And while Bob and I run this home together it is I who create the day to day feeling of home among the six of us.
As the heart of our home it is my job to be on top of the tone in our home. Am I doing everything I can do to create a comfortable home where all 6 of us can live? Am I helping our kids live up to the best of their ability? Am I taking care of myself so that I can make sure that I have the energy and mental resources to offer my kids and husband the best version of myself? Am I consistently creating the type of environment that I want to model for my children? Am I giving them the tools to help them becoming fully functioning adults? Am I seeing my kids physical cues when something is amiss in their lives particularly when they are not able to verbalize the potential issue yet? Am I nurturing them in the ways that they each need to be nurtured? Is my general mood/tone/outlook on life positive or negative? Am I being the best homemaker that I can be? Am I being lazy in my duties to provide the best home I can? If so, why? And so on and so forth.
I have noticed that we have been leaking some of our values and core beliefs slowly over time. In fact, some of these ideals were drifting away so slowly I didn't even realize they were so depleted until my boys pointed it out in a much needed heart to heart conversation that we had yesterday afternoon.
I am thankful that my children feel they can come to me. I have really worked hard to build that kind of open door relationship with them, and even though they came to me with some constructive criticism/concerns of my parenting and how our family is run, I appreciate their feedback all the more because I know how difficult it was for them to speak their minds.
Their feedback was mostly nothing that I did not already know, but it was so important because it is the final straw that is motivating me to get my act together in some ways that I have been sorely lacking. Some times facing hard truths can only be done when motivated to see these truths through the eyes of your children.
The details of our conversation are not anything that I am going to share as I think it would really bother my boys, but especially Josh if he knew that I was so open with you all about the things he was holding close to his heart. Suffice it to say that some of the stuff has to deal with the day to day things that happen in our home, but others are deeper issues that will be addressed.
The cool thing about this situation is that I know how to fix it. The uncool thing is how hard it is going to be to get back on the path of where I want our family headed. I can do hard things though. I can do hard especially for the sake of my family.
I am thankful that this conversation occurred this week. I had already been thinking of some changes that I wanted to make in the upcoming year. The boys concerns have prompted me to look harder at what I was already looking at, but also to look beyond what I was looking at. It is times like these that I am thankful that I am such a deep thinker. I am glad that I have mastered the skill of looking at personal problems from just about every angle. This will certainly help me when tackling some of the issues that have popped up and have prevented us from being the best family of 6 we can be.
I look forward to addressing these issues one and two at a time until we are running at our full potential once again.
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