Parents, this one’s for you!
How do YOU take care of YOU?
I know what you are thinking. If you are like many of the parents I work with, parents of children with autism…there is NO time for YOU? Right? WRONG!
Sorry to be so blunt but there NEEDS to be time made for you. Why? Well if you don’t take the time to decompress and give yourself a break on a daily basis, you will be overtired and more stressed out. In turn, this effects your child. They can sense it on you (yup, they sure can!)
So for the sake of your child, you need to find some YOU time in your day. What does this look like? It could be 30 min to sit and eat your lunch when your child is in therapy or at school. It could be 15 minutes at the end of the day where you read a book or journal about all that went RIGHT in the day. If you need to get some things off your mind, then you could make a list of everything that went wrong, crumble it up (or rip it up into pieces) and throw it out! This type of rest and relaxation is restorative and healthy for you. It is a necessity! Like a medication that you need to take daily or a doctor appointment that you will get charged for (where the currency is anxiety and stress, and it will go up until you take that YOU time) if you do not take the time or make it to your self-care appointment.
So what can you start doing TODAY to take better care of you? Just a little bit of self-care in the form of YOU time will go a long way in helping you feel better and cope with the daily struggles. And in turn, it will help your child’s anxiety and stress levels, too. For that reason alone you should start spending some time on you beginning today.
Let’s do this!
With Love,
Hallie