Parenting in the Chaos

A Self-Care Plan That Actually Works

I know that “self-care” is this phrase that gets thrown around a lot, but there’s a reason for that. It’s critical to take care of yourself so that you can be your best self for others.

When you’re a mom, there are people depending on you and it’s important that you are able to be there for them.

That starts with taking care of you.

I know that it’s easier said than done.

Trust me. I know how busy you are. I am a mom too. When my seven kids were younger, I hardly had a moment to myself.

And that’s why I designed this self-care plan to have realistic time frames for those self-care opportunities you get in a day.

You may not be able to take an entire afternoon for yourself. Most days, you won’t be able to even take half an hour, but 30 seconds or ten minutes? That you can do!

So these ideas are designed for you to be able to take those little pockets of time and use them in ways that will most benefit you.

How to Create your Self-Care Plan:

Download your free copy of the Self-Care Plan.
Sit somewhere quiet that’s comfortable for you and go through the ideas listed on the pages inside.
If you’re in that season of life when you don’t have anywhere quiet, lock yourself in the bathroom for a few minutes.
Think about each activity and how you feel after you complete something like it. Circle the ones that resonate with you as making you feel rested, renewed, recharged, energized, or peaceful.
Take the time to consider what works best for you. Just because going for a run makes your friend feel great, doesn’t mean you have to feel the same way!
Put the lists away for a bit.
The next time you have a few minutes to yourself (preferably within a day or two), come back to the lists and choose the circled activities that most jump out at you.
You may write those in the corresponding section in your self-care plan or open in Adobe PDF and type in your list. Once you type it in, you can save it and print!
Hang your plan somewhere you will see it often such as on your fridge, next to your calendar, or in a room where you spend a lot of time.

printed sheet on a fridge held by magnets

A few things to note for this self-care plan:

Feel free to move things from one list to another. The timelines are just a guideline. There are some activities that could belong on several of the lists so feel free to place them where you feel they would work best for you.

Be as specific as you can be for your personal chart. Where in the suggestions, you might see “learn”, for you that might be “research ancient Roman historical fashion” or it may be “practise Spanish”. The more specific you are, the more likely you are to follow through.

Some of the activities are ones that aren’t necessary to do again and again so if you complete some of those, you can print yourself off another chart and fill it in with new activities. While you’re at it, congratulate yourself for how well you are doing on your self-care journey!

A special thank you to my lovely friend, Heather for allowing me to bring this concept to you!

There are suggestions included to help get your creative juices flowing for each allotted amount of time.

When you have 30 seconds:

Take 3 deep breaths.
Splash cold water on your face.
Drink a glass of water.
Give yourself a high five in the mirror.
Speak 5 things you’re grateful for.
Forgive yourself.
Compliment a stranger.
Smell a flower.

girl holding daisies

Light a candle.
Cuddle a pet.
Hug a human.
Turn on music.
Text someone an encouraging note.
Smile!
Give yourself credit.
Do the Wonder Woman power pose.
Set a boundary.
Speak an affirmation.
Squish playdough.
Give up trying to be perfect.
Squeeze a stress ball.

three candles lit next to an open book

When you have 10 minutes:

Enjoy a cup of tea.
Enjoy a cup of coffee.
Wear something you love.
Set daily goals.
Listen to great music.
Call a friend.
Sit outside.
Pray.
Eat something you love.
Meditate.
10 minute tidy.

hot chocolate topped with whipped cream in a mug next to an open book

Watch the sunrise.
Grab a healthy snack.
Stretch.
Sing (loudly) in the shower or car.
Paint your nails.
Cuddle up under a blanket.
Watch a funny video.
Put up Post-it notes with inspirational quotes or scriptures.
Sit in silence.

hand in a nail dryer with nail polish nearby

When you have 30 minutes:

Go for a walk.
Have a nap.
Shower.
Dance in your kitchen.
Declutter.
Journal.
Read in the sun.
Do yoga.
Draw.
Color.
Listen to a podcast.

