Here's What It's Like To Parent With Anxiety |Kids Activities Blog

Anxiety is tricky. It’s one of those invisible things that seems SO visible to the people that suffer from it. You think everybody is staring at you. And if you are dealing with parenting on top of anxiety (or anxiety on top of parenting), you are not alone. Many of us have been there, but it isn’t something that most talk about.

anxiety and parenting - woman at window with worried look — Anxiety can stop all reasoning.

Dealing with Anxiety and Parenting

You’re sure they know what a fraud you are. And how can you be a good mom if you can’t even get your own thoughts together enough to make it through breakfast without a breakdown?

You start out your morning okay. You wake up, check your phone– trust me, if you have any type of anxiety, you always check your phone, because who even knows what happened while you were asleep.

And then comes time for the day to get started. You’ve got to wake up the kids. Did they get enough sleep? Should you make them breakfast first? You hope they got all their homework done last night.

woman at sink feeling bad with dishes everywhere and children in the background — Overwhelmed?

That math was so hard. Sure, you double checked it, but you were awful at math. No way were you of any real help there. Maybe you should call the teacher. Just to make sure they know it’s not your kid’s fault. That you’re the reason they don’t understand multiplication.

You are probably going to have to hire a tutor.

As you kiss your kids and they jump out of the car, you realize you just spent the entire morning worrying about math homework, and you just auto piloted through breakfast, and all the other getting ready parts of the morning that you should have spent having quality time with your kids.

They won’t be this age forever. They won’t always need you to take them to school, and you just blew right threw it like it didn’t even matter.

Tomorrow will be better. You will be better.

You know you should take some time for self care. Maybe go to breakfast with friends or get a pedicure.

But you don’t really know if my friends like having breakfast with me, and you don’t really know if you should spend that extra money on a pedicure.

Plus, you don’t really have anything to wear.

So you will just stay home, in your yoga pants, instead.

Whoa. Is it already time to pick up the kids from school? You had so much stuff you were actually going to do today. You didn’t do any of it.

Surprise.

You grab the kids glad to see them, throw something together for dinner, and your husband appears. It’s nice to see him. You love him, but it all sort of blurs together.

The whole evening all in one blur. Over before it even began. How is that even possible.

Tomorrow, you will get more done. Tomorrow you will be a better mom, a better wife.

Tomorrow.