I’ve dealt with anxiety in various forms for years, but it took me a long time to identify what it was. I used to think it was stress, which isn’t really the same thing (in that stress is a response to daily pressures and anxiety is a fear-based response that often has less concrete causes). “I’m a giant ball of stress,” I would think, picturing myself as one of those balls made from elastics, stretched taut and ready to snap.

It wasn’t until I had a baby and experienced some postpartum anxiety that I started to understand what anxiety is, what my experience of it is, and how to cope with it.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite ways to cope with anxiety:

Click over to 5 Minutes for Mom to continue reading the rest of this post.

Any child you welcome through your door becomes part of your family whether they need short term fostering due to family illness or long term fostering while they wait to be adopted or have been removed from the home due to abuse or neglect.

It is so important to realize that many of these children can have behavioral problems. Some have stayed in numerous homes and others have had difficult family homes. Often you will find a foster child requires a lot more attention than your own children. As such, it may be necessary to take time off work to ensure that the child settles into their new home environment and routine.

Consider The Impact on Your Own Family

Foster parents can be anyone whether single, married or living with their partner as long as they are over the age of twenty one. The application process alone can take six months or longer and it’s essential that the entire family understand the impacts of welcoming a foster child into their lives.

Fostering is a very rewarding experience, but it can cause family problems if the entire family is not aware of what to expect, especially when the child being fostered has developmental or behavioral problems. Foster agencies provide extensive training to the whole family to minimize any of these problems, however the impact should be fully considered.

Can You Let Go?

As a foster parent it’s important to be able to let go. A child may be in a foster home for a year or more before being moved on, but by then bonds have formed and as rewarding as it may be to see how that child has developed and grown with your nurturing, it can also be heart-breaking to watch as a child that may have become an important member of your family leaves to return home or to join their new adoptive family.

Foster care is an essential process for children who are unable to stay in their own homes for any reason. As a foster parent you are offering a nurturing, loving and stable environment for that child, welcoming them into your family with open arms. Be sure it is the right decision for your whole family before applying.

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There were many days when I felt like banging my head on the floor right along with the fit thrower. However, I realized early on all this would do was make one more crying person. Mom losing her cool only made matters worse. Someone needed to maintain their composure, and it needed to be me.

Once I realized I needed to keep my cool when my little ones were losing theirs, I tried to figure out how to stay calm. I did the opposite of my melting down toddler. As their volume went up, mine went down. As their little arms started flailing, I kept myself still.

The wilder my little one got, the calmer I became. I quickly discovered that speaking slowly and calmly while crouching next to my kids calmed them down. Keeping myself calm and quiet was the best thing to diffuse my tantrum throwing toddlers.

It isn’t always easy to keep your cool when your little one is losing theirs. It took a few disastrous meltdowns for me to recognize I needed a strategy. I needed a plan to keep myself calm and help my kids calm themselves down. As I began to keep my composure, the answers became obvious.

Click over to read the tips and tricks that you can try when your child is throwing a temper tantrum.

But another tool I’ve found helpful is simple positive thinking. At New Years I resolved to take simple steps to “Be the Best Mom” I can be in 2013. And in an effort to remind myself to stay positive, I made a list of what I love about being a mom.

Click on over to the main site to read the rest of this post and to also find about a great new memoir that has some stories about being a parent who doesn’t always get it right.

Later in life I learned that not all families are so supportive and that my own was probably more the exception than the rule. It was only after realizing that did I become more purposeful and aware of what I was teaching my own daughter.

I don’t want to just give lip service to my daughter on the matter. I want to show her that she can determine what she wants and go after it. I’m not going to blow sunshine and give her the unrealistic expectation that it will always work out, but I want her to recognize the value in trying, and that whether she succeeds or fails, she’s better off for trying.

Who do I want her to be? I want her to be confident in who she is and courageous in what she believes. I want her to be kind and considerate. I want her to be fearless. I want her to take calculated risks and be brave enough to go after what she wants in life. I want her to be able to pick herself up and try again when she fails.

My daughter with my mom, who taught me that I could be and do anything I wanted.

So, how do I teach her these things? I have to be these things. I have to show her how to be fearless and how to be brave enough to go after what I want and try again even if I don’t succeed the first time. I have to be the person I want her to grow up to be. Even when I’m tired or discouraged or just don’t want to care anymore because it’s too overwhelming. It means I have to purposefully plan and do in my life and not just let life happen to me. It means that in being a good role model for my daughter, I have to put forth the effort to live my best life in a way that’s true and authentic. In the end and throughout, we will both be better for it.

