Five good principles for young parents

I'm a father of 3 kids. Two daughters of 9 and 7 years old (Leonie and Floor) and one son with 5 years of age (Remi). Let's be honest: raising kids is one of the most challenging and demanding tasks on this planet. Recently, our lives were turned upside down. If you already felt your life and house was a mess before the crisis, it might even be worse now. I can imagine many young parents face challenges right now. I'm not claiming to be the best parent in the world. However, what I'm pretty sure of is that each parent develops specific rules and tricks to handle difficult situations. I'm just sharing some of ours (ours = my wife and me). You might share some of you in the comments after finishing this read.

Kids can turn you nuts and make you go out of control

I always say: 'kids are a good investment'. The time and energy you put in, eventually comes back as love and happiness, with a postive interest rate. However, just like with any investment, it goes in ups and downs. There are a lot of ups, but they are sufficiently discussed. Just open your Facebook. Navigating the downs can be challenging for a young, inexperienced parent. Why? Because your initial expectations might not match your reality. So you're in a phase of 'tuning your expectations' and 'trying to handle reality', which doesn't happen in 1 month. My two daughters continuously, but really continuously cried when they were babies. One evening, I smashed the TV controller against the wall out of frustration. Yes, it was completely destroyed.

I think this might be the major stress factor of young parents:

The feeling that you cannot accomplish or finish what you would like to accomplish or finish may cause stress. It's hence a sense of losing control over your 'own' life. This is the core of the tuning process during your maturation as a parent.

Let's now go to practical tips and tricks.

1. Manage your energy carefully, and feed your kids regularly

Every parent recognises this situation: you come home after a busy day at work, not your best one, and you're hungry and tired. Your kids came home and feel the same. There's 'potential fireworks' in the air. I say 'potential', as you can control the situation. Don't tell me you cannot. You're the adult with experience in self control.

The science behind this situation is what I described in my recent article about managing your time and energy. Look at the figure below: you start your day with a finite amount of time and energy. During your day, these two resources go to either positive or negative projects. But watch the green coloured 'self-control valve'. It is a valve that you can use to control your temper and behaviour, but it consumes energy. So this is why at the end of your busy day it is more challenging to control yourself. You might get angry or upset in the presence of your kid(s) or spouse, and regret afterwards (i.e. after dinner).

• So don't start a difficult discussion with your partner before lunch or dinner time
• Feed your kids throughout the day. I mean: also their energy levels fluctuate. Breakfast/lunch/dinner are not enough. Give them some fruit, a cookie, .... in between, so they always stay above the safety line. My wife and me can clearly detect when one of our 3 soldiers goes in 'energy depletion'.

A kid that is tired + hungry can become a hairy monster that looks quite different than 'the normal kid'

So the difference between a kid and adult is: a kid has much less capability to control itself due to immaturity and lack of life experience. So a hungry kid is worse than a hungry parent.

So remember this concept of finite energy and use it: next time you detect or expect 'energy depletion', you might be more careful and pay attention to your (potential) behaviour'.

2. Manage your time carefully

As a working parent, you simply have less time for yourself. Live with it. But don't complain about the situation if you don't do any effort in changing it. So either stop complaining, or fix the situation. I have tried to fix this situation as follows:

• I'm getting up at 5am in the morning. My kids now typically wake up at 7am. So this means 2 hours of completely uninterrupted me-time, every day. I typically meditate, read or work. (for people that know me: I can use some meditation)
• I'm recurrently planning in personal time in my weekly schedule: e.g. running and working out
• I have simplified my life (see again my article on that 'infinite time and energy'). My major projects are my business and wife and kids. My other projects only get some of my time and energy if the first two 'buckets' are completely filled. So there are much less side activities in my case, because I run an own business and my professional time eats up a lot.
• I plan my whole week, every sunday afternoon. I have a separate blog post on this.

