Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘time management’

As parents, we often claim that whatever we do, we do for our kids and, as far as our awareness goes, that is true. But parents are human, which means our decision-making involves mostly emotional reasoning and subconscious values, beliefs and needs, which our mind cleverly re-dresses as calculated choices.

Sometimes, life hands us a rare opportunity to become aware of our choices of lifestyle. These are typically unpleasant, but they still get the job done. Ronit and I have written before about our own baby losses and about our friend’s near-death experience.

I want to share with you a talk given by Scott Stratten at TEDx.

In his post 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me, one of the most important things on the list is “My girlfriend and son were in a car accident December ’07 while I was at my Nanny’s (aka Grandmother) funeral. He walked away unscathed, she lives in constant pain and has partial brain damage and it kills me every day that I can’t fix it or I can’t go punch the woman in the mouth who ran the red light”.

I have been following him for a while and find him inspiring in many respects, but this video really hit a spot for me and I hope it will for you too. My son and I watched the video together and it made us choke.

Many times, the concept of “on time” is translated to “at the last minute”. Running a family is very similar. When your “on time” means “at the last minute”, you are going to have lots of problems, stress and heartache, not to mention raising kids with that philosophy who grow up to miss opportunities and fail in situations that otherwise could be very successful.

My son Tsoof is studying composition at Griffith University’s Young Conservatorium with Ralph Hultgren, who is a very inspiring person. Ralph is a very talented musician, composer and probably an excellent teacher, because he has managed to build one of the best music schools for young people in Australia.

One expression Ralph has used with his students and stuck with Tsoof was:

“On time is late and early is on time”

Nowadays, I am faced with deadlines almost on a daily basis for my university studies and at my job. This brings on considerations such as what to do first and when to get started. I also have many opportunities to go out and forget about all the things I have to do. There are great things on TV, lots of friends to chat to, parties to attend and books to read. I could really forget about assignments and deadlines and just go out. Going on from Dad’s earlier post Do it NOW, I want to chat to you about the value of planning ahead, of thinking five minutes down the track and the importance of this for children (and teens and young adults).

There was a wonderful saying in the classic 60s movie Mary Poppins. It goes something like this:

“Sometimes a person, through no fault of his own, can’t see past the end of his nose”

Of course, Mary Poppins was referring to the fact that people sometimes don’t accept things that aren’t part of their world. But this saying is always associated in my mind with the fact that sometimes children can’t fathom that while they get what they want right now, there are consequences to their decision.

My son Tsoof (bless his soul) is a really great kid. For a teenager, someone who generally listens, does well at school and cares for his family is rare and I definitely consider myself lucky to have him for a son.

But sometimes, he can leave things for the last minute.

From time to time, it is time to go to bed and all seems quiet, and then we hear this, “Oh, $^%&, I need to do X for tomorrow!”

“When did you get this?”

“A couple of weeks ago”.

“Why haven’t you done it until today?”

“I was going to, but then I forgot”.

This month was very hectic for me and therefore for our entire family. I had many big projects to complete and I could not do them without the help of my family. Gal and the kids helped me a lot and we ended up dedicating almost 3 weekends to this work (we are still recovering from work, work and more work). All this work involved doing things I love, so it made me excited and I was in total flow and winding down was not easy. That made me think about slowing down as the topic this time.

Slowing down is a challenge for many people. The more successful you are at what you do, the more you risk being unable to slow down and enjoy the simple things. Slowing down is a challenge for me, so I am taking the time to write what happened to me in the last month and how I got over it (still doing that).

In the not-so-distant past, most people lived in small places and had to do things themselves. They grew crops, cared for animals, sewed their own clothes, built their own houses, met the same small group of people from childhood to old age and learned about the rest of the world only when strangers came to town.

When something broke, those “olden days” people had to fix it themselves or take it to a specialist, such as the blacksmith or the cobbler. Time was cheap and materials, like metal and medicine, were very expensive and hard to get. There was a lot of time, so life was slow. There was a lot of space and travel was slow, so there was little change.

The world’s culture evolved around this lifestyle. The main values taught to kids were self-sufficiency, industry, thriftiness, modesty, discipline and courtesy. When they grew up, they also learned faithfulness and responsibility.

I have a feeling your parents may have tried to instill some of these values in you too, even if your life was quite different. I know mine did, as did the parents of all my friends.

The general focus of people was on getting things and keeping them. There was little choice, so what people got, they enjoyed.

Today, life is radically different for most people. Most people live in big cities, have easy access to large amounts of food, drink, clothes and other goods and are exposed to a never-ending stream of high-pressured information through the TV, the radio, the Internet, the mobile phone, printed media and various other means.

The general focus of people should be on choosing things and enjoying them. But it is not.

One of the biggest challenges for parents in our time is, well, time. Or at least the shortage of it. Having to keep up with inflation, with the Joneses, with technology, with the news and with ever-increasing demands at work means that many parents need a place for their kids to be after school hours.

Of course, we do not want our kids to be just anywhere. We want to keep them in a safe place, operated by friendly people who like kids, where our children will be kept occupied, interested and preferably even educated. Not an easy thing to find, especially when that place also needs to make money…

On the emotional side, leaving our kids with others and staying long hours at work creates loads of guilt feelings. If you have ever put your child in childcare, I am sure you have thought to yourself, “What kind of a parent am I if my kids spend most of their days away from me and get most of their care from other people?”

This story is not just about one place. It is not even just about after school care. This story is to tell you that when you have to find a place for your kids to spend some time, you can actually find them and your kids can actually be happy there.

Last week, I met one of my clients from a few years ago and we had a great time together. She said to me, “Come on, Ronit, tell me what you’re doing now”, so I spent the next 15 minutes telling her about all the different things I was doing.

When I finished, she asked, “Really? When do you have the time to do all that?”

I smiled. Good question. I was not sure I had the answer.

“Ronit, you’re Wonder Woman!” she said, “You’re amazing. Everything you do is so perfect”.

Hmm…

Although I was flattered for a while, as I imagined myself being the perfect “Wonder Woman”, the compliment quickly faded. I do have my wonders, but perfect I am not. Everyone wants to be successful at what they do, but success and perfection are not really related.

Last week, we started the new project Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss when every blogger introduced him or herself. If this is your first visit here, check each blogger on Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss (1): Introduction.

Parenting brings a lot of joy, but it also comes with many challenges. In the personal development world, we say that if you know what your problem is, you are half way to the solution. To get half way to the solution, I have asked each top parenting blogger for their list of the 5 biggest challenges parents face today.

Here is what they thought (some of the emphasis is mine).

What are the 5 biggest challenges parents face today?

In any personal development program, there comes a time when the coach asks the client to answer this question. If you have ever been seriously sick or had a chance to meet someone who had to answer this question for real, you know it is one of the biggest and most important questions in life.

Of course, I do not wish you to ever have to plan your last year for real, but playing with it in your mind may just do that thing it does to those who must do it in real life. However, this question is important for most people as a way of gaining perspective.

About 90% of people live life without direction, purpose or drive. They live life based on what they must/should/have to do or what others might think of them and feel disempowered to take the responsibility over their own life. The reason they do it is because their parents did just the same and their grandparents and great-grandparents before them. By living like this, they are neglecting to update the things that are important to them.

Every frustration, failure or problem is an indication of such neglect to update our priorities. For example, in all my parenting workshops, parents claim the most important things they want for their kids are happiness, health and love, yet most of them spend most of their energy on fighting with their kids over homework, manners and housework.