Why Self-Care is Important for Parents and Caregivers

Taking Care of Yourself 

Let’s face it - being a parent is not easy. Everything you do always seems to revolve around your children, as they are your main priority. You spend every day striving to keep them happy and healthy, but when was the last time you did that for yourself? The concept of self-care may seem easy, but many parents struggle to make it a priority. Your emotional, physical and mental well-being is just as important as your child’s, so why don’t we talk about that more? The truth is, many parents have the mindset that their children always come first. Although that is true, there is actually a tie for first place; your child AND you. There is a lot of stress that comes with being a parent, and if you feel stressed out, that is OKAY. Practising self-care rituals may not solve everything, but it can help bring balance to your life and relieve stress. Make yourself a priority. Focus on yourself for a minimum of 5 minutes per day, that’s all you need to help maintain positive well-being.

“I Don’t Have Time for Self-Care”

Not having time seems to be a common misconception for taking care of oneself. It can definitely be hard to fit everything you need to do into a small amount of time, there are only so many hours in a day! That being said, in order to practice self-care, you must dedicate a block of time for you, and only you. This can mean getting up a little earlier, or it can be as soon as you put the kids to bed. Decide what works best for you and your routine, and make it your time. Choose how much time you want to dedicate to yourself for the day - you may only have time for 10 minutes today, but you may have time for 30 minutes tomorrow. Be smart about managing your time, but still make it your priority. 

Finally, practice self-care rituals that truly bring peace and joy to your life. Self-care should never be a chore, ensure you are genuinely enjoying your practices so that you can look forward to them each day.

How can I Practice Self-Care?

Self-care is anything that brings joy to your life; it’s different for everyone and there is no “right way” to do it. You can spend 10 minutes practicing self-care or 1 hour; as long as you take the time to focus on yourself, you’re doing great. Keep in mind to practice self-care rituals that maintain positive emotional, physical and mental well-being. Each aspect helps contribute to an overall healthy lifestyle. Here are SOME ideas on how you can practice self-care that contribute to all aspects of positive well-being, as well as how long each activity can take. But remember, the list is endless, so be creative and make this about YOU.

• Taking a bubble bath or a long, hot shower → 20-30 minutes

• Read a good book → 30 minutes - 1 hour 

• Go to the gym → 30 minutes - 1 hour 

• Drink a glass of water → 5 minutes 

• Go for a run/bike ride/walk down the street → 10-20 minutes 

• Meditate → 5-10 minutes 

• Write in a journal → 5-10 minutes 

• Eat something healthy → 5 minutes 

• Cook your favourite meal → 15-30 minutes 

• Stretch → 5-10 minutes 

• Listen to your favourite music → 5-10 minutes 

• Watch an episode of your favourite TV show → 30 minutes 

• Treat yourself to your favourite junk food → 5 minutes 

• Stand in the sunshine → 5 minutes

• Plan out your day → 5 minutes 

• Go shopping → 1 hour 

• Call someone you love → 5-15 minutes 

• Take a nap/sleep in/go to bed early → 20 minutes 

• Watch the sunrise/sunset → 20 minutes 

• Read daily affirmations or inspirational quotes → 5-10 minutes 

• Make a gratitude list → 5-10 minutes 

• Do something that makes you smile

• Do something that makes you laugh

• Set goals for yourself, both short term and long term 

• Try something new

How Can I Support my Child at Home?

It can be alarming and overwhelming hearing from your Doctor that your child has autism. An autism diagnosis can be difficult to accept and come to terms with. This is maybe a new thing for you and you may have a hard time coping with this type of condition that you don’t know much about. You may try to find new ways for everyone in the family to live together and cope with your new situation but you end up finding it challenging and depressing in spite of all your efforts.

After the shocking news of your child having been diagnosed with autism, you may feel lost and feel like not given help or guidance on what to do next. Moving on from the diagnosis can be frightening, but there are many things you can do to overcome the challenges that you may encounter with having a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

 

Learn about Autism

Learning about the condition of your child will help you to be better equipped and more ready in making good decisions for your child. Educate yourself (e.g., reading books, articles, research studies about autism, joining seminars about autism, joining ASD support group, etc.) and seek a variety of possible treatment options (e.g., ABA Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, etc.), ask some experts (e.g., asking BCBAs, Doctors, teachers, etc.) or other parents (e.g., joining parents group, etc.) questions, and have yourself be ready to participate in all treatment decisions.

