Pareto's Principle, applied to parenting.
Use the 80/20 rule to get better behavior, better moods and more free time.
Parenting Matters #62
By: Catherine Lynch and Glenn Collins
Dear Awesome Parent,
Happy Mother’s Day!
We recently saw a survey asking moms What They Really Want For Mothers Day and the answer shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s a parent: The majority of moms who answered said they wanted a whole day to themselves, without their kids. They didn’t want flowers or breakfast in bed or a day out with the family, they wanted the thing that most parents have almost none of: Free time. Me time. Time to do something (or nothing!) just for themselves. Time where they didn’t have to worry about school, or meals, or bedtimes, or squabbles, or devices.
Wow. Let’s not judge these moms though, instead let’s work on how to make parenting easier and more enjoyable so parents aren’t desperate for a break from their kids.
We all know parenting is inherently a 24/7 job. There’s no way to magically give you more hours in the day. But there are ways to give you more joy, reduce your stress, and make you more efficient. Ways to do less but get better results. One of those ways is to apply Mental Models to parenting.
Parenting is easier, more fun, and more fulfilling when you know and apply Mental Models.
Mental Models
Yes, mental models. That’s a fancy name for the conceptual shortcuts we all use to make sense of a complex world. Applied to parenting these are often basic principles about human nature that will make your life easier if you know and apply them.
There are lots of mental models that can make parenting easier, but you’re busy and it’s Mother’s Day Weekend so we’ll just look at one today:
Pareto’s Principle.
Also known as The 80/20 rule.
Yes, that Pareto’s Principle. The one you’ve heard about, read about, and perhaps even applied at work. It goes like this:
You do lots of things. 20% of your efforts create 80% of your results. That 20% is much more fruitful than the other 80% of what you do. (The numbers aren’t exact, this is a general principle.) Therefore: when you can figure out which of your efforts give you a bigger bang for your buck, so to speak, that’s where you concentrate your attention.
Pareto’s Principle, applied to parenting:
Pareto’s Principle won’t magically give you extra time. However, it can give you some of your own hours back, so you’re doing things for you, not just for your kids. Here’s how to apply it to the top 3 things parents talk to us about: Time, Behavior, and Mood.
Time.
Every parent we know is time-stressed. There’s no magic cure for that, but there are the two (similar) ways to maximize the number of hours you’ll get back:
1.) Don’t do for them what they can do for themselves. For example - making their lunches, washing their clothes, and organizing their rides. Not only does this save you time, it also allows them to experience the consequences of their own (in)action which is a beautiful thing in terms of preparing them for life as a grownup.
2.) Give them more agency in their own lives. You get a few hours back, and they get to practice doing things they’ll need to do anyway as a grownup. This is a win/win. Both of these will initially take a little more time but over time will pay big dividends in time saved.
For example, we know a mom who spent many hours every week trying to help her daughter improve her grades. Helping with homework. Emailing teachers. Talking to administrators. She finally hired a tutor and gave her 16 year old daughter responsibility for her own grades and communication with teachers. Can you guess what happened? Her daughter raised her grades, graduated with honors, and is now attending the university of her dreams. Oh, and she has a much better relationship with her mother now that the mom gave her more control over her life and stopped hounding her about her grades.
Action step: Of all the things you could give your kid more agency over in their lives, which one would be most fruitful in terms of saving you time? What are you doing out of habit, or because you want it done your way, that they could be doing for themselves?
Behavior.
You want your kids to do X, they want to do Y. You’ve applied lots of different strategies to change their behavior. Some work better than others. Double down on the ones that work well - that’s your 20% that provides 80% of the results.
Many parents we work with have discovered that prioritizing the relationship with their kid is the 20% that improves their kid’s behavior the most. It gives the best ROI.
Action step: Re-read previous issues of our newsletters to get the details on why and how. We talk about it all the time.😉 In short, having a good relationship with your kid makes them more willing to do what you ask, more pleasant to be around, and disagreements are much less likely to blow up into major conflicts.
Mood.
You want your kid to be in a decent mood because no one likes to live in a war zone. If you can identify the things that most frequently set your kid off, and you work on that, you’ll see a greater reduction in drama than if you reduce a minor irritation.
According to the parents we work with, there are two main ways to help your kids manage their moods that have the biggest effect:
Manage your own mood. Yes. We all have a tendency to get drawn into the emotions of those around us. When you’re in control of your own mood you’re less likely to be drawn into your kid’s drama and more likely to be the stabilizing influence instead. The one who calms down the situation so normal life can resume again.
Action step: Take a break before you lose your temper. Go for a walk, do some slow deep breathing, or something else that’s guaranteed to help your nervous system go from fight/flight to wise, thoughtful, and empathetic.
HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These are the most common four big feelings that change our kid’s moods for the worse. Keep these in mind, be proactive about preventing them, and take steps toward fixing them quickly when they do occur to prevent major mood swings.
Action step: Figure out which one of the above feelings your kid experiences most often, teach them how to prevent or fix it, and watch the number of mood swings drop.
A Purple Iris
Because purple is a favorite color of the women in the family. ❤️