avatarKeith Dias

Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

4121

Abstract

p id="db15">For example, my husband put a stop to my way of trying to get our son to eat his meals and stop being fussy because it just wasn’t working. After a certain period of time of him implementing his own way of doing things, which was firmer and stricter than I would’ve liked, I started to see some changes in my son and how he would sit down to eat the entire plate of food in front of him.</p><p id="21fa">Now, Andriel looks forward to sitting down next to his parents and mostly eats his entire plate, including the veg. My husband was right, and I was wrong — at least for a period of time (because no one knows the future and kids are unpredictable!)</p><p id="60fc"><b>But my husband didn’t say “I told you so”.</b> He didn’t discredit me as a mother, even if I did question my own decision making. He understood that being wrong is not a bad thing, and also, that <b>I wasn’t “wrong” to begin with</b>. Some things work, and some things don’t work for our children. And some things work for a while and then need to be changed. And that’s OK.</p><p id="4e9d">Parenting, while continuous, is flexible.</p><p id="ec93"><a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-successfully-wing-it-d39222a3d808">And we are all winging it.</a></p><h1 id="101b">Lowering Expectations Is Empowering</h1><p id="cde5">I have this constant need as the main caregiver to simply know what to do and get it right — especially after all the research I do on many aspects of parenting. But the thing is, it is only because of my own expectations that we get upset when things don’t work out. We paint a picture of how things will go, and when they don’t go our way, we self-criticise.</p><p id="3b33">Recently, I have been struggling to make the decision of whether to send our son to daycare. Because of the recent lockdowns, I feared that he wasn’t getting enough social stimulation and he needed to spend more time with other children. We decided to send him to a local nursery two mornings a week.</p><p id="fec8">But that wasn’t my only reason for wanting to send him there. I also needed more time to really step up my game as a writer, begin marketing myself and really work on my book.</p><p id="fa4a">But I’m tired of questioning myself, and <a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-get-what-you-want-1973fd008ecb">since taking the road to self-care</a> in order to be a better mother and person, I decided that my reasons were as good as any to send Andriel to daycare at the age of 27 months.</p><p id="d466">It has only been a few weeks, and so far, he does not look forward to going there. I feel in fact he has become shier and clingier than usual. This makes me question once again whether what I am doing is right, and whether the caregivers at the centre are doing right by my son.</p><p id="93a8"><b>I’m ready to assign blame and judge because this is what we do as people growing up in today’s society.</b></p><div id="5778" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/learning-to-enjoy-motherhood-guilt-free-966e7fa38d58"> <div> <div> <h2>Learning To Enjoy Motherhood Guilt-Free</h2> <div><h3>undefined</h3></div> <div><p>undefined</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*o44YftcYVXjSo_va)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="d0f8">But I have to remember that it will solve nothing. I need to readjust my expectations and remind myself that everything takes time and that obstacles are all part of the journey, including my son’s settling in time at daycare.</p><p id="1231">He will get there because he is a strong and sociable little boy. He will be fine because he will still have an abundance of love at home waiting for him when he gets back and throughout the rest of the week. But I cannot decide how and when he will be running happily into nursery in the mornings — that’s a picture I need to let go of, but treasure if it happens.</p><p id="b15a">Sometimes, it

Options

is our expectations that need change, not our circumstances. We have to be OK with hiccups in parenting. Rather, we need not see them as hiccups, but as part of the process of bringing up children. After all, we are only human.</p><h1 id="7806">Takeaway</h1><figure id="facf"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*0ZLtDIAU40LQtOeo"><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@drezart?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Andrae Ricketts</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure><p id="f3a0">I believe in a mother’s instinct, but I don’t believe in the expectation that it will be there when we need it. If that expectation isn’t met then we will be more than ready to assign blame, and it won’t help us grow as parents or as individuals. In fact, I think that the constant need to meet these expectations is what causes us to feel like a failure at some point in our lives.</p><p id="b5d4">Instead, I recommend a more supportive plan, where advice can be handed out without coming across as all-knowing and dismissive of the parent. We can learn not to feel offended at others’ suggestions in the same way that others can learn not to be judgemental. I advise that others do get involved in taking care of kids, in a non-judgemental “I-told-you-so” way when the main interest is that of the child — not of themselves.</p><p id="1680">Most importantly, we have to learn that <b>mistakes are normal</b>, and most of the time, they’re not life-threatening. We are all human after all, and that makes us susceptible to countless errors over the course of time. In modern parenting, most parents are learning not to scold their kids when they make mistakes because it’s detrimental to their confidence building. <i>We should take that same approach with ourselves and other adults.</i></p><p id="93d5">So, let’s cut ourselves a little slack, and lower that pressure to get it right. Nobody is born a parent with experience.</p><div id="2a67" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/redefining-the-concept-of-happiness-16e5524c2b2d"> <div> <div> <h2>Redefining the Concept of Happiness</h2> <div><h3>How I’m learning about fulfilment from my toddler son.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*6xDaJcMnjn9r6Bow)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="88c4" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/my-battle-with-anger-as-a-parent-24e7837c5fac"> <div> <div> <h2>My Battle With Anger As a Parent</h2> <div><h3>Ensuring our son feels loved regardless of our feelings.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*Me4slkvdZGGCbsbjqQ_7bg.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="c95b" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/my-husband-is-a-damn-good-father-de20d1ef2217"> <div> <div> <h2>My Husband Is A Damn Good Father</h2> <div><h3>And he deserves praise.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Oqw-YSI_IVOLn-k0)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="7dcc"><b><i>Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about self-love, relationships, and motherhood. <a href="https://medium.com/@sylviaemokpae">See more work like this</a>.</i></b></p><p id="f728"><a href="https://twitter.com/SylviaEmokpae"><b>Follow her</b></a><b> on Twitter.</b></p></article></body>

