Essay | Don’t take it when you go, and especially don’t bring it when you come – The mother of five found that ancient guidance makes the everyday life unbearable

I go to the utility room to pick up my toddler diaper and I find that the dryer has got the clothes dried and the washing machine sheets washed. Start scything clean laundry in closets. I click on the radio and hum to the beat of the music.

I’ve almost had the drum almost empty when the five-year-old announces that his little sister is peeing on the floor with a “terrible puddle”. Oh no, I forgot the diaper!

With a swallow swallow and I run to the scene with a diaper, too late. The yellow sea is rippling on the kitchen floor.

I kidnap the toddler in my armpit, spray him and now I remember to put the diaper in place. Meanwhile, the three-year-old steps into a pee and cries in disgust.

After licking the whole kitchen and at the same time blinking at the five-year-old’s great Lego structure, the boy has been trying to introduce me all morning.

All morning I, according to ancient guidance, have taken me by the time I brought them and brought them when I came. There has always been something new to export and bring in, and in the end, events have driven me instead of me controlling them.

Vie by the way, that coming is a familiar saying to the brain researcher as well Minna to Huotilainen. Her grandmother often used the saying, and in her grandmother’s age group, it saved her steps and time.

According to Huotilainen, the effectiveness of the saying is based on the fact that there are two things that are related to each other: when, for example, you are looking for something in a barn, you can take something there at the same time. This does not yet burden the brain.

But nowadays, the immediate environment feeds so many stimuli that the saying goes to the test. Keeping in mind two interrelated things could still be successful if, when looking for a diaper, I did not stray into other temptations lured by the environment.

Multitasking, i.e. performing several things at the same time, is inefficient in the light of current research. It would be best for the brain if they were allowed to focus on one thing at a time.

Multitasking is often associated with working life, but the habit also flows into leisure time, family life and parenting. Doing many things at once makes us short-sighted – in everything we do.

My throwing from one task to another and my lack of concentration worry me. Too often, the situation at home is as described at the beginning: I have started numerous jobs without getting anything done, and I myself and my children are dissatisfied.

Huotilainen explains that the tasks ahead can be divided from a brain perspective into two groups: active and reactive work.

The division also applies to tasks related to parenting and home.

Active tasks are adult-designed, reactive situations caused by a child to which one is obliged to react, even if one’s own task is still in progress. Coordinating these is challenging if the adult has prepared a long to-do list for themselves.

When you have to react to a child’s teasing while working, it is difficult to go back to the interrupted job and think about the work not being done.

I recognize the situation. How frustrating it is to go to the toilet to settle a dispute between children!

But: Isn’t it more important that the adult leaves his job and intervenes in the situation, Huotilain also thinks. It is a valuable educational situation and a sign of care, even though it may not seem like an adult at the time.

In the end, my main insight is that I need to calculate my goals. I clearly can’t take care of the toilet and the kids at the same time.

I noticethat the perfect muti living between my ears takes the pattern of his childhood.

My own mother was an awesome long line housewife who lovingly took care of us. I got to experience affection and caring. In families with children of that time, good maintenance of the home with all its bakeries was an honor for many mothers, and these activities took a lot of time.

I am a child of a different era: I have been working between the births of my children, and that too has been relevant to me. The work has provided not only financial security, but also a much-needed counterbalance to the family life of children.

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It is a big step towards better when you realize that the actions that have been started are being missed.

While at home, parents are now expected above all to have a participatory presence and emotional education in their children. Ideals have changed.

I have five wonderful children with my spouse, all of which I am happy and proud of.

When my children one after another were born to our delight, I plunged into a ring that was exhausting. I didn’t realize that in addition to my own motherhood assumptions, I couldn’t do everything my mother’s age group did.

According to Minna Huotilainen, a person has already taken a big step towards better when she herself notices that several of the actions she has started are missing. It is burdensome when one’s own plans do not materialize and interruptions cannot be avoided.

Huotilainen advises to ask what other tasks you should plan to do in addition to being with children. As a family, you can critically look at all things that start with an idea: this is what we have always done.

In our time a lot of demands are placed. One should be a present father or mother, create a career, and seize stimuli flooded from the environment. No wonder the ability to focus is in chunks.

People other than me also need to quickly check when cooking to see if anyone has commented on a new soma update or liked my picture. An even more detrimental interruption is if it interrupts immersion in a demanding job.

Huotilainen, a brain researcher on smart devices, has something to say: Games and social media platforms have been optimized to produce content that is of interest to its users. No wonder if hooked.