About Shanna Goodman

Shanna Goodman is a writer, reader, dreamer (and doer), mom, blogger, marketing professional, and all time klutz. She recently pushed herself out of her comfort zone by vowing to do one new thing a month and lived to tell about it in the book Dignity is a Renewable Resource, available now on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and WindowSeatBooks.com.

Shanna blogs about the business of books at www.WindowSeatBooks.com and will soon be blogging about the business of life at www.HelloMyNameisShanna.com.

Read about the book at:
http://windowseatbooks.com/book-dignity-is-a-renewable-resource

Learn more about Dignity is a Renewable Resource by following Shanna’s (mis)adventures on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/DignityisaRenewableResource

Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that I work at home. I love the idea that I don’t have to leave my apartment and travel on the subway to an anonymous office. I don’t have to make conversation with people I don’t really care about. I can be in the comfort of my home, with my kids around me.

However, there are challenges to working at home. I am not an inherently organized person. Therefore, I often find myself in a bind, faced against a deadline and extremely overwhelmed. This feeling of impending doom is also compounded by my children’s needs.

At the same moment that I have to transcribe raw footage for Extreme Couponing, my son, Ari wants a peanut butter sandwich.

When I’m writing about my bumpy road applying for graduate school for gradschools.com  Samara, my daughter, needs a diaper change.

On top of everything else, I don’t have any alone time. I can’t seem to figure out the balance between working and spending time with my kids.

In fact, at this point, I feel like the television is a better friend to my kids than I am. Needless to say they’ve come good pals with PBS Sprout.

Don’t get me wrong, they do play together for short periods, but when Ari and Samara get bored, and I need to finish a project in order to make money and put food on the table, I resort to turning on the boob tube in an act of sheer desperation.

Here’s where I need some guidance. All you work-at-home-moms out there, I need your help! How do I balance work and family life?

editors note: This is a very common problem. Cecily wrote about her solutions in this MomCrunch post. Earlier, I vlogged about my struggles and my readers gave me their tips. Please share some more tips here for Sarah, thank you so much! 

It is Spring Break time! And it is also almost summer break. Time for traveling! When you are away from home, the last thing you want to do is worry about your health.

Dr. Yael Halaas is a board certified ENT. She has been quoted in US Weekly, Men’s Fitness, Prevention & Fitness Magazine, and shared with 5 Minutes for Parenting some wonderful tips for staying healthy as you travel. 

1. Sanitize everything!  One of the first ways to ruin a vacation together is catching a cold on the plane. Carry antibacterial wipes and wipe down every surface you may touch on the plane. Wipe the belt buckle, food tray and latch, volume control, and armrests. The airline crew cannot clean all these surfaces between flights which can harbor contagious viruses and bacteria.

 2. Wash your hands– especially before touching your own or a loved one’s eyes, nose or mouth. When traveling, it is impossible to avoid contact with surfaces that many others may have touched. To avoid those bugs contaminating your family, wash your hands.

 3. Be proactive-  On family vacations with everyone close together, take Cold-EEZE at the first sign of a cold to shorten the duration, minimizing the amount of time you are sick to better enjoy your vacation. Cold-EEZE zinc lozenges have been found to decrease the duration of colds by nearly half in studies by Dartmouth Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic. Also, by shortening your cold, it minimizes the chances of spreading the cold onto your family members.

 4. Be prepared– Carry medications with you to minimize the impact of a cold or illness so you can all still enjoy your trip. Useful medications include analgesia like Tylenol or allergy medications for adults and children. Adults may also want to have some decongestants handy just in case.

 5. Be healthy–  Good hydration, good nutrition and exercise go a long way to giving the body the support it needs to stay strong.

What are your tips for staying healthy as you travel? 

Or even worse, I am are so overwhelmed, so downright miserable, that I scream at my children. Then I cry in my bed, a mess of self-hatred compiling onto the depression that caused it.

I didn’t ever consider the fact that I had depression. My mother has it and battled it my entire childhood. I have some awful memories of her fits, her tears, her helplessness. I never wanted to be like her. And I never understood that depression was a disease. When I was a child she never sought help for her depression nor did she explain to me what it was. That would have helped me in so many ways. It wasn’t until I was an adult and she was hospitalized for a weekend that I began to understand my childhood through a new set of eyes.

Depression is genetic. It is a genetic imbalance of serotonin in the brain. When I began to experience symptoms of depression it was my very close friends – like Janice – that encouraged me to seek help.

