Parenting With Pain & Illness: Parenting through a Flare
This post is a departure from some of my other blogs. This one is based more on my personal experience than what I usually write. I want first to acknowledge that I am not a parenting expert and I am not a child psychologist. However, I am a mother to young children, and I am also an expert on managing the emotional and day-to-day impact of chronic pain and illness. On top of that, I live with a chronic autoimmune disease, that does (at times) leave me with a lot of pain and fatigue, and it’s on those days that the overwhelming, never-ending task of parenting can feel almost impossible.
Those who know me, know that I preach about how I firmly believe in the importance of trying to do the things that matter in life even with pain, fatigue, and illness…but I must admit that even I experience days where it feels like it’s harder than I’d like it to be. This happened to me the other day, and in fact it’s what inspired me to write this post.
Let’s face it- raising kids these days is not easy, even for people who are not dealing with pain or illness. There are a million things to keep track of for school, appointments to make and attend, extracurricular activities to schedule, big feelings to manage, crises to help solve, meals to make (that may or may not get eaten), the list goes on and on. But for people who do experience pain and illness, the job can be even harder sometimes. So often when we are experiencing a flare-up of pain or other symptoms, we may want to take it easy, but taking it easy when you have kids isn’t always possible. I think back to an old commercial for an over the counter cold and flu medicine and its tagline: “Moms/Dads don’t get sick days”. It’s true- parents (and grandparents who are parenting grandchildren) don’t get sick days.
I have heard so many of my clients say the same thing. When I talk to people about scheduling breaks so they don’t over-do-it, they usually say “that sounds great, but I’ve got kids, I can’t just take a break for 30 minutes, multiple times a day”. Others tell me “I really think if I could just get a break from the stress of it all, I might not hurt as bad, but there’s no break.” I get it, I really do. Which brings me back to my inspiration for this post.
A few weeks ago, I had planned to spend an entire Sunday doing fun activities with my children, catching up on the never-ending piles of laundry that haunt my existence, and hopefully getting a little downtime before the start of my busy workweek. But my body had other plans for me. I woke up and instantly, I knew that something was not right. As a got out of bed I was overwhelmed by a sense of heaviness in my muscles and bones, achiness in my joints, and fatigue that made me feel like I was moving in slow motion- I was having a flare-up. For a minute, I considered getting back in bed, but then I heard my kids in the other room and I remembered…parents don’t get days off [not usually anyway]. The kids still needed to be fed, and I had promised to take them to the park, they did not care that I was having a flare-up.
So, after taking a moment to feel really irritated that I had to “push through”, I took a deep breath and remembered all of the strategies that I discuss with my clients and all of the strategies I have learned through experience. Here are some of those strategies that I wish to share with anyone who can relate to this situation:
*Before you read these, please note that all of these strategies are intended to be for people who are parenting with little to no outside help. I strongly encourage people to rely on their “village” if they have one, but not everyone does and not everyone feels comfortable doing so. I honed these strategies during the early days of the COVID19 pandemic when I was almost completely on my own with my little ones. These are also mostly geared to those parenting young children (as that is my experience); parenting older children may have a completely different set of challenges and strategies. Lastly, while these strategies are largely based on my personal experience, some (tips 1-3) are also aligned with the scientifically backed behavioral interventions that I work on with therapy clients. Here are some of those strategies that I wish to share with anyone who can relate to this situation.
1. Take a mindful minute to get your head in the game.
Before entering into the chaos of the day, it can be helpful to take a minute (or 5) to just get your head on right. Think about what your intention is for the day. Is it survive the day without losing your cool on the kids? Is it to make memories with them? Is it simply to make sure that everyone is fed, happy, and healthy? Set your intention, and then that is what you focus on for the day, let the other pressures go. It can be helpful to do some deep breathing or mindfulness exercises to help with this too; to learn more about mindfulness for pain and illness click here
2. Pace Yourself! Mix it Up!
I know that it can feel like you’ve got to constantly be “on” when you have kids, especially if your kids are very young or very active (or both), but it’s still important to pace yourself so that you do not over-do-it and end up making the flare worse. However, pacing will look different with kids.
I have personally found that it helps me to alternate between doing a more physically active activity (like playing chase or riding bikes) with a less physically demanding activity (like reading a book or arts and crafts). On days where I’m not feeling my best physically, those are the days where we pull out the LEGO™ and coloring books. I’m still spending quality time with my kids; it just looks different than the day may have looked if I wasn’t having a flare.
3. Limit your time on the floor
It can also help to be thoughtful about not spending too much time sitting on the floor. Most young kids LOVE to play on the floor, but if you have pain then you probably don’t love sitting on the floor. See if you can limit the amount of floor time, or alternate time on the floor with time standing or sitting at a table or couch. In my house, many of the activities we would usually do on the floor, end up moving to the table or coffee table so that I can sit more comfortably and prevent stiffness and pain.
4. Make Chores a Game
This is really a good strategy for younger kids. I have enlisted my kids’ help in doing the chores. We make games up like:
Who can fold the towels the fastest?
Count how many dishes we have
I’ve put the laundry in hampers and had my kids do a “race” to see who could get the hamper down the hall fastest.
Sometimes its not a game, but I just assign them age-appropriate ways to help get the job done.
Sometimes this eliminates physical burden on me (like carrying those laundry hampers), but sometimes it’s just a way to use time efficiently so that I’m still spending time with them while a much-needed task is getting accomplished. Get creative!
5. Make your freezer your friend
This one is a good strategy in general. I learned a long time ago that the only way for me to manage my hectic life was to learn to batch cook. When I cook, I purposefully make a huge batch of food (more than I would need for just one night of feeding my family), and I freeze about half of what I cooked. That way, on a day when I’m having a flare up, I don’t have to worry about cooking- I just have to defrost it, and viola-dinner is ready!
I hope that these strategies are helpful for anyone taking on the challenge of parenting while managing pain and illness. Here’s to surviving the sick days we’re not able to take.
