Family Time vs. Individual Time and Why Their Little Brains Need It!

Something that I always find myself struggling with is MY TIME! Granted, I am in the current process of being more organized I am constantly battling how I can better separate my time to still give the other 4 people in the family the 1 on 1 time they need with mama bear 😊 for starters, I noticed that everyone waking up at different times in the morning was not a bad thing. For a while I was so cranky because I just wanted all of my kids to wake up at one time, and we could start our morning from there. I am now seeing that this was so far from realistic, and that I even needed morning time to get myself together. My days are much more productive when I give myself that me time in the morning, then I am usually even better to deal with when the kids wake up, hahahaha. Usually, my 2-year-old is the first to grace us with his presence, he is the middle child, and most days acts as if he needs one on one attention the most. This is our time to pray, to laugh, start breakfast, watch a show, or I just listen to him babble away before he starts trying to wake his sisters. Once all three kids are up and the day has well begun, I try to remind myself to stop and pull them away from the group one by one. It is of course completely normal to want your kids to move to the same beat all day every day but pulling them away helps them to identify individual likes and needs not only what will be fun for their siblings. It also puts off a little light bulb in their head like, “Hey, mom just gave me some attention, and I really enjoyed that, I am still an individual”. Now your toddlers probably will not use those exact words, but I guarantee you it is what they are thinking! This applies to older kids as well, everyone wants that special time, everyone wants to have a little bit of spotlight. Trust me, as a parent I completely understand how difficult this task can be, especially when you feel like there is not enough time in the day. Just remember that they will not remember the days you struggled the most, or that they spent a lot of time in daycare or with grandma. They will remember how you made time count, that you put forth effort, that no matter how your schedule looked they knew for a fact there was time in the day just for you and them. No one said it would be easy, but some one did say it would be so worth it. Blessings