There are a lot of expectations that parents face in general. I think that as members of the church we may feel added pressures to be “the perfect parents” all of the time. While it is important to strive to have a positive home environment and to support and love our children, we should not let anxiety and pressure get in the way of actually parenting. If you feel like your family needs to grow closer or that your children need to get along better it needs to start with you. Here are a few suggestions to simplify your family life and focus on what is most important.
1) Do the most important things. This means family prayer, family scripture study and family home evening. Setting up a regular time and routine will help these times to be more successful. You can more effectively achieve positive behavior in this situation by complimenting those who are behaving and listening, instead of focusing on the negative.
2) Set up boundaries or rules. Your children do need guidelines to follow. These rules should include being respectful and treating others kindly. Once you have set up the boundary, you need an appropriate consequence. Stick to it. Your children may test you initially, but once they see you are serious, they will begin to follow it.
3) Do not micromanage your children. Allow them to express themselves. It doesn’t matter if your child does not match when he leaves the house. It is okay for your daughter to play differently then you would have. If you ask your children to pick up, do not make it more difficult by expecting every single item to be in a different specific place.
4) Work together as a family to complete household jobs. This teaches your children the importance of working together. It can also decrease your load. You should not follow after your children redoing everything that was just done. You may your children redo a chore to do it better, but take into consideration age and ability before you do this.
5) Balance the amount of structure, free play and outside activities that you have. While it is nice to have the outside activities, it is also nice to have time to just chill out as a family. If your children are fighting a lot during a free play time, you may need to add a little structure into the picture. This could be as simple as providing Play-Doh or art supplies during that time of the day.
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