GEIKO Parenting

We've all heard the ad for GEIKO car insurance that goes, "15 minutes could save you 15% or more on your car insurance". Well I'm adapting it to say,

"15 minutes could save you 15% of stress or more in your parenting!"

I've decided that I'm going to be better about spending more one-on-one time with the kids. I've been kind of impatient recently and I realized it's because I feel like I can never get anything done because the kids keep needing something or they make crazy messes and terrorize each other! Well I think the answer for me is spending more time with them. At first that doesn't seem to make sense because I'm feeling a bit stressed and impatient about not having enough time to finish the things that I need to, so how is spending MORE TIME on the kids going to help that? Well in a lot of ways! First of all THEY are the most important thing that I'm supposed to be doing (raising them, teaching them, influencing them, loving them, etc.) and Second, by sitting down and giving them 15 minutes of 100% undivided attention by playing with them, reading to them, talking with them, dancing with them, whatever, they seem to demand less of my attention when I'm in the middle of something else. So it pretty much eliminates unneeded stress as well as ensuring that my kids feel important and loved. So here's the breakdown of my "Daily GEIKO Parenting Tasks" in no particular order:

15 minutes of personal scripture study
15 minutes of one-on-one time with Tyler
15 minutes of one-on-one time with Maddie
15 minutes of one-on-one time with Emily
15 minutes of one-on-one time with Nathan
15 minutes of one-on-one time with Peter
15 minutes of family time - all together
15 minutes of family scripture study
15 minutes of personal time
15 minutes on my calling
15 minutes cleaning my house (likely much more)
15 minutes organizing my house

That may seem like quite a bit, but it only adds up to 3 hours. There are 24 hours in the day, 8 of those hours I spend sleeping (sometimes 9 - I'm spoiled, I know), so that's 15 hours of awake time and if 3 of those hours are spent doing those things, that I feel are the most important, then everything else will fall into place and I won't be stressed about things. I read a quote once from Brigham Young that talked about how to spend our time wisely and it said that we need to spend 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working and 8 hours on recreation (he included showering/grooming and traveling to and from work and things in this category). For me as a stay at home mom, I include cleaning house and paying bills and keeping my house in order into the "Work" category (as well as responsibilities for my calling), and the time I spend with my kids and family and for myself in the "Recreation" category. Although I don't actually keep track of all 8 hours in each category, it's a good guideline to evaluate how we spend our time.

Anyway, I wanted to write this all down, so I can check in and see how I've been doing and evaluate how it's affecting my stress level and also how it's affecting the kids and their attitudes and behavior. I'll keep you all posted!