container of colored pencils next to a sweater

Plan.
Spread kindness to someone else.
Have a picnic outside or in your living room.
Do a brain dump.
Puzzle.
Play a board game.
Plant something.
Make yourself a doctor, dentist, or therapy appointment.
Do something creative.

silver bowl filled with carrots and other garden vegetables

When you have one hour:

Go for a walk.
Have a nap.
Shower.
Dance in your kitchen.
Declutter.
Journal.
Read in the sun.
Do yoga.
Draw.
Color.
Listen to a podcast.
Plan.
Spread kindness to someone else.
Have a picnic outside or in your living room.
Do a brain dump.
Puzzle.
Play a board game.
Plant something.
Make yourself a doctor, dentist, or therapy appointment.
Do something creative.

two books and a coffee cup outside

There is that saying that failing to plan is planning to fail. By having a self-care plan ready, you can increase the chances of succeeding at finally putting yourself on the priority list.

If you are a foster or adoptive family, you may be interested in reading my book Self-Care for Foster and Adoptive Families.

Family Conversation Starters

By Sharla Kostelyk

Taking the time to ask questions and listen to their answers is a great way to get to know your family members on a deeper level and spend some quality time together. With the help of these printable conversation starters for kids, you can start having meaningful discussions with your family on a regular basis.

Using conversation starters with your kids can be a powerful tradition to start. The connection in relationship grows as communication gets stronger.

Conversation Starters for Kids

Supplies needed:

Printable conversation cards
Cardstock
Basket or jar
optional: laminator

Instructions:

Download the conversation cards and print them out on cardstock so that you can use them over and over again. If you want, you can also laminate them to make them more durable.
Cut out each card around the outer border.
Place the cards in a basket or jar.
Pull a card from the basket and let each member of your family answer the question.

Where to Use Conversation Starters

These simple cards can be used in a variety of places to get your kids talking!

Around the dinner table
In the car
Before tucking your kids in at night
At a sleepover or birthday party
Between homeschool lessons or after school
At the grocery store

Benefits of Conversation Starters

These printable family conversation starters are a great way to improve your family’s connection with each other. And while you might not need to use conversation cards to get your family talking, sometimes they’re helpful in starting a new conversation. There are a variety of great benefits to using talking points on a regular basis, including:

Getting to know your children better. Your kids are constantly growing and evolving. And that means they may like something one day and hate it the next! With the help of these fun questions, you can constantly learn more about your kids’ daily lives, their hopes and dreams, and the emotions they’re feeling.
Creating a stronger family bond. The questions on these printable cards are perfect for starting a conversation between family members. That means they can be the start of a deeper discussion among each member of the family. As you interact with your kids during these discussions, you’ll be showing each of your children that their opinion is important and valued, helping strengthen the overall family bond and encouraging connection.
Cultivating gratitude. Helping your kids practice gratitude is important as they grow older. You can use conversation starters to help steer your family’s conversation toward topics that center around thankfulness, allowing you to incorporate gratitude into your daily life.
Developing imaginative thinking. Using their imagination is a great tool for helping your kids improve their creative thinking skills. Not to mention that conversations centered around imaginative thinking are fun! Fun conversation starters are a great way to help your kids practice using their imagination each day.
Increase vocabulary and communication skills. The art of questions and answers is a learning opportunity for children both in terms of expanding their vocabulary and developing their communication skills.
Managing emotions. Kids can often feel big emotions. So learning how to manage their emotions, regulate their thoughts, and practice empathy are all important lessons to teach your kids. Conversation starters that center around emotional events are great ways to help your kids work through their feelings and understand how others might feel in a similar situation.

