The Benefits of Slowing Down

There are 18 summers before your little one is a full fledged “adult” who is off to college or work. The saying “the days are long but the years are short” couldn’t be more true.

We are constantly teaching our children and molding them with our everyday behaviors and experiences, not just in the summers, but the summers are a time when our children are free from scholarly obligations and are traditionally a time that adults take time off. As a mom of a 2 and 5 year old, I see how much they learn from us as parents.

Something a lot of us, including myself struggle with is “busyness”, an often self-created situation by accepting too many invitations, planning too many things that “need” to get done, places to go… and with it comes the stress and all its deleterious effects.

There are many benefits of slowing down in general, and we can help teach these to our children. To me these can be broken down into physical, social and emotional benefits.

Physical: Lowering the negative effects of adrenaline and cortisol levels which impact blood pressure, immune function and glucose regulation.

Social: Unplugging from social media and savoring deep connections – instead of scrolling through and comparing your life to others or saying a superficial “How are you?” to a friend, with the automatic reply of “good” – get into a meaningful conversation with someone. Consider calling a friend instead of looking at Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Emotional: Take time to acknowledge what you are feeling and deal with it instead of burying it with busyness which is ultimately detrimental.

Something important which we can learn from our children is how to live in the moment. Young children are only concerned with the immediate task at hand, they are not fretting about what they need to do later that day. Let’s try to re-teach some of that living in the moment to ourselves and our children as they become adults.

Sometimes we need the summer to revitalize our efforts at teaching our children the importance of slowing down and living in the moment. Many families plan a summer trip to bring the family together, relax and bond. Remember how few summers there really are before your 2 year old becomes an 18 year old, so planning for what you want to do with or show your children is likely beneficial. Recently, as a family we sat down and wrote a list of potential trips and experiences to do with the children, as making plans also helps ensure action.

This past year has been harmful to children and adults in many ways, but one lesson I know I learned was how beneficial slowing down could be. Having an entire weekend without the “crazy busy” of soccer and swim practice and parties and events to attend meant more time to spend together and appreciate the moment, listen to emotions and have deeper connections. So, take the vacation or multiple short weekends off in the summer, do a staycation or a getaway because there aren’t too many times you’ll get to do those again with your kids and the lessons they learn will be something they won’t get in the classroom.

Zoë McMillen M.D.

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