I plan to write some posts for the next week about what might be called “ADLs” in occupational therapist jargon. Activities of daily living. Think about the things you generally have to do everyday to survive (or maybe every couple of days).
For me, this week, I plan to write about eating, sleeping, cooking, showering/bathing/hygiene.
I’ve written reflections that talk about these things on many levels: a reflection on how these ADLs were for me growing up; thoughts on how they’ve changed (or not) once I gained independence as an adult; how I try to parent my children in relationship to these things and how that looks in our family.
These are things I really don’t write about here very often, or give people much advice on. That’s because for me these are intensely personal. I am writing these as exactly what I’m saying they are: reflections of my child self, my adult self, my parenting. My, my, my.
These are not prescriptive. I am not telling you to run your family like mine. I have no interest in that. If you read them and come away with ideas, wonderful! If you read them and disagree vastly with every way I do things, that’s fine! I do not think nor claim that these are right for every adult, child, or family.
If something is working for you, that’s amazing. Keep doing that. You don’t have a problem!
If something isn’t working for you, that’s okay. There are lots of ways to do things in the world even if they aren’t talked about very much.
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If you want the official, expert, advice that I would give on eating and sleeping instead of personal reflections, I totally get that. I won’t be going super in-depth, but here are some basic starting places for those resources:
For eating:
-The Division of Responsibility model by Ellyn Satter, which can be read about in her book “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family”, or on her website https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org
-Kids Eat In Color is an Instagram/FB resource who I really trust as well
For sleeping (for young children):
-I appreciate the advice in the FB group “Respectful Sleep Training/Learning” for figuring out nap schedules, wake schedules, etc for infants and toddlers. They have a wealth of knowledge on different approaches so that parents can figure out what is comfortable for them as far as finding the balance between being responsive to your child’s needs and giving them enough space to learn to sleep (since sleep isn’t something that any human being can *give* another human being, no matter how much they want to!)
There isn’t really “official, expert advice” for showering/hygiene and cooking, or for sleep arrangements for older children, since these things are so intensely personal. But in terms of just problem-solving on a larger level — whether with ADLs or with anything else — I recommend:
-Raising Human Beings by Dr. Ross Greene
-or, the “The B Team” group on Facebook for the same information, but presented in a FB group, amazing-moderator-led discussion instead of in one book
-FB groups called “Executive Dysfunction Meals” and “Executive Dysfunction Life Hacks” are a couple that I know of — I’m sure there are loads of resources along these lines as well that I just don’t personally know about.
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With that out of the way, stick around for the rest of the week for the more personal side of things instead. 🙂