Accept your child

You may observe that your child may be different from other children but learn and practice to accept your child rather than focusing on what is ‘missing.’ Enjoy your child’s special skills and abilities, rejoice in every small step of improvements and successes, and try to stop comparing your child to others. The gift of unconditional love, acceptance and not giving up are the things that your child needs to cope with and enjoy life.

Observe your child

Learn everything about your child. This simply means that you have to observe your child and find out the things that trigger your child to engage in challenging or disruptive behaviors or the things that will elicit more appropriate behaviors. Try to find the things that will make your child feel calmer, comfortable or what makes him/her enjoyable. In addition, try to check the things that can be stressful or frightening to your child. Understanding your child will help you to become better at solving or finding out solutions to the problems or at modifying challenging situations that you may encounter at home.

Provide a structure at home

Setting up a structure at home will help you and your child cope in any challenging situations that you may face every day. One way of creating a structure is to set up a routine using a daily schedule. A daily schedule can consist of a list of activities from morning until bedtime. You can use visual support (e.g., pictures/images, written words, etc.) on your schedule to help your child to have a clear view of what is going to happen throughout the day. In going through each activity on the schedule, as parents, you have to be consistent, be predictable and you must follow through with all your instructions or activities that you want your child to comply with. Please refer to our previous blog about setting up a structure at home.

Be part of the treatment team

 Having a child with autism can be challenging and that you need support from other professionals who are experts in helping your child reach their full potential and learn to overcome their challenges. Knowing and learning everything about autism and participating in the treatment plan are essential keys to understanding and helping your child. You may have your child receive all the therapy treatment that he/she needs (e.g., behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, etc.) but your child will only have a few hours of learning opportunity with them and have more time at home with his/her family.

 As parents, it is important to collaborate with your therapy team. Treatment will not end at the therapy clinic. You may feel relaxed and comfortable knowing that your child is receiving all the needed help but it doesn’t end there. The biggest part and the most important part of your child’s life is his/her home. It is the place where the child spends most of his/her time and the place where he/she starts and ends day-to-day activities.

 It is very important for you and your family to learn how to deal with your child’s behaviors at home. The key is consistency. Try to seek help or training from your therapy team (e.g., joining parent training, observing actual therapy sessions, etc.) on how to implement the behavior modification techniques in place. Being consistent means doing the same thing in the same way over and over again in dealing with your child’s behavior at home, to different environments and across people. You have to follow through at home with whatever way your therapy team handles your child’s behavior. This can include learning how to reinforce appropriate behaviors and not to reinforce disruptive behaviors.

These are just a few of the most important and basic things you need to know to help you and your family on how to support your child at home. Having a child diagnosed with autism can be very alarming and overwhelming at first. But as you journey through the challenges and enjoyable moments with your child while applying everything that you learned, life gets easier. 

Evening and Bedtime Routines

How well we sleep has a major impact on our day to day life, from how well we can remember and concentrate, to how optimistic we feel about the day ahead of us when we wake up (Ram et al., 2010). The fact is that the better we sleep, the better we feel and perform. For many individuals, a reliable routine at evening and bedtime can help bring reliability and quality to their sleep, which in turn improves the quality of their days.

A Brief Testimonial on Evening Routines

When I was young and having trouble sleeping my dad told me to get my sleep “on a schedule”. I was a rebellious teenager so I didn’t listen, at first. A few sleepless months later I finally asked my dad to explain what he meant by “getting my sleep on a schedule”. He explained that what he meant was this; first, he wanted me to decide what time I wanted to be asleep by every night. Then he wanted me to make sure that I had everything done 15 minutes before the time I set to go to bed. In order to do that I needed a routine to follow.

“But what if I don’t fall asleep?” I asked. He told me, “follow your routine and then get in bed at the time you set and don’t get out of bed until your alarm clock rings in the morning”. That seemed impossible, was I just supposed to lay there all night and pretend to sleep? It turned out the answer was, “yes”. About 2 weeks of following my evening routine and “pretending to be asleep” had me sleeping through the night. It was the routine that made it possible. I made sure that my routine stayed basically the same every night and that I had things in it that I find relaxing.