Create Your Own Conversation Starters

My printable conversation cards for kids come with 30 fun and thought-provoking ideas for sparking a conversation with everyone in your family. But you can also create your own conversation starters with blank cards. If you’re struggling to come up with additional questions to ask your family members, try these fun topics and ideas:

What do you look for in a friend?
If you could make a new family rule, what would it be?
What is your favourite thing about your siblings?
If you could create a new school subject, what would it be?
What is something you don’t need, but you’re happy you have?
If you pet could talk, what would it say?
What is one nice thing you could do for someone tomorrow?
If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
What feeling makes you the most uncomfortable?
If you could create a new holiday, what would you celebrate?
What are you good at?
What do you wish you were good at?
When was the last time you made someone smile?
What would your dream house look like?
If someone wrote a story about you in the newspaper, what would the headline be?
What is your biggest goal in life?
Who is your best friend? Why?
What do you like to do at recess?
Would you rather be forced to whisper or scream all day?
What is your favourite chore?
Could you go an entire day without talking?
What do you think about before you fall asleep?
If you could build your own zoo, what animals would you have?
What is your favourite day of the week? Why?
What is something kids understand better than adults?
When you make a new friend, what’s the first thing you ask them?

For a limited time, I’m offering these conversation cards for free. Simply enter your email below. They are also available for purchase in our shop.

Check out some of our other family connection ideas:

Replacing Teen’s Negative Self Talk Using Affirmations

By Sharla Kostelyk

Teens are under more pressure than ever before. The teen years have always been a time of rapid change. They carry with them the pressures of sports, part-time jobs, keeping up with family obligations, chores, and school while adulthood and the decision of what to “do with their life” looms ever closer. But teens are now also dealing with the challenges of social media and having every choice, outfit, and word live on forever online. The stresses are real. Teens often struggle with negative self-talk which can be a contributing factor towards low self-esteem and even depression.

Affirmations can be centering and help encourage and inspire.

They are not an automatic fix, but they can help change their mindset over time, especially when positive self-talk becomes a habit and begins to drown out the negative internal voices.

Speaking positivity into your child and teaching them to speak positivity into themselves can lead to more confidence and improved self-esteem.

Why use positive affirmations with teens?

Positive affirmations can also help to reframe negative self-talk into positive self-talk. For example the card, “I forgive myself for my mistakes,” can help someone who devolves into self-loathing and negative self-talk when confronted with a mistake. It can also help your perfectionist child work on opening themselves up to learning from their mistakes instead of working triple hard to avoid every mistake.

Affirmations can also help your child build their self-confidence. As they practice speaking these affirmations to themselves, they are reminding themselves that there is room for growth and that they are always changing, growing, and improving.

If your child is reluctant to use the affirmation cards, try modelling using the affirmations yourself. Let them hear you speaking them to yourself. You can also tape them up on bathroom mirrors, inside of kitchen cabinets, bedroom walls, and anywhere else your child can’t help but see them.Affirmations work with continuous practice over time, so the sooner they can get on board, the quicker they will see the changes in themselves.

You’ll find that these cards also help foster a growth mindset.

Affirmations can help your child rework their negative self-talk and help them to build self-confidence to conquer all the challenges that they face in their walk through adolescence.

Today, I’m sharing these downloadable affirmations cards. They can be used with teens or for older children or even adults.

Get your free affirmation cards for teens. Simply enter your email in the box below.

You may also be interested in reading:

Unicorn Affirmation Colouring Pages for Kids (free!)Why Kids Need Positive Affirmations

Printable Road Trip Scavenger Hunt

By Sharla Kostelyk

When you’re headed on a road trip with your family, finding ways to keep your kids entertained in the car is essential. And one of our favourite ways to pass the time as we’re driving is by playing games. Car games are fun and educational because they keep your kids thinking on their toes, allowing them to use their critical thinking skills while having fun.

As you’re planning your next road trip and finding activities for the car ride, don’t forget to grab this free printable road trip scavenger hunt for your kids to play while you drive.

Road Trip Scavenger Hunt Ideas

With this road trip scavenger hunt, you can create a fun game to keep your kids entertained during a car ride. In addition to providing your little ones with a fun way to pass the time, they’ll be learning as they play!

Since it features both words and pictures, this cute printable is great for kids of any age. Young children can check the boxes next to the pictures when they see something along the road. And older kids can practice reading as they look for items on their scavenger hunt list.

The list includes a variety of different things your kids will see as you travel. Whether you’re on a long road trip or just taking a drive to the grocery store, your little ones will love looking for different things along the road as they’re riding in the car.