For me, too, some produces quick satisfaction, but afterwards, I regret the time I spend on it. The kids get a half-hearted answer when the handset robs my interest.

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The brain adapts to the kind of decisions we make every day.

Eventually, I will make a radical settlement and terminate my social media account. I put all the message groups to mute.

At first, my hand tries to touch the smart device when the calm moments come and the Finnish news stream emerges. It takes several days to get rid of the habit.

It takes even longer to get rid of the idea of ​​staying somewhere except. Gradually, my brain got used to the situation, and I learned to rejoice in the time saved.

Minna Huotilainen’s advice is encouraging for this as well. Everyone is able to regulate their actions when the automatic control is switched off and the functions are performed consciously. The brain adapts to the kind of decisions we make every day.

Pit when I was born I thought that in a year I would continue in working life as before. But the corona epidemic struck just when I should have decided to return to work.

I painted in my mind horror pictures of the absences that would accrue to me and my spouse when a child could not be taken for treatment even in a small runny nose. I decided to move back to work over the epidemic.

I had begun to notice how fatigue had accumulated in my mind over the years. At work, I had been able to sharpen, but the strength was not enough. At home, my ability to concentrate was a ragged and present parenting break.

As the baby grew up as a toddler and the blade of fatigue broke, I noticed the pounding of my thoughts myself.

Professor Minna Huotilainen signs the idea that fatigue is often the root cause of a squeaky mind. Fatigue leads to over-arousal, and an over-aroused person has terribly things in mind at the same time.

In this case, the person begins to do several tasks, and an equal number of tasks are interrupted. Interruptions come from within a person.

ADT (attention deficit trait) is a pattern of behavior similar to attention deficit trait, the most visible sign of which is self-interruption. FINADA is not a neurological disorder like ADHD, but a learned mode of action.

FINADA’s symptom is not able to delve into the task at hand, because irrelevance flows into the mind instead of the thing to be worked on. The space is not created in an instant, but requires a long load space.

Feels familiar.

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When overheated, it is cooled by doing nothing.

After all, I’ll jump from one thing to another: I’ll start by filling the dishwasher, but at the same time I weighed in on whether I should put the washing machine on first so that the children’s outerwear had time to dry for the club day. By the time I go to the washing machine, I remember my teeth not being washed. And so on.

Huotilainen’s instruction to calm the brain is slow doing. When overheated, it is cooled by doing nothing. Doesn’t rule anything, doesn’t react to everything.

The brain researcher gives a practical tip for parenting: Note that a child’s state of alertness varies. Sometimes the child is active at a brisk pace, sometimes passive, so the day can accommodate even calmer moments.

As a parent, I can get involved in serene situations and slow down my own doing. I can think about how to calm myself down, stop and zero in on my thoughts. I can take a magazine and go to the couch next to the child, meditate or stretch. It is good if the state of alertness of the child and the adult go at the same pace. At some point, everyone needs a moment to relax.

Alan make myself small instructions that I put into practice.

When we go outside, I ask that we only talk in the yard. In this case, my brain is not burdened with choosing children’s clothes and answering questions, so for the most part, nervousness is avoided.

I keep in mind the brain researcher’s tip: don’t rule, don’t react to everything.

I reduce housework. I had time to chat and do more with the children, take a lap and, if necessary, sleep on my own.

Small changes make it easier to focus on one thing and prevent quarreling. For a quarrel arises when a tired brain overheats from overlapping things.

My number one priority is to respond to children’s questions and observations: I practice thinking that I don’t waste time focusing on the child’s world. Laundry is waiting, but the moment spent with the child is not. Actions that have not been taken can be taken care of when the spouse stops their day job and takes a booth from the children. Then I can be at peace with my own thoughts for a moment as I figure out the laundry.

Gradually I find that by stopping at the edge of things, our daily lives are sore. I can prioritize things better and my urgency has diminished.

On the trip we binoculars and tents and I feel deep joy that I can and will stop at this moment with mine. Sure, my life still includes multi-pocketing, but it no longer messes up tasks into an endless circle. It’s easier to be.

I trust that even after returning to work, I will be able to slow down the pace at home and opt for presence instead of hustle and bustle. Fortunately, the brain shapes throughout life, and FINADA does not have to remain a permanent guest, says Huotilainen.

I find that for me it required a conscious stop.

The story is published in the October 2021 issue of HS Our Family.

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