How to Have a Positive Home Environment When Your Kids Are Making You Crazy!

We’ve all either experienced kids making us crazy first-hand as parents or maybe as grandparents, or perhaps you have younger siblings and can remember when …. Okay, so most of us are aware of how difficult it can be to create and maintain a positive home environment when … well … kids are being kids. Kids so easily create chaos, right?!

   Perhaps you feel overwhelmed, which can easily lead to a sense of powerlessness. When kids are complaining, arguing, fighting, yelling, they’re certainly not listening to you. You may raise your voice in order to be heard, and it is clear that you are upset at their lack of response and when you get right down to it, their lack of respect. Perhaps your significant other joins into the fray and you both end up being angry, at the kids and at each other. If you are thinking that after years of this type of chaotic environment it’s impossible to create peace, happiness, and a sense of sanity, it would be quite understandable – but not true.

   Please understand that your kids don’t need to behave in order for you to feel calm and otherwise good. Taking good care of yourself (also known as self-care) is a mandatory first step. Do you feel/think you don’t have time? Well – make time – even if it’s only 5-10 minutes per day. Really! How many ways are there to be doing self-care? Hundreds, if not thousands. What you need to do is find the ways that work for you. This is critical. It might be good to have multiple ways do practice self-care so that you always have something you can do for yourself that calms you down and helps you feel good. Some examples are taking a soothing, calming bath, lighting candles, listening to a short meditation, diffusing essential oils, listening to binaural beats (sound waves), studying your Bible, reading a good book, etc. What do you like to do that helps you get centered and calm?

   Please remember that you are your children’s strongest teacher. As their main role model (science has proven this to be the case no matter what your kids say and do that seems contrary to this fact), what you do is much more important than what you say. So, showing them that you can feel good and be calm is like pouring ice-cold water onto a fire, putting the fire out.

How much is there to say about nutrition? It may be particularly challenging, especially living here in America, to feed yourself and your kids healthy yet delicious food, but the types of food you all are ingesting can make a huge difference in all your moods subsequent behavior. Always think food/mood connection. Dysfunctional food choices – and we all know them – make us moody, irritable, angry, and this shows in our interactions with others and in behavioral choices. So, dial down the sugars, unhealthy sweeteners, processed foods laden with chemicals and with diminished to no nutrients, and especially grains. The most egregious of them all is dwarf wheat – our flours made from wheat, and yes, even whole wheat (unfortunately). Recipes abound on the internet on delicious cooking and baking without the sugar and wheat, and there are many healthier alternatives that look and taste delicious. If you or your kids don’t like vegetables (and we get many healthy nutrients from them, not the least of which is boosting our immune systems), perhaps melting some cheese on them may help. If you are lactose intolerant, there are many great vegan cheese varieties which melt well available in most grocery stores these days. Veggies can be mixed in with smoothies, breads (perhaps made with almond flour and some berries), and you may be able to come up with creative ways to get everyone more into eating veggies.

 Don’t forget the vitamins and other supplements. Many of the B vitamins are known for their positive impact on behavior (please see a competent holistic health care professional). Consider that you and/or your kids may have some food and other environmental allergies. Testing is available for all of this…and it’s less expensive than it used to be!

Many of the B vitamins are known for their positive impact on behavior.

   If you’re doing a lot of these things, and you still have problems, please reach out to a mental health care professional, as counseling can be effective and even fun. In fact, it can become a fun family event.

   And as always, please have a happy, holistically healthy day!

This post originally appeared on my blog.

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