With school being back in session, parents and kids have been thrown back into life moving at what feels like 300 miles per hour. It would be great if we could re-engage slowly, like maybe starting at 40 percent and moving up gradually until we’re back into school life completely.
There’s so much busyness this time of year. Buying uniforms and school supplies. Open houses in the weeks after school begins. Sports teams start up at the elementary and middle school levels. And the homework that causes tears, sometimes more with the parents than with the students. At the beginning of school, everything feels transactional within families:
Parent: “Do you have your lunch?”
Child: “Yes.”
Parent: “Do you know how to get home?
Child: “No.”
Child: “Can you fill out this form?”
Parent: “Set it on my desk.”
And that feeling causes stress.
August 15 is National Relaxation Day, and while it falls on a Monday (which seems like the worst day of the week to celebrate relaxation) maybe it is this day to remind us to be intentional about relaxing. Just as we make a plan for meals, laundry, child drop-off and pickup, and homework, we need to plan for relaxation.
Probably even more important than planning for relaxation is sticking with relaxation. We don’t forego meals or laundry or drop offs and pickups or homework, we will and do push relaxation to the side, as if it isn’t just as vital as the other things. There is no way to fill a cup from an empty pitcher, right?
So this week, consider your best way to relax even if you don’t get a chance to relax on National Relaxation Day. Do you like to read? Listen to music? Sit outside and watch the birds? Shop? Having a meal with a friend? Playing a board game with your child? (We can all probably agree it won’t be Monopoly or Sorry.)
Make a plan to give yourself relaxation time this week and stick to it. You and everyone around you will be better for it. It is an important part of the Make A Way Mindset.