(This post also contains discussion of call life so please skip if this is a trigger for you!)
Hi! It’s Friday.
I am nearing the end of a busy call week — it definitely has not been a quiet one! AND I am so happy with how I have handled it so far.
No scrolling.
No stress shopping.
No nail biting.
Less feeling of overwhelm.
Less reactivity (not NO reactivity, I’m still human lol — but less).
Do I expect to be able to handle every single call week or stressful situation this well? Nope. BUT I am encouraged 🙂 And now I know that it is possible for me.
I have also been tracking lots of things (time, sleep, media) and it has been helpful and interesting. So maybe more on that later.
For brevity’s sake (need to go see a consult), I will share just 1 thing: via Cup of Jo, The One Question I Ask My Kids After School.
Her question: “How was your day on a scale of 1 to 10?”
I tried it and . . . indeed it is an excellent conversation starter.
(G has yet to report anything under 10/10, but at least with the others it’s helpful! Not that I mind hearing that her day was 10/10!)
My week has not been 10/10, but honestly it’s been decent and I am happy with that!
9 Comments
I tried this too. My 8 yo gives numbers like 5.432. My 16 yo asked if he was reciting the digits of pi.
I asked Simone how her day was from 1 to 10. I don’t know whether she really understood me, but she answered quickly and confidently that it was a 10. Despite questioning her understanding, I found it deeply heartwarming.
awww I LOVE that!!!!
Yay for the home stretch of call!
We do “3 positive things” from our day as T has been having a rough time with his bestie, and will just list grievances if we ask a more generic question. Sometimes, we get “nothing…” but can normally persuade him to think about a few things, even if it’s just school lunch (I’m forever grateful he loves the free school lunch, free in Scotland through primary school).
My dad used to ask us, did you learn anything in school? And so often I couldn’t think of anything specific, so I’d say no, and then he’d say, well, why did you go?
hahahahah that is funny!
I want to start doing this. We used to do lowlights, medium lights, and highlights, but haven’t been doing it as routinely. 1-10 scale is even easier and my kids LOVE to rank things.
I try to be empathetic and understand others’ POV and use my imagination but I am struggling to determine what feelings someone else’s call week could trigger. Does a person just not want to read about how stressed their doctor might be if they call in with an emergency question? Serious question, not meant from a judgmental perspective. I think it’s interesting to read about, and I hope I can learn more about why someone else might not like to!
Essentially yes. I don’t want to upset anyone but I still want to share my story so this trigger warning feels like a reasonable thing to do 🙂