Remember Pavlov and his dogs? They got so used to hearing a bell and then tasting meat powder that they started to drool when they heard the bell, what those in ABA call “conditioning”. Essentially, the dogs associated the sound of the bell with the taste of meat. For me my evening routine became like the bell, a signal that it was time to relax and go to sleep. The above example is personal of course, but the basics of a good evening schedule apply to anyone trying to ease some of the stress of their evenings.

The Basics of an Effective Evening/Bedtime Routine

• Find the time you, or your child, needs to be in bed by

• Set a schedule that allows you, or your child, to finish all nightly tasks 15 minutes before the target time

  • This could include;

    • Finishing homework

    • Taking a bath

    • Bedtime stories

    • Doing household chores

    • Anything you or your child needs to do before going to bed

• Stick to the schedule

  • This is by far the hardest part, but it is eased greatly by an effective schedule. We will talk more about this later

  • Keep the schedule flexible and tweak it as needed

Now let’s look at each step a bit more closely

Finding Bedtime

Bedtime will be different for everyone and will depend on environmental and  personal factors (like the time that school starts or people that feel energized with just a few hours of sleep). When finding the right time for bed ask yourself some questions. How much sleep does this person need? As a general rule, kids need more sleep than adults, especially as they are growing. Common bedtimes are 7:30 - 9:30, with bedtimes getting later as a child ages. The next question to ask is, “How much time does this person need to get ready the next morning?” Some people need a long start up in the morning. If you or your child is one of these people, consider getting to bed a little earlier so that you can get up with plenty of time to get ready. 

Setting the Schedule

Everyone’s evenings look a little different. Some people eat dinner at 4 or 5 and so it might be the first item on the list for the evening routine. Others may have family members not get home from work until 8 or later and so dinner might be one of the last items on the evening routine. The order of the schedule doesn’t matter as much as there being a schedule. 

I like to schedule in what I call “blocks” of time. Let me give you an example. My evening schedule has a “dinner” block first and I have it scheduled for 6 to 7pm. That means that I can start my dinner any time between 6 and 7. That way, if I am doing something I like at 5:54pm, I don’t have to stress about stopping by 6pm. I will continue. Next I have my “hygiene” block that I can start anywhere from 7 to 9pm. My hygiene block includes all things I do for my health at night time, like taking my medication and brushing my teeth. Next is my “wind-down” block that is right before bed. I can’t start my wind-down block until I finish my dinner and hygiene blocks, and it has to be finished by 10pm. That means I am ready to climb into bed by 10:30.

Let’s look at this applied to an evening routine for a child.

It may look something like this; 

• Evening chores and homework 3:30pm to 5:30pm

• Dinner 5:30pm to 6:30pm

• Free time 6:30 to 7:00

• Bath and Story time 7:00 to 8:00

• In bed by 8:30

I try to set a relaxed and calm tone starting at Bath and Story time. What that looks like is that I don’t play loud games or do tickle fights with my kids once bath and story time starts. Instead, I provide a lot of hugs, rub their backs, and talk to them about their day.

Sticking to the Schedule

Sticking to the schedule can be the toughest part, but a good routine helps. Include things in your routine that are relaxing like nice smells, soft towels, and calm music. Spend time talking and being with your child during all parts of the evening routine possible. Sticking to the schedule means that you make sure to do everything on the evening routine by the times set. It also means that you don’t do things that are not on the schedule, like getting out of bed after bedtime. 

If this is a repeat issue for your child I suggest 2 things. First, create a bedtime pass. This functions almost exactly like a hall pass in school, meaning that the child is given the pass to get out of bed for any reason, be it a drink or a hug or to go to the bathroom. Once they have used the bedtime pass, it is gone until the next night.

Second is to explain to your kids what will happen at bedtime if they get out of their bed, and then follow through. My kids and I agreed that I would sit outside my kid’s room for as long as it took them to stay in their beds at night. The consequence for opening their door and coming out was that I would stand in front of their door and direct them back to their bed. If they didn’t respond, I would put them back in their room and close the door. 

I recommend staying calm and factual with your kids after bedtime, like a police officer that has pulled you over. Tell them what you need them to do and explain what will happen if they are unable to follow through. I used the bedtime pass with my children and found that it really helped as most of the time my kids didn’t even use it. 

Here is wishing you the best of luck in your quest for an evening with less stress!

References 

Ram, S., Seirawan, H., Kumar, S.K.S. et al. Prevalence and impact of sleep disorders and sleep habits in the United States. Sleep Breath 14, 63–70 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-009-0281-3