Start Celebrating Life With Children

Celebrating life with children is the key to dealing with the stress that can often accompany motherhood. It's a case of accepting that life after kids is totally transformed. If you try to continue with your pre-baby life you will just end up frustrated and stressed. You will find new ways to find enjoyment in life.

I try to find ways to incorporate good parenting into activities that must be done. The type of activities you can do will depend on the ages of your children. Here are some ideas to help you get more out of life with children:

Helping With The Housework

Even very young children love to help out with the housework; you can give them a duster or a small brush to use while you are cleaning up. Just remember to keep the polishes and sprays out of reach, or like me you'll find a polishy flood on your table! Child organization is great as it gets the children into the habit of being clean and tidy; less work for you and great for them!

Retail Therapy!

Grocery shopping is a real chore for moms; but kids love to go and it's a great opportunity for some real life education. They could choose a meal that they want to eat, and then write out the list of ingredients that they need to buy. You could go round the supermarket talking about where the various items originate from. You can always end the trip with a treat from the cafe!

Wash-day Blues!

Little ones can help you sort out the washing in piles according to colours, they will soon learn the names of all the colours. Slightly older children will like to help you to hang out the washing on an airer.

Hot Stuff!

Children from, say 12 years can learn to iron simple items, and will gain pleasure from their new skill.

Cooking Up A Feast

The children I have looked after, have all enjoyed cooking with me; a particular favourite is pizzas. You can go the whole hog and help them make dough from scratch, or you can cheat and use a ready made pizza base, super thick slice of bread or a pitta bread.

These activities are great for physical development, learning how to use equipment, knowledge of the world around them, reading and writing, and social and language skills.

Another way of celebrating life with children is to take time out on a regular basis to enjoy some simple pleasures as a family:

Get Cuddled-up

My lot love to cuddle up and watch TV on my bed, of course, finding a show that we all enjoy can be challenging with the wide age range, but we usually find something!

Get Watching

A particular favourite of my middle son Sammy is a family movie night. He gets to choose a movie and we all cuddle up together with a massive bowl of popcorn!

Get Walking

We also love to take a walk in the park or countryside. We take a football or cricket set and stop for a game along the trail. If there's a play area there too the boys love it!

Get Singing

Get a karaoke machine and belt out some classics together; got to be good for a laugh, right?!

Get Crafty

You could make cards, scrapbooks and homemade gifts or any kinds of crafts. It's great for stimulating kids' creativity.

Get Grateful

You could each make a gratitude journal, noting down the things you're thankful for each day. Thinking about and dwelling on things you're thankful for is a powerful way to shift your mind into a more positive space. Great for the kids too.

Celebrating life with children is a great way to live life, accepting it just the way it is and getting enjoyment out of every moment.