If you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed, I’m here with all the encouragement for moms to say that there is hope to not only survive but thrive!
Life as a mom can get crazy fast. And it can feel lonely and overwhelming at times trying to navigate through the chaos. Here are a few tips that have helped bring greater peace, joy and calm into my home.
This post is all about encouragement for moms.
1. Make Your Daily Spiritual & Mental Nourishment #1 Priority:
You cannot give to your family what you do not have! Pray for guidance as to the best way to schedule this for your individual personality and circumstances!
It’s very popular to de-junk your home, but even more crucial is de-junking your mind of negative, critical thoughts! Humble gospel study produces higher, refined thoughts for your more “heavenly home”!
It takes time to develop a solid trust in Jesus Christ. In this fallen world, uncertainty grows naturally like a thorn bush or weeds. Deliberate work is necessary for the flourishing tree of faith.
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Learn Words of Truth; Turn them into Prayers
As a busy young mom with many little ones, we need to put the truth where it can’t be missed! To memorize uplifting scriptures and quotes is like having an arsenal of help.
The bathroom mirror, a door or wall, the dashboard in your car, on the kitchen table using a stand, etc.
It’s essential to make the effort to train our minds to rule over our fickle feelings! Post your most needed “words of truth” around your house & car where you will see them often and memorize! Rotate as needed, but always keep working and learning!
[RELATED POST]: 45 POWERFUL SCRIPTURE PRAYERS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Feast on God’s Word Daily
Also, spend a minimum of 15 minutes a day studying the word of God and writing down your impressions. One hour is even more ideal if you can plan well. It is the spiritual, emotional, & mental “air you breathe” and not a selfish luxury.
For some added spiritual food or nourishment, try teaching children to read with an extra-large print version of The Holy Bible.
Special Books for Special Children
Two of my children struggled learning to read due to dyslexia, yet moved forward by reading a verse or two of scripture with me consistently. We had used several other reading programs without success!
Here’s a tried and tested illustrated bible story book that would also be wonderful to read with children.
“The Word of God is a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness. We can’t really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.”
Elisabeth Elliot
2. Establish Family Systems to Get Things Done
Get everyone to pitch in and work to bring physical order to your home. Your children will be much happier souls, without a doubt, and you will enjoy greater peace in your family! But unless you’ve been one of those wonderfully consistent parents, you may need to put up with a little or perhaps a lot of initial grumbling!
Create a Simple Family Chore System
Fairness seems to rule at my house, and I’ve been amazed by how a simple wheel rotation system kept our house from falling apart!
Some tasks on the wheel rotate monthly, such as sibling “buddies” and “laundry helper”. Other wheels rotate weekly, such as the various kitchen jobs, trash/recycle jobs, and pet jobs.
This is especially helpful for the more time-consuming or less desirable jobs around the house.
My children know everyone gets their fair turn and as a result, there is little if any complaining and jobs get done. Ahhh, I love it!
This simple, inexpensive solution can be changed easily with the seasons or with changes in children’s abilities or free time available. (i.e. we have “bring in wood” instead of “water garden” in the winter.)
I’ve tried countless systems and methods, but simple equals success in my book!
Side note: We currently only have an eleven year old, two youth, and four young adults living at home (two waiting for missions to begin, one just returned from a mission, etc.), so we have recently begun using the Sweepy app to organize home, yard, and pet/animals tasks. So far, I am loving it!
Meal Planning System
I think you can’t put a price on the smells and chemistry that permeate the home at the dinner hour. This is what everyone wants in their home. Harmony and peace and love abound in a house where dinner is being cooked and served.
Liz Edmunds, The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner
The Food Nanny recipes are always a hit in our family, and her meal planning system is simple to follow. I love the theme night idea because simplifies decision making.
For example, if it’s “stir-fry” night, I steam some rice in my rice cooker, chop a few different vegetables, and add some chicken from my freezer, or whatever I find in my freezer. Of course we usually season this with a little garlic and onions in a small amount of oil before adding the veggies, as well as sometimes add other healthy seasonings.