Lose a Lot of Weight by Making This One Tiny Change to Your Diet

An effective way to get back on track when you lose your way

Photo By Rido

How do you lose Pandemic pounds?

My friend Sandra has gained 43 pounds since the start of the Pandemic. Prior to March, she had been going to the gym regularly and eating well.

After the gyms were shut down, Sandra’s habits took a turn for the worse. She never really got into a routine of exercising at home, and her diet also went progressively downhill.

Nowadays, her gym has reopened but they only allow a limited number of people in at one time.

Yesterday, she tried to book an appointment online but the slots were all full. Sandra drove down to the gym, and waited in line for 30 minutes, on ‘stand-by’. She was hoping someone wouldn’t show up, and she’d be able to take their spot.

It didn’t work. The gym was full, and Sandra didn’t get to exercise. On her drive home, she stopped by the McDonald’s drive-thru and picked up a hamburger with french fries and a Coke for dinner.

It was a depressing end to a failed attempt at exercising.

The Pandemic has led to a downward spiral for my friend Sandra’s health, and the biggest problem, in my opinion, is the negative impact on her diet.

She just doesn’t know how to get back on track.

Here’s how she can start.

The 80/20 rule: the law of the few

The Pareto Principle, also known as the ‘80/20 rule’, says that most outcomes in life come from only a few causes.

This principle was named after Italian engineer Vilfredo Pareto who first used the theory to show that nearly 80% of the land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the population.

Have you ever felt that most of the problems in your office are being created by just a few bad employees?

Have you ever felt that you argue with your spouse about the same small number of topics? (ie. your finances or your kids)

These are examples of the 80/20 rule in action.

In his book “The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less”, author Richard Koch explains how the Pareto Principle should be applied to all aspects of our lives.

“We can change the way that we think about external events, even where we cannot change them. And we can do something more. We can intelligently change our exposure to events that make us either happy or unhappy.”

By understanding the prolific nature of this Pareto principle, we can find ways to use it to our advantage in our own lives.

The 80/20 rule in weight loss

Here’s how to think about weight loss in terms of the 80/20 rule:

A small percentage of the foods we consume are causing us to gain the most amount of weight.

I am a big coffee drinker. I drink 3 to 4 cups per day, and I have been doing that for years. I used to put 2 sugars in my coffee. Over the course of one year, it amounted to a huge amount of sugar that I had consumed through coffee. That sugar consumption caused me to gain weight.

When I realized that, I cut out sugar in my coffee altogether. As a result, I lost lots of weight.

The takeaway

My friend Sandra regularly eats at fast-food restaurants. She will eat there 3 to 5 times per week. As a result, she is consuming an obscene amount of calories through Coke and hamburgers.

If she cuts out the Coke and replaces it with something healthier (like carbonated water) she’ll start to make a big dent in her recent weight gain. If she cuts out the unhealthy fast-food altogether and starts making meals at home, the changes could be dramatic.

To use the 80/20 rule effectively for weight loss:

  1. monitor what foods you are regularly eating each week
  2. figure out the small number of foods that are causing the biggest impact on your weight gain (ie. the ones with the most calories but least value)
  3. reduce, remove or replace those foods so that you can minimize their impact and make the biggest impact on your health goals

This plan really helped me, and I know it can help my friend Sandra if she decides to try it. I hope it can help you too.

Thanks for reading! If you liked that article, here are a few more:

You just read another post from In Fitness And In Health: a health and fitness community dedicated to sharing knowledge, lessons, and suggestions to living happier, healthier lives.

If you’d like to join our newsletter and receive more stories like this one, tap here.

Fitness
Weight Loss
Nutrition
Fast Food
Books
Recommended from ReadMedium