I Thessalonians 5:11 says to keep encouraging each other. One of the times in parenting that I needed the most encouragement was when my kids were preschoolers.
When my kids were preschoolers it felt a like they were black holes. They sucked so much from my husband and me. They still needed many of their physical and emotional needs taken care of by us. They also had growing relational needs as they tried to learn how to get along with each other and their circle of friends. They could talk and had opinions about everything. Discipline became an increasing need. And what were their educational needs, should they be reading? Doing math? The list of real and potential needs went on and on.
It’s quite amazing, all the things that have to happen in the life of a family with preschoolers. Whether you are home or working there is just so much to manage.
Did you know that our will power and ability to make good decisions is a limited psychological resource? At some point in your day it is reasonable that you’d feel depleted and have difficulty being patient and having the energy to make decisions for and with your kids.
Here’s where my encouragement comes. Hopefully, even hearing that you’re normal for feeling like you can’t make one more decision by 3pm will be encouraging to you. I realize though that you’re not done with your day at 3pm. A new study looked at several research projects that investigated how to rebuild our depleted self-control and decision-making energy. This study found that positive affect, or laughter and joy, had the impact of refueling people. In the research they created positive affect by showing people funny YouTube videos. When people watched the videos and laughed their ability to have self-control and good decision-making improved. And it only took a few minutes to have this effect.
So what makes you laugh?
I’d encourage you to take a few minutes when you’re feeling especially depleted to watch a video, read something funny from Facebook, have a friend tell you a funny story or joke. It’s a simple thing that could have a big reward if you feel a little more energy to face dinner, bath and bedtime.