If it’s “Italian night,” we can make spaghetti, lasagna, or noodles with a garlic/parmesan white sauce, etc. “Mexican Night” could be bean burritos, taco salad, tacos, enchiladas, etc.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota “found that families that dine together tend to have healthier, more well-adjusted children. Their studies indicate that the more often children and teens eat with their parents—the happier, more structured these mealtimes are—the more the children gain these benefits: better nutrition, better language and literacy, fewer eating disorders, fewer risky behaviors.
Columbia University found teens who have fewer than three family dinners per week are: 2½ times likelier to smoke cigarettes, more than 1½ times likelier to drink alcohol, and almost three times likelier to try marijuana.
Suffice to say, family mealtime is a top priority, though it’s vital to give yourself grace in this area when life gets extra busy. But implementing a simple meal planning system can help take off the pressure many times when dinner time rolls around.
3. Guard Your Family Against Harmful Media
Media Safety Strategies
We use the “Screen Time” setting on all phones and iPads. We don’t permit internet surfing while alone or the wearing of headphones while watching Youtube.
The video can look completely innocent, for example, of a video game, and yet the audio in the video can be verbally pornographic and/or very suggestive.
We also keep our Apple TV or any smart TV remote put away until school and work are done (and at night) to reduce distractions. This helps to greatly simplify life; however, we as parents must still be constantly on guard when it comes to electronic media, movies, and music. Easier said than done, however!
Sure, it would be much easier and more convenient in the short run to say, “But I want to trust my child or children.” The fact is, as brain and developmental scientists have pointed out, that it is completely *natural* for children and youth to seek out things that will give their minds the most stimulation for the least amount of effort.
Satan knows this all too well and is targeting them constantly with more and more entertainment options and alluring media content. But that is why they are “the children” and we are “the parents.”
Prevent Sexual Addiction in Children & Youth
I’ve heard the most heartbreaking stories over the past few years of sexual addiction taking hold of children as young as eight, tragically leading to abuse of a sibling.
The parents didn’t realize the child knew the passcode to their personal smart phone. They were watching porn on the parent’s phone while they were sleeping.
Be constantly on guard to be a wise parent and do all you can to save the hearts, minds, and time for developing the talents of your family!
Also, avoid starting the tradition of sleepovers, especially while children are young. This will also simplify your life and greatly protect your children from danger.
This can sometimes be a controversial topic, but once again, please be wise and prayerfully consider this, as these decisions can profoundly impact your children for the rest of their lives.
4. Nurture the Knowledge of Who You Are
We absolutely cannot give to others what we don’t already own. Yet how can we possibly give unconditional love for our family and others and know how to treat them with sincere kindness and respect if we don’t already feel our own great worth from our eternal Father?
Because the world is designed to constantly tear down our self-worth as children of God, a top priority is to obtain the knowledge of your divine nature as a child of God, plant that seed of truth deep inside your heart, water it until it takes root, keep watering it, and also help your children to do the same.
This is something I didn’t fully realize early in my motherhood years. But it has made a huge impact on my life to finally realize that I was responsible for counseling myself with the truth through prayer in order to have my self-worth rooted deep within my heart and mind.
It can be easy to fall into the trap of believing we need other individuals to constantly lift us with praise. While that’s a lovely experience, personal confidence is just way too essential to be left to chance or to the choices of others.
The secret key to knowing how well you are doing with cultivating your divine individual worth as a daughter or son of God is to see how you handle rejection. For instance, if you are able to feel compassion or love for someone when they are complaining about something you did or didn’t do, you are perfectly on track with regards to your self-worth!
This may seem like a high bar to set, but when we are truly connected to our Father in heaven and the Savior’s perfect love, we are shielded from the negativity of this fallen world.
