To all the burnt-out mums, who’ve already done nearly 17 weeks at home. You need to do the following!

“Can you drop me off at …”

“I’m hungry, why have we not got any ham”

“where are the trainer socks”

“what’s wrong with the internet, Mum can you reset the box”

I keep reading lots of news articles about children’s mental health during the COVID pandemic, these articles are very rightly pointing out that our children are struggling during the lockdown. They are highlighting the very real danger of some children at home in abusive families. These articles are very important, but what is also important is highlighting the ever-increasing toll on parents, the parents that are holding their own worry about the virus, while trying to care for their children as well.

The children that have additional needs, the weed smokers, the depressed teenager, the lonely teenager, the children going through a divorce, the teenage girl with an eating disorder etc.

This pandemic is hard and takes 40% of your thought process without the above issues. WE have now done the equivalent of nearly 3 summer holidays at home !

So, what needs to happen now is that you look after yourself properly, so that when you open your eyes in the morning you are not just thinking of going to bed that night.

You will need to find your own version of what I am about to describe, but you need to do it in one form or other.

Today I left my son watching YouTube and my daughter getting ready for her part-time job and walked on the beach in the pouring rain (I didn’t drive into the distance, I live across the road from the beach) When I was there, I took my shoes off (sensory stimulation) and I noticed things on the beach. The barnacles on the pebbles in rock pools, why? because I like the look and feel of them and I want to find out more.

I noticed some men out in the bay digging, working hard. I decided to go over and ask what the task was, they were securing their moorings for the boats for the bad weather. I took my hood down and enjoyed the rain. I took some photos and then I googled some of the things I captured (cognitive stimulation)

I took some deep breaths, 4-6-8 breathing (somatic stimulation)

I noticed that the tide was right out and wondered where we were in the monthly moon cycle, I guessed and I was right.

I basically did something that didn’t involve meeting anybody else’s need.

When anything becomes too narrow in focus, we lose perspective and we zone in on what is crap. According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts.

I’m not saying you should change those thoughts to positive, I am advocating that you should change your environment for 30 minutes, three times a week to allow neutral stuff to come through.

If we don’t, we burn out and become resentful.

And just for the record, it is now totally appropriate to shout ‘WHAT NOW’ loudly when they shout MUM at this stage of the pandemic.