Finding a Balance: How to Make Each Child Feel Special When You Have a Big Family
Hello friends! Every few weeks, I answer a parenting question on my blog. If this question can help you or a loved one, I encourage you to read this blog post and share it. Also, if you want to ask your own parenting question, please submit it here. Today’s question revolves around “How do I make each child feel special in a big family?”
Today’s Question:
I feel like I’m getting in a rut. I know I’m supposed to spend the one on one time with each kid per day (I have 4 that are 10, 8, 5 and 3). We homeschool and so I feel like our schedule is so packed. My hurdle with the individual time right now is I feel like I’m choosing between them and getting in my “me time”. I love spending time with them and feel guilty when I don’t. For example, if I choose to exercise, I have to sacrifice someone’s special time and then I feel guilty.
Do you have any suggestions about how to be better at this when you have a big family? I don’t count school time as special time obviously. I am probably spending more time with them than I realize because I tuck them all in at night and we read, we pray every night (almost…some nights are just late with extracurriculars), I’ll take just one with me sometimes for an errand, etc. But I still see the behavior issues so I feel like it’s not enough.
Would love to have more insight on what your schedule is like with a big family and how to make each of them feel special each day.
Answer: How to make each child feel special in a big family?
I completely get it and understand how difficult it can be to spend one-on-one time with every child every day and try to take care of yourself, plus manage all the roles and things we juggle like teaching homeschooling, housekeeping, tending to marriage, families, extra activities and dozens of other things! I am right there with you, and often feel like I am just trying to keep my head above water!
If we were having coffee or lunch together, I would ask you, what would you want this special time to look like? What is your vision for it?
Something that has helped me a lot with the guilt is just to realize I can’t do it all. I am a limited person, and only God can do it all. I only have so much energy, bandwidth and time. This has helped me live in reality and realize there are things I need to let go of, say no to, drop out of, ask for help, let go of perfection and just let things be good enough.
I would also ask you, what are your main priorities? And then to choose 2-5 big “rocks” in your life to do every day. For me it is:
Prioritizing my Big Rocks:
- Spend time with God in prayer and the Word
- Spend time running or walking or some exercise
- Homeschool or at least read Bible with children
- Spend special quality time with at least one child
- Journal at night and have some quiet time alone
As you can see, I don’t spend special time with each child every day, but I am committed to spending that special quality time with at least one child/day. Since this is a choice I made right now in my life and in the season I am in, I choose not to feel guilty about it (at least most of the time!) It’s neat because sometimes I do end up having more time and I choose to spend time with a second or third child. Most days I get to spend special time with 2 or 3 of my children/day and then I rotate the days. But I only commit to one, so if that’s all I have time for, I just do that, and I don’t feel guilty about it.
Plus, since you and I homeschool, we spend A LOT of time with our children already. From doing school, chores, breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus running around doing the activities and errands, they get a lot of quality and quantity time with mom.
How to make each child feel special in a big family?
Make Little Deposits
In addition, I heard a speaker once say to deposit time into your children like you make deposits into a car meter. You put some money in and then you go do your thing, and then you come back and put another deposit into the meter. Often, we can put even small deposits of 5 minutes of time throughout the day with our children. Reading a book for 5 min, playing a card game, just listening to our child with no distractions, these can all be little deposits of time we give throughout the day.
Lastly, what if you wrote out all the possibilities you can think of? It’s encouraging when we realize there are possibilities. Then if you get in that rut again, you could pull out your list to remind yourself you do have choices and pray about the next right step for you to take. For example, I did this myself to see what ideas I could come up with to spend more special time with my kids. These are some of the ideas I thought of:
Brainstorm Ideas to Spend Quality Time
- Getting a helper for school to get time with one child
- Start cooking dinner and then have special time with a child while waiting for dinner to cook (I do this one a lot)
- Take a break from school to do something fun
- Scheduling the time in a calendar and keeping it like an appt
- Asking another mom, friend or spouse to be an accountability partner for me
- Brain dumping all my to do’s, and start seeing what I can remove, delegate or say no to
As you can see, it’s pretty neat when we just start writing down all the possibilities, even if it’s something we can’t do at this moment, it shows us we do have choices.
In conclusion, it sounds like you are doing an amazing job and the fact that you want to grow more in this area shows me what a great and loving mom you are. You are also right that self-care is so important as well. If you’re pouring from an empty cup, it won’t do anyone any good.
I hope this encourages you to do what you can, in the season that you are in and to not feel guilty about it, but to choose joy with your children as you do spend time with them.
What brainstorming ideas do you have for this mama? Put it in the comments below.
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