Make Room for Your Life.

By Amanda Craig, PhD, LMFT

I’m waiting for my son to get home from school.  It’s a beautiful day and I know he is going to want to play soccer, then football, and then play hockey with lacrosse sticks and a soccer ball.  Brutally honest, I am thinking about the couple of e-mails I would like to send and loose ends I’d like to wrap up before the end of business day.

So, when he gets home and demands that I put on shorts for our sports extravaganza, I hide in the office pressing ‘send’.  Then, I tell him I will be there in two minutes, but I really don’t move until he comes back requesting me again.  Sometimes I get up and go with him, sometimes I don’t.  Just let me do one more thing.
 
I find with parenting the days are so slow and the years go by so fast. 

Before I know it he will not want me to play with him.  And then I will put down the email and wish I had this moment back.
 
It is easy to get lost in the checkboxes of life: the “I have to”, “I should”, “before I do that let me just…”, etc.  We hope that crossing all the items on our To-Do list will give us time to later enjoy our family and find time for our passions.  But, if we aren’t careful we will miss opportunities to live; the life will go before us. 
 
So how do we reconcile responsibility with living in the moment, being present and being focused, being spontaneous and being organized?
 
How do we learn to live our lives before it’s too late? How do we make room for being with our children while we work so hard at providing a good life for them? Tweet this.

Try this:

1. Stop and take a mental snapshot of the moment.  Now, narrate the story of your moment. What is happening? (Telling yourself “my child is asking for my attention and I am checking my e-mail” is sobering and polarizing.)
2. Note the feelings of the moment.  Not the thinking,  but what it feels like to be in the moment.  Is there fear, tension, joy, peace or something else? What does the body feel like? 
3. You are at the crossroads now; you can go check the boxes or you can be in the moment with your child. 
4. Watch for times when your kids are looking for connection.  They won’t ask for ‘connection’ or tell you that they need you: they’ll ask to play sports, read books, talk at bedtime, or play with Barbies.  These may be the times when we’ll want to step away and handle the life stuff, but this is a good opportunity to be in the moment with your child and .
5. When you’re there— be there!  It’s so easy to give our children half of our attention.  Instead, put down the phone, close the computer, get close, make eye contact, listen fully, talk, ask questions, look at them, uplift and encourage by focusing on the positive. 

 
Using this method will give you an opportunity to stop the time, live your life and enjoy your kids while they are still kids. Added bonus: when it’s bedtime and it’s time for you and your partner, you can kiss them good-night and relax guilt and regret-free.