5. Be Selective of Outside Activities: Less is More
I’m still looking for the scripture that states we need to sign up our children for multiple various outside activities. Yes, I believe in developing many skills and talents, but we must know or at least feel strongly that it is God’s will before making regular commitments of our time and resources.
Please pray carefully before committing to a regular commitment or activity outside the home.
You may turn out to be surprised by your Heavenly Father’s responses as you pray over these things.
There have been various classes or things that I thought were great ideas, but after prayer, it became clear to me that Heavenly Father knew differently.
If we can simply be humble enough to realize that He can run our lives far better than we can, things will start to fall into place for us, and we will find PEACE.
6. Understand the Learning Styles of Your Children
I recommend reading The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias in order to identify the learning styles of your children and find ideas on how to best help them. Learning your child’s learning style will help him or her feel better supported and lead to more positive learning outcomes, rather than anxiety and frustration (for both the parent and child). When children learn in a way that resonates with them, they are more likely to succeed, which can boost their confidence and self-esteem.
Respect Different Kinds of Minds
Each of us has our own way of thinking and learning. When we take the time to observe and study the different kinds of minds, it’s far easier to appreciate those differences rather than to expect a child to learn the way we do.
We all bring something to the table, and it would be arrogant to think that our personal strengths are superior in any way. Thankfully, there are some excellent resources to help us gain understanding and therefore gratitude for these differences.
For example, in Temple Grandin’s book Different Kinds of Minds, she does an incredible job of doing this! She explains how over the years our U.S. public school system has become a place where verbal thinkers can do well but visual thinkers can greatly struggle.
Yet, “visual thinking has often helped scientists discover new ideas and solve complex mysteries. When chemist August Kekulé went to sleep one time, he dreamed of a snake forming a ring by holding its tail in its mouth.
When he woke up, he thought about that image more, and it led him to innovate the idea of the benzene ring. In organic chemistry, the benzene ring is an important concept that explains the structure of compounds such as gasoline.” (Different Kinds of Mind, by Temple Grandin) She gives many more inspiring examples in this excellent book.
The human potential being completely wasted as a result of this imbalance in education is truly heartbreaking—potential talents never cultivated that we desperately need as a society: great machinists, mechanical repair people, world-class chef’s, ground-breaking scientists, seamstresses, all types of artists, inspiring musicians, etc.
But your children do not need to get put into “a box” when it comes to having opportunities to develop their individual gifts and abilities!
7. You’ve Only Got One Body; Take Care of It
I have done my best, though far from perfect, to follow a whole foods, natural diet throughout my childbearing years. While growing up, however, I had a sweet tooth and ended up on antibiotics for tonsillitis so many times that they stopped working.
Right around that time, my older sister introduced my mom and me to Chinese herbal foods, and I was able to stop using antibiotics forever! Needless to say, this opened my mind to a whole new world of natural health and has greatly blessed my family.
My health gradually improved following my first very difficult pregnancy and delivery. Believe it or not, my tenth pregnancy and delivery at 40 years old was one of my very best!
My baby had a perfect ten Apgar score immediately after his birth. I don’t think I had ever seen that before with my other children. He was completely pink all the way down to the tips of his fingers and toes!
But I had given my body the nutrition it needed and had the support and education from a functional doctor, and it made a wonderful difference!
My experience has been that pregnancy can make your body even stronger if you will give your body the nutrients it needs. We focused a lot of energy on striving to eat as healthy as we could most of the time, while also using good supplements. (They make big difference for me personally!).
Without your health, all of the above becomes much more difficult, if not impossible.
YOU CAN DO THIS!
True joy comes in losing your life by building up and nurturing others. This is how we will joyfully find ourselves!
That is what the Lord Jesus Christ did.
We serve “the least of these” because we love, and in turn we are directly serving the Lord. We become refined and purified as we turn our whole heart and mind to the Lord. Our better character is the fruit of this entire, often stretching, process called motherhood!
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