3. Give your kids CLARITY and STRUCTURE

When this corona crisis hit Belgium, we suddenly were out of our daily routine. Our kids immediately responded negatively to this lack of clarity and structure. Especially my oldest daughter, who is a very 'analytical and structured' person by nature, just like her mom, had difficulties with that. Concretely, they were less at ease and more difficult to handle.

I define clarity and structure as follows:

• Clarity is action bound: 'you first finish this task, and then we will play that game'
• Structure is time or space bound: 'around 10am we eat some fruit, on Wed, Sat and Sun you can watch some television, ...' 'the lego toys are now stored, you should now play with those toys'

My wife teaches and mentors kids with autism, but she explained me that every kid likes and needs clarity and structure. Luckily she is extremely good with coming up with creative structures and rules that are workable (i.e. can be implemented AND maintained). For example:

• Kids typically have too much toys. They can only focus on a few at a time. Hence, store most of the toys in a separate room away from them. Only 'release' some toys from time to time, in return for storing another one. This exchange of toys leads to continuous surprise and excitement, and makes the toys always look new, even if they aren't.
• Keep toys separated. For example, do not mix Lego friends with Playmobil. If you have the space for it, even let them play with different 'families of toys' in different rooms.

My wife is good at bringing structure in the chaos :-) (from left to right: kitchen, storage of toys in separate room, keeping toys separated (here: Lego friends), storage of stuff in the garage)

• Read the kids a story every evening before going to sleep. Make clear how long you will read and set the expectations right. For example, sometimes my kids come to me with a very thick book, on purpose :-)
• Let them help with household tasks, but again, provide structure and clarity. For example, we have a 'helper of the day'. That kid knows it's his/her turn today, and commitment is needed. They love this clarity and fairness.

We have lots of examples. But I guess you get the message: don't handle your kids as machines. But clarity and structure makes them happier human beings.

4. Treat your kids as if they were adults

Kids sense respect. If you truly respect them. If you truly listen to them (not just pretending), and allow them to express their opinions, even if they are completely unfair or wrong, it pays off. So also explain your reasoning to them. It's also the golden rule on the workfloor: 'always tell people why'. Kids need it just like any of your colleagues needs it.

If you give respect to your kids, they respect you. Don't assume 'they're just kids, they will not care'

• For example: it's better to spend one hour focused time with your kids than 3 hours 'gray zone time' checking your smartphone. In this corona crisis we now play board games multiple times a week. That's 100% focus.
• We have given the permission to our kids to tell us to stop watching our phone if it's inappropriate. It may look a 'weird rule'. But I am addicted to my business mailbox, and they telling me really helps as it hurts me in the core.

This video by Gary Vaynerchuck, related to this topic, is worth watching...

5. Manage your expectations and help your parnter reaching his/her goals

The fastest route to unhappiness is setting your expectations unrealistically high. For example, if you have to take care of 3 little kids a whole day while your partner (co-founder) is away, don't be too ambitious in terms of accomplishing tasks. Maybe just generate one goal of the day that you want to accomplish. The rest is just 'nice to haves'. Also, put things in their context. For example, if your kid is hungry and tired, just tolerate a bit more, because it may not be the right time to 'teach'. It's rather the time to 'survive and get through the situation'. Your kid will not listen to your advice.

On the other hand, give your partner freedom in accomplishing his/her goals. For example, I love running, my wife loves running. And without kids. So make sure you take the responsibility to give each other this freedom and take your responsibility in freeing up this timeblock for your partner consistently.

Third, talk regularly to your partner. She/he is the co-founder of your family. Evaluate the structures, rules on regular basis, talk about how you can continuously improve the 'family machine'. Talk about your worries, observations in your kids, .... These structural conversations are really key in following up your family situation and make sure the values are respected and you are still on the same page (i.e. aiming for the same family goals).

Conclusions

My main conclusion is: we are all humans. Realise that you're not the only one with difficulties and stress sometimes. These things can helpo: manage your energy and time, provide your kids clarity and structure, treat your kids as equals and manage your expectations. These were some of our core principles that work in our specific situation. Can you share some of your principles in the comments?