ideal world, but nowadays, not always possible or practical. I tend to get a natural break for a few days when I stay somewhere without internet access or phone reception - but do confess to otherwise keeping up to date with emails while away. But whatever you're working on, you may find that in a relaxed state, you do develop ideas, solve problems, remember something - even if you're not actively working, you might want to keep a notebook handy so you don't lose that thought. And dare I mention holiday work for the children? Opinions vary, but if your children have struggled in the previous year, if you can entice them into a little catching up, it could get their next year off to a good start.
Your thing vs their thing: We spend a lot of time as Mums facilitating other people's "things" - and often even more so in the holidays. As soon as your children are old enough to express their own views on how you're all spending your time and who with, you start to enter into a long period of negotiation. Be clear for yourself about what you want - if you're in a new place and want to look around, if there's a person you want to visit, if there is something you'd like to do for yourself or with someone special - it's rare that there is someone else making that happen for you, so you need to speak up for yourself!!
Routine vs no routine: Although the term time routine is, thankfully, ended for a while, a total lack of routine can often cause more work for us mums. The children want to know what is happening, and sometimes "Let's see" doesn't cut it. The triggers of a "routine" day can also be helpful for prompting activities to be done (practice, exercise, cleaning teeth, putting things away, switching off the tv, feeding the rabbit . . . ) and without this structure, you might find it harder to engage your children in their responsibilities. "But it's the holidays" - decide what that means for your family in terms of ongoing responsibilities.
So, "surviving" summer is all a question of balance. Take a moment to think about what you need this summer, knowing what you know about yourself and how you experience this time of year. You're already an expert at dealing with everyone else's priorities . . . so now it's time to use that expertise to deal with your own!
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Your End of Term Report
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What would your report say this year?
I'm lucky. My birthday falls on 30th June, so neatly half way through the year. As well as being the perfect time for a party, I've also fallen into a bit of a habit of doing myself a little annual review at this point, and it's a habit which has helped me enormously. Being both self employed and a mum, my two main occupations rely heavily on self-motivation, and it's up to me to provide that sense of personal development that I might otherwise have got through the workplace. Our children come home from school (and even nursery nowadays) with a piece of paper highlighting accomplishments, areas for development, and usually some commentary about their potential, their contribution, their character. We can feel intensely proud of our children's reports (and sometimes otherwise, it's true). Do our own achievements and development fill us with the same sense of pride? For any mum who has made it to the end of another school year, you've already achieved a massive amount. For it wasn't always easy, was it? There were days when you felt you were skating on thin ice, weren't there? There were moments when you wondered how you were going to do it all, weren't there? And yet you did. And on top of all that, you did so much more. When you start just writing down the things you did that you feel good about, you start to notice how much is going on in your life. When you look back at where you were this time last year, you really notice what has changed for you. What you have changed too. Then you start to think about what else you want to work on next. What would be fun to try? What habits do you want to tackle? What's not working for you any more? What crazy idea are you ready to just make happen at long last? Working on that feeling that you are already good enough, just as you are? And this report is not about being top of the class. There is no top of the class. Life isn't a competition. That's a survival thing. To thrive, we need collaboration, connection, a sense of community. So the final question is about who you want to spend more time with, who you want to be inspired by, and who you might like to inspire from time to time. And then you can finish off your report with the following words, in bold. I am still learning, still growing, and I still have bags of potential.
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When boredom sets in
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How long is it from "Hurray school's out" to the first "Mum, I'm soooooooooo bored"? Our children have an uncanny knack of finding themselves bored at the most inopportune moments (negotiating fearsome foreign motorway interchanges, mid-check in, while you're half asleep on the hammock). And what are we all tempted to do when our children tell us this? That's right - with our Supermum powers, we see this opportunity to make something better, and dive in with 101 suggestions, an offer of an exciting activity, the return of some banished electronic game, a new purchase and whoosh, problem solved.  Resist Temptation!Feeling bored is not nice. It's frustrating. You want to do something but you're not sure what. You may not be in control of your environment or timing - as so often happens on holiday - you may be waiting. Waiting. Waiting. It's not like when you're feeling relaxed, where doing nothing is exactly how you want to spend your time. Where just chilling is all there is you want to do, and that's fine. Boredom is different. You feel aroused, ready for action - but what do you want to do? You just don't know. Anything but this monotonous, tedious, boring thing. But whose boredom is this? And who is going to need to learn how to handle and motivate themselves through boredom during the whole of their life? Yes - your child is going to need to learn his or her own strategies for coping effectively with the kind of boredom they are prone to. How can you help? 1. Don't leap to the rescue. Give your child the chance to work out their own anti-boredom solution. 2. Do they want to spend some time with you? Perhaps it's not boredom at all, just a desire for a cuddle or chat. 3. If they ask for suggestions, make a really wild one "why not go out and see if you can catch a tiger?" - see if you can trigger their imagination. Or ask them to help on one of your jobs - can't lose, either they will help or they will find something else to do.  4. Gently remind them that they have resources and ideas. Ask them to come up with options. 5. Boredom indicates that there is some excess energy to be harnessed - intellectual, creative or physical. Sometimes we get bored because we're in need of a challenge - so have some new challenges up your sleeve and slip them in once your child has come up with their own options. Don't attach yourself to whether they do it or not. 6. Share your strategies for handling boredom - what do you do on a long wait, how do you keep motivated during the journey home, how do you use excess energy in a confined space? Everyone gets bored from time to time, and we all have different capacities for dealing with it. Let's not fight with our child's boredom - let's accept it and enable them to learn how to handle it. And Summer Holidays are a great place to start.
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Contact Us
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Kirstin Barton
Kirstin Barton at Alive to Change
kirstin@alivetochange.com |
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My special offer of 25% off the Life Audit for Mums (which is basically a "where am I right now" sense check which highlights where you'd like to develop going forward and prioritises next steps) lasts until end September 2013. To take advantage of this special offer - CHF75 instead of CHF100 for what is effectively 90 minutes of coaching, plus the report - please email kirstin@alivetochange.com.
I have availability before 19th July and again after 14th August.
If you'd just like to explore coaching to find out what it is all about, all exploratory sessions are free. I also have an Open House on 19th September, which is a great opportunity to find out more in a relaxed environment.
All the best
Kirstin
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Copyright © 2013. All Rights Reserved.
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