Dealing With Family Stress

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Title: Dealing With Family Stress

Word Count: 849

Author: Trevor Dumbleton

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Dealing With Family Stress

Copyright 2005 Trevor Dumbleton

One of the problems with family stress is the fact that is

knows where you live. After all, it tends to show up

exactly where you live: at home. This tends to be a bad

thing, since working people generally try to come home in

order to relieve their stress. Of course, it is even worse

for those who are full-time homemakers, since the source of

stress is there all the time. In fact, even going to a job

every day seems like it would be a nice stress relief.

Thus, when family stress starts rearing its ugly head, it

is time to take stock of things and figure out a way of

lessening it.

The first thing to do, when dealing with family stress, is

to let go of the illusion that the home is somehow a place

a rest and tranquility that is utterly free from any sort

of stress. Let's face it, it's just not true. Though you

love your family and enjoy spending time with them, home

life can be very stressful. After all, you have many

people there who have a lot of expectations of you and you

cannot fulfill all of those expectation all of the time.

So understand that stress can enter the home and you will

be halfway there.

The next step in lessening family stress is to actually

spend time with your family. One of the best ways to spend

time with your family is at the dinner table. Just sitting

down with your entire family and enjoying a meal is a way

to connect with everyone. Do not eat dinner in front of

the television but, rather, sit in the dining room or

kitchen and just share a meal. At first, it may be quiet

and there may not be much to talk about, but this will come

in time. As it slowly sink into your family members' minds

that there is nothing to do but talk to each other,

conversation will start flowing.

The next step in alleviating family stress is to have fewer

expectations of your family members. Yes, you expect your

spouse to be absolutely devoted to everything you say and

do, you expect your kids to be straight-A students and you

expect your home to be immaculate all the time every day.

Tip for you: Not going to happen. Homes are not perfect

any more than people are perfect. As in, not at all.

Imperfections are part of home life and you will need to

learn how to deal with them. Accept the bad, enjoy the

good, and let everyone be human. Then everyone will have

much less stress and, as a result, everyone will be much

happier.

Next, accept the fact that you are not a superhero.

Despite the fact that you want to be able to work hard

every day, spend plenty of time with your kids, drive them

to every sports/music/dance practice and be there for every

game/recital/performance, it is not going to happen. Yes,

you can make every effort to be there all the time and it

is very important that you try, you cannot be everyplace

all at once. Learn to appreciate the fact that you are not

going to be perfect. You may try and you may be largely

successful, but you cannot be everything you wish you could

be. So accept your own humanity and allow yourself to be

human too.

Finally, when you want to relieve family stress, do not

force it. Yes, you want everything to come easy and you

want to be able to connect with your kids all the time, but

that is not always possible. Children change, often in

surprising ways, and you need to learn how to accept that.

This is especially difficult with teenage children, since

they tend to be moody, elusive, and sometimes even

obnoxious. However, by accepting them for who they are and

dealing with the fact that they are not ready to open up to

you all at once, you will relieve a great deal of family

stress. This is especially true if you have not been able

to reach them for some time, since they tend to be closed

off and reluctant to open up to their parents. So accept

that it will take some time for you to make some

connections and understand that things may not always be as

easy as you hope. After all, if something was easy, it

wouldn't be worth doing, would it?

Family stress is difficult to deal with, but it is not

impossible. By accepting your own limitations, as well as

those of your family, you can save yourself a lot of worry

and concern by simply understanding that your family is

composed of different people. Different people who have

their own lives, their own concerns, and their own unique

way of seeing things. By accepting that, you can

understand their points of view and come to grips with the

fact that family stress is, oftentimes, just a fact of life.

About the Author:

LowerYourStress.com: for everything to do with stress. Get

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