And so I did. I listened to my friends. Deep down I didn’t want to admit that I was broken, that I needed to take a pill to act like a “normal” human being. I wanted to be a strong, successful woman – perfect and complete! But what I did not know was depression is not a shortcoming. You are not less of a person if you ask for a prescription.

Do you think people that take Zyrtec for allergies are weaklings?

No. 

Biologically, our bodies are all made differently. We have different needs. Some can’t eat wheat. Some can’t eat chocolate. Other’s have to take medication for heartburn. And I have to take a medication to increase the neurotransmitters in my brain so I can think clearly.

Depression affects my parenting. I am so glad I sought help from my family doctor. It isn’t simply about being happy or sad, it is about balancing my moods so I am parenting my little children with the most strength and clearest mind possible. And since I know this is genetic, when Lizzie is older I will explain this to her. I don’t want her to go through adolescence depressed and not know she can seek help without being ashamed.

Please, if you have any symptoms of depression, talk to someone. I can testify that your life will tremendously improve if you just ask for help. Make that first step and do not be ashamed. Depression is a scary demon to battle, but you can overcome it!

]]> https://parenting.5minutesformom.com/1138/depression-and-parenting-seek-help/feed/ 36 https://parenting.5minutesformom.com/1133/co-parenting-with-your-opposite/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=co-parenting-with-your-opposite https://parenting.5minutesformom.com/1133/co-parenting-with-your-opposite/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 04:16:18 +0000 http://www.5minutesforparenting.com/?p=1133 Opposites attract, and that is probably why my very masculine husband is a great fit for girly, nurturing me. We have a son who knows exactly who to turn to when he wants specific things, because we are so different in our parenting styles. For example, bath time is quite an adventure. Little man knows I’m more of a push over, so he’ll ham it up and pretend to cry to get out of a bath, and I have to snuggle him and coddle him and bribe him with toys to get him into the bath tub. My husband picks him up and basically tosses him in, washes him, dries him, and is done- all without giving little man’s protestations a second thought.

Bedtime is another story. I couldn’t get our son to sleep without nursing him, and when I finally weaned him I could only get him to sleep by driving him around in my car until he dozed off. My husband holds him and walks around, ignores his crying, and within 5-10 minutes our son is fast asleep. I could never get away with this. I’m the one my son reaches for when he wants to get away from people who won’t put him down, because he knows I’m an easy mark and won’t be able to resist his pouting when he asks to be free to run around. As a result, my husband now bathes our son and puts him to sleep each night, while I take care of feeding him and reading to him. We split our parenting duties based on our strengths.

I often hear it’s good for children to have parents with different styles, especially if one is more nurturing (because babies need their boo boos kissed) and one is better about discipline (because who wants to raise out-of-control, spoiled brats?). My husband and I are a team and are a united front, but our adventures in parenting, combined with our totally different approaches to handling things, certainly has our smart little guy already plotting how to get his way. I admire my husband’s methods (and could learn a lot from him) and have a feeling we had a lot of excitement to look forward to over the years with our son.

How do you handle parenting with your spouse? Are you the same? Do you struggle with the differences?

Finding a meal that is adult and kid friendly is sometimes hard to do. Mom wants something healthy and flavorful, but the kids want something that is…not either of those things. This Spinach and Black Bean Quesadilla is my favorite go-to recipe that is guaranteed to please everyone! The kids LOVE this meal and always gobble it up – which makes me one very happy Mom.

I’ve tried MANY different tortillas and MANY different non-stick sprays but have found that the Mi Mama’s Tortillas from Wal-Mart and Butter flavored Crisco no-stick spray is the absolute best for quesadillas! I won’t even buy the others anymore…they’re a waste! They fall apart, are too flimsy and don’t brown well at all.

First I spray the pan with the Crisco spray and lay down one tortilla, add a little regular shredded Colby Jack cheese (also from Wal-Mart – the great value brand), a handful of black beans, rinsed, from a can and a handful of baby spinach. I then add a little more cheese on top of the spinach to just hold everything in place.

I  then place another tortilla on top and place a sauce pan or another small skillet on top to kinda smoosh it all together. (I’m telling you, this is a very technical recipe!)  After a few minutes, check the bottom to see if it’s brown. If it’s golden brown..spray the top tortilla with a little Crisco and flip! When that’s all golden brown – it’s done!

We usually serve this with some sour cream on the side, green beans and applesauce. There you have it – a very healthy kid AND parent friendly lunch that you’ll all enjoy!!