This printed scavenger hunt is also great for including in a road trip gift basket. My brother and his family gave us a special gift basket before we went on our 22 day road trip across part of Canada and the United States with 6 of our kids in two. After that adventure, I would say that we are definitely road trip veterans!

The scavenger hunt printable includes 16 different common roadside elements for your kids to search for, including:

Road sign
License plates from three places
Cow
Bumper sticker
Bus
Billboard with a phone number
Barn
Tunnel
Bridge
Construction
Train
Fast Food Sign
Gas Station
Rest stop
Roof rack
Park

On top of keeping your kids off their screens for a little while, the best part about this fun car ride activity is that you can easily turn the game into a learning experience. Using the road trip scavenger hunt printable, you can help your kids practice their:

Observation skills. As your kids play, they’ll each be forced to look more closely at the world around them to find exactly what they’re looking for on their list. That can give your kids a chance to be more observant and aware of the things around them as you’re driving along the road.
Teamwork. Instead of playing individually, why not ask your kids to play together to find each item on the list? When your kids work together to find the items on the hunt, they can practice working as a team to accomplish a goal.
Memory skills. To quickly finish the game, your kids will need to remember a list of things to look for. As they mark items off their list, they will use their memory to recall other items they need to look for as you’re driving.
Reading and matching. Young readers will get a chance to practice their reading skills as they read through the clues on the list. But even if your kids aren’t old enough to read, they can practice their matching skills by matching the pictures on the list to the things they see out in the real world.

How Do You Do a Driving Scavenger Hunt?

A scavenger hunt is a fun adventure wherever you are. But if you’re driving in a car, you may be wondering how a scavenger hunt would work. When on a traditional scavenger hunt, you typically look around in different areas to find the items on your list. But when you’re doing a driving scavenger hunt, you simply stay in your car and mark things off your list as you see them.

One great way to play this fun game with your kids while you’re on a road trip is to print out a list of things to find, then let your kids check each item off as you’re driving. The game can be a competition among everyone playing to see who fills out all their check boxes first. Or it could be a group effort, allowing all your kids to work together to find everything on the list.

Road Trip Scavenger Hunt

Supplies Needed:

Printable scavenger hunt for each child (download here)
Laminator or page protector
Dry erase markers

Instructions:

Print out one scavenger hunt sheet for each child that will be riding in the car.
Laminate each page or put each piece of paper in a plastic page protector so it can be used more than once.
Pass out dry erase markers to each child in the car.
As you’re driving, let the kids search for items on the list. When someone finds something on their page, they can place an X or checkmark in the box next to it.
The first person to mark off everything on their list wins.
If no one is able to finish their list by the time you reach your destination, the person with the most checkmarks on their page is the winner.

Enter your email below to get your free printable road trip scavenger hunt.

You might also be interested in:

Road Trip Gift Basket

Minute to Win It Build Edition (LEGO Challenge)

Opposite Day Ideas

Spring Bucket List for Families

By Sharla Kostelyk

I’ve always thought of Fall as my favourite time of year, but this year, I’m rethinking that. It’s felt like an especially long winter both literally and figuratively and it feels so good to see signs of Spring emerging. Maybe you feel the same way.

This Spring Bucket List is a great way for you to celebrate this new season and what it represents by creating new memories with your family.

Download and print off the list and put it up on your fridge or bulletin board for easy reference. I purposely chose activities that were low cost or free. As you complete items, cross them off the list. Do them in order, choose them at random, or do them in the order that works best for your family.

This is not meant to be an exercise in perfection. Use this as a guide and let the fun grow from there. This is meant to foster family connection and allow you to enjoy time together.

Spring Bucket List Ideas:

1. Smell the wildflowers.
2. Do a backyard photo scavenger hunt.
3. Make a Spring sensory bottle.
4. Play hopscotch.
5. Enjoy a squishy sky sensory bag.
6. Paint the sidewalk with shaving cream paint.
7. Feed the squirrels.
8. Plant seeds.
9. Explore a garden sensory pail.
10. Go to the playground.
11. Make edible shark slime.
12. Make a butterfly sensory bag.
13. Splash in puddles.
14. Look for shapes in the clouds.
15. Explore spring sensory soup.
16. Bird watch.
17. Look for frogs.
18. Make paper flowers.
19. Climb a tree.
20. Blow homemade bubbles.
21. Hunt for four leaf clovers.
22. Chase butterflies.
23. Act like a bug.
24. Family spring cleaning day.
25. Fly a kite.
26. Walk barefoot in the grass.
27. Read a story under a tree.
28. Host a tea party.
29. Make a cheerful music playlist.
30. Visit the Farmer’s Market.

Download your Spring Bucket List today and you’ll also get our free email series 5 Secrets to Powerful Family Connection.

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My Favourite Things 2020

By Sharla Kostelyk

You know those things that you find and you want to shout from the rooftops how awesome they are? These are my favourite things of 2020, the things I wish I could give to everyone.

While I’m certainly not Oprah and can’t give these to each member of my audience, I did want to gift these to one lucky member.Today’s giveaway is a collection of my favourite things.

The winner will get one of each of the following items:

AquaNotes

These handy waterproof notepads hang in my shower. As a busy mom of many, it’s hard to find quiet moments for myself. In the shower, I’m able to think clearly and therefore, often come up with ideas or remember things I need to do.

In the past, I would then promptly forget when I was out of the shower and cries of “mom” would interrupt my thoughts. But now, I am able to use my AquaNotes to jot down ideas, make to do lists, or even to leave a little note for my husband. It’s easy to see why I love these!

The Sun Does Shine

This was my favourite read of the year. It’s a powerful story and powerfully written. The Sun Does Shine, How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row is also timely in that it is an example of the injustice that can occur when race clouds decisions.

I found the book a bit hard to get into at first because from reading the back of the book, you already know he is going to be wrongly convicted so the parts leading up to that dragged a bit for me, but trust me, stick with it. Anthony Ray Hinton’s time on death row is gripping, heart wrenching, hope filled, and will open your eyes and heart, especially when it comes to the complexities of racism.

Kleenex Find Your Fearless mini packs

With reminders like “Summon Your Strength”, “Find Your Fearless”, and “Believe in Yourself”, these purse sized kleenex packs have accompanied me this year to difficult specialists appointments with one of our daughters, my favourite uncle’s funeral, and lots of moments in between.

It might be a small thing, but those written reminders on the packages brought smiles through my tears.

Crock Pot Liners

Oh my goodness! I wish I had discovered these sooner. They make crock pot cleaning a breeze! No more scrubbing or soaking. Just take out the liner and throw it in the garbage.

I don’t use them for every crock pot meal, but for things like perogies or tater tot or hash brown casserole that stick to the side and are no fun at all to clean out, I treat myself and use a crock pot liner.

Rosco Emmit Cedar Lavender Bubble Salts

My mom told me about these. The first time I tried them, I was in love! They are bath salts but they bubble! I don’t get to have baths that often, but when I do, I want them to be as relaxing as possible and between the scent and the bubbles, this totally creates that.

These are also made on Vancouver Island which is one of my favourite places in the world so that makes me like these even more.

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Dark Circles Eraser

I don’t wear a lot of makeup, but I saw a makeup tutorial once that showed how to use this to create some highlights on your face and take years off by hiding the bags under your eyes. This has been a go-to for me for a long time, but with getting older and the stress of 2020, I’ve needed to use it more often.

I think it helps my confidence too. (I’ll be contacting the winner to see what skin shade you need.)

The World’s Softest Socks

I live in fuzzy socks. I know it may not be what grown ups are supposed to wear, but they make me feel cozy and comfy. And the fuzzy socks made by The World’s Softest Socks are my new favourite.

Bath and Body Works Foaming Hand Soap

This year with all the extra hand washing and hand sanitizers, my hands started to feel dry. These foaming hand soaps helped with that. They don’t dry out my hands and are super foamy.

They have so many great scents to choose from too!

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