How To Balance Your Personal Needs With Family Demands

Kids, whether only children or not, want to have you for themselves. They crave for your attention twenty-four hours per day. They certainly know that you have needs too, things that you not only have to do but want to do, and yet they keep on demanding your presence all the time. Okay, kids do that. It's your turn now. What are you doing? How are you handling it? Do you react? And if so, how? Do you go on doing what you want and ignore your child or do you humour them? Do you find you have to raise your voice in order to do what you want or do you keep your temper? I'll tell you what happened to me last week. A serious issue came up and I definitely wanted to visit my cousins ​​on a particular day.

I informed both my husband and my young daughter well ahead so that I would leave as soon as my husband would return home. That particular day my husband was late because he had something to do that he remembered at the last minute (Murphy's Law again!). I didn't want to stay out very late in the evening so the more time was passing by the more anxious I was getting. As it was already dark my daughter thought I would not go to my cousins. When my husband finally came home and it was about time for me to leave, my daughter pulled some serious strings – she burst into tears, wanted a hug and wouldn't let me go.

Of course not going was not negotiable! So what did I do? I gave her one of our big, long, tight hugs and when she calmed down I asked her opinion: "You want me to stay home. But I want to go to my cousins. How are we going to do this so we're both happy?" "What do you suggest?" she asked me back. We exchanged some ideas and decided that a big hug before I left and one when I would come back was the best solution. "But is it so simple?" you would ask. It may not always be so but yes! Children do understand and do cooperate. We just need to give them space and time and of course we need to make our own needs known!

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