Author: Dr. Malie Coyne
“Put your own oxygen mask on first” – Something about that concept always resonated with me on my travels as a child and even today... I asked myself why on earth would a parent put their own mask on before tending to their most precious children? Well it really is starting to make sense to me now, and I cannot fully attribute it to my years of psychology experience working with children and parents... Rather it is my personal experience of being a mother to two young children, aged 4 and 2, which have really brought the message home to me!
Parenting is a complete rollercoaster ride from conception to… forever! It is one of the most wonderful and fulfilling experiences in the world, and nothing can really match up to creating a human being and witnessing their growth and development. Nothing can really prepare you either for how hard and challenging it can be. It just takes such a toll on your personal resources (sleep, patience, decision-making, relationships, finances, the list is endless), and really your whole sense of self has to shift in a major way to adapt.
Our roles as parents are so multi-faceted and go well beyond providing for our children’s basic needs for shelter, food and education. We play a crucial role in helping our children to regulate their emotions, which requires a lot of self-control on our part and an ability to regulate our own emotions.
To be a calm, loving and empathic parent you need to take good care of yourself. This means recognizing your feelings and the time you need to restore mental and physical balance. This is why I like the metaphor of “putting your own oxygen mask on first”, because it physically reminds us that we cannot care for our children unless we get the time to recharge our batteries and to bring our brain and body’s stress chemicals back to base rate. Every one of us has a different “recharge” mechanism and it is a matter of finding what works for you and really prioritising the time to do it.
Tune in for my series of “Self-Care” articles in the coming weeks, which will explore the impact of parenting on many aspects of our lives and suggest simple ways to seek experiences which will “nourish” rather than “deplete” your resources. Many of these ideas I have gleaned from my belief in working positively with children and families rather than always focusing on the negative, which I find really empowers individuals to find the strength within them to overcome their difficulties.
Should you have any other ideas which you have found helpful along your journey of parenthood, please do share either publicly or privately, as we are all in the same boat and could really learn from one another. These ideas will no doubt be useful in promoting our positive mental and physical health, which provides us with the much needed scaffolding to cope with life’s many ups and downs.