Your ‘A’ game
For many of us, being a dad in lockdown has sometimes meant feeling like we have to bring our ‘A’ game to every part of our lives.
Perhaps, back in March 2020, this seemed like an exciting situation. A chance to embrace the sportswear and a golden opportunity to spend more time with our kids. At first, you might have relished a new routine, thrived on getting to know your children better, and even enjoyed the challenge of home schooling. Then the reality kicks in and that promotion to the premier league turns into tiresome home defeats, conceding last minute goals, and seeing your excitement turn to frustration and unconvincing performances.
The final whistle has never been so eagerly anticipated.
Outlets and social life
We can’t go to live music. We can’t go to live sport. We can’t even go to the pub. For many of us the boundaries between home life and work life became blurry. Or even vanished altogether! The coffee shops and canteens replaced by, well, our own kitchen. Our social world limited to muddy parks with our family bubbles, and the occasional online catch-ups. Challenging? Too right. We’ve retreated back into our caves with hairstyles and beards to match!
Where we have been able to do something for ourselves it has required some serious motivation and often felt like another task on the “to do” list. And then we can get caught in that trap that tells us looking after ourselves is somehow neglecting our families.
A time to rebuild
With children now back in school, this feels like the time to breathe a huge sigh of relief. And yet, what happens next? It is still an uncertain time, for dads, for mums and of course, for our kids. It’s been tough for all of us.
So where can we start when there is so little left in the tank?
Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities (EPEC) has teamed up with THRIVE London to be able to offer some free bite-sized workshops to parents in London, starting March 2021. The workshops will offer a practical toolkit of strategies to help you to MOT your own well-being, support your children and make family life less stressful.
There is no need to commit to anything more than the one session (although you are welcome to sign up to more) you can pick the session that you feel will be most helpful to you and your family.
These free workshops will give you access to tried and tested parenting strategies, whilst being amongst other dads and mums who get what it’s been like, giving you ideas, a place to start for some easy ways to make family life a bit lighter.
Run by parents. For parents.
This workshop is run by EPEC as part of the Centre for Parent and Child Support, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust in partnership with THRIVE London. EPEC delivers evidenced based parenting programmes locally, nationally and internationally. All our groups/workshops are peer led, which means they are run by trained parent facilitators and supervised by a member of the EPEC staff team who are trained NHS clinicians.
THRIVE London “is a citywide movement that works with local organisations to reduce inequality and improve the mental health and wellbeing of all Londoners”.
To sign up to the workshops click on link below;
http://bit.ly/ThriveLDNWorkshopsignup
For more information about EPEC and/or Thrive London see below;
EPEC: http://www.cpcs.org.uk
Thrive London: https://thriveldn.co.uk
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