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Family Friday Newsletter - 2 min read by: Finley Robinson

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A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead

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Survival Mode 🥺

Typical Parent Question: "How are you guys making it?"
Typical Parent's Answer: "Honestly, we're barely surviving."

I get why that's the response. I really do. When our kids were young, my wife and I found ourselves "barely surviving" all the time.

We had 3 kids, four and under, and most every day felt like a giant tug of war; parent's lives vs kid's needs.

Translation: the only thing that seemed to matter at the end of each day was if we "survived" or not. What is difficult to reconcile is how accustomed we got to living that way.

As our kids got older, what they needed evolved but our way of looking at each day and measuring it didn't.

Sadly, as we crawled into bed most nights our measuring stick for the day came down to one thing only, did we survive?

I wish I could say that we made an adjustment out of this cycle sooner, but we learned this lesson the hard way.

Better Measurement 🎈

To address the problem of the "did we survive" approach, I'd like you to picture a balloon.

You've filled it with helium, tied the knot and it is ready to float to the top of your ceiling. It stays there for a while, but when you come back the next day, it's now sitting on the floor.

Why? Because a full balloon only needs a tiny hole to deflate.

One simple microscopic hole is the difference between a balloon residing at the top of the ceiling and falling to the floor over time.

When your measurement as a mom or dad is for "survival" you leave little room for the hundreds of tiny things that are outside of your control.

Choosing to measure what was brought in to your family instead of what was missing is the better way.

Value Add 🤟🏼

For most days of parenting, positives can be in short supply. You will lie down in bed and question almost every choice you made.

But there are two things we found that kept reminding us of our value in our kid's lives...

• The long hope in who are kids were slowly becoming.
• Any sign confirming that we were doing something right.

The "did we survive" way of measuring each day focuses on all the things that don't go well. It focuses on the negatives:

A sibling fight.
A temper tantrum.
A forgotten backpack.
A refusal to finish dinner.
A display of extreme entitlement.

All tiny holes that deflate the daily balloon.

If you measure instead with what you bring in to the lives of your kids over weeks and months, your hope and days will be fuller, I promise.

Books read.
Mouths fed.
Stories told.
Tears wiped.
Miles driven.
Giggles heard.
Lunches packed.
Backs scratched.
Strollers pushed.

Your value and impact as a mom or dad isn't defined by how hard you work for your kids. Not. At. All.

But your words, care, discipline, hugs, jokes, prayers, high-fives, stories, corrections and affirmations bring so much more to your home than you can truly measure.

Stop measuring days. Just stop. Days are hard.

Instead: Craft moments. Celebrate weeks. Reflect on months.

Celebrate the two steps forward even though the three steps back are easier to criticize.

When you slowly move further away from the daily "did we survive" you will find yourself in a more enriching emotional place.

Ok, good pep talk. Time to go survive the weekend 😉

Finley

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