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Hello, I’m Elaine Kung. Blessings from California in the United States. We continue with our Work-Life Balance series, number twelve. Today, we continue with these six ‘S’ and we’re at the last one, ‘Share harmony at work and at home’.
Today we focus on, especially during COVID or unusual circumstance, where we may have additional workload and pressure, especially when we may have to work from home, as you can see from the posters on the right. Look at all these images to show the challenges, especially for working mothers, how we do both work and also during the day taking care of all the other home duties; taking care of the children, the meals, and is a lot more invisible pressure.
I suggest that we do not just work FROM home but think about working ON our home during unusual circumstance like COVID, or when we are required to stay home. And I really suggest that we don't just shelter in place, we actually want to shelter in God. And I'll share many suggestions on what we can do when we're working from home and how we can work on our home and find our shelter in God.
Just a quick reminder that our family really build on these priorities. Remember, our most important gifts for our children isn't the most latest version of iPhone or iPad or gadgets, it's really first having a strong relationship with God in all things. And second, it's our marriage. A strong marriage offers the best security, love, and comfort to our children. These are the most important gifts, then it come to our children. That way, our marriage must be built to outlast the 18 years that our children stay with us. So, our marriage definitely should be more long lasting.
So, here's what we learned during the time when we work from home. I learned to build a strength in our family and the STRENGTH acrostic has very rich experience and practical suggestions. Starting with ‘S’, share devotion and prayer. During the pandemic when we are working from home, we get to spend the most time with our children, practically 24-hours a day and 7 days a week. We want to take advantage of time and share the devotion in a fun way, not in a boring, rigid, or preachy way. And it’s also based on the children's attention span. If it's 5 years old, the attention span is 5 minutes, so you would have to change your state of what you do with them every 5 minutes. So, make it fun, make it experiential that they would enjoy and play games and sing songs that they like, and doing stories and acting it out.
‘T’ is time for fun