Couple With Children
The wait is finally over - your bundle of joy has arrived! And so have the sleepless nights. Congratulations on becoming a parent – one of the most beautiful yet challenging experiences in the world! Suddenly each day brings with it new joys, new struggles, new emotions and new challenges. The responsibility to take care of another life may seem overwhelming yet you wonder how you lived your life so far without this baby.
Emotionally accepting the new member into the family isn’t hard initially because babies come to us in cute innocent packages that open our hearts. Unfortunately, in the middle of the night we may wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into. Nevertheless, we adjust the marital system to make space for our children - juggling childrearing, financial and household tasks.
Soon as the baby grows, challenges also grow – child care, school, academics, sibling rivalry, play, discipline, marital issues, role of grandparents, stress and work life balance take centre stage.
The most important tasks that you and your spouse need to accomplish in this stage for the wellbeing of your family are: • Adjusting your marital system to make space for your children. • Emotionally accepting new members into the system • Realigning your relationships with your extended family to include parenting and grand parenting roles. • Nurturing the child in all areas –physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual • Facilitating children to develop peer relationships
Like marriage, none of us grew up with a text book for becoming good parents. So we learn on the job, often feeling we’re not good enough. Apart from the emotional stress, we may long for privacy and time with our spouse. And suddenly balancing between our baby, spouse, work, extended family and time with ourselves seem daunting.
|
|
Karl Menninger quotes ‘Being a parent, whether father or mother, is the most difficult task humans have to perform. For people, unlike other animals, are not born knowing how to be parents – most of us struggle through.’
If you’re feeling stressed about your parenting role or find yourself unable to cope between the demands of your marriage, work and child – consider talking it over with a trained counsellor who will journey with you in helping you find time for yourself , thereby equipping you with ideas for coping with your struggles.
Talkitover provides individual counselling services where you can come by yourself and discuss your struggles with a trained professional. We also provide couples counselling services where you can come together as a couple and discuss your struggles with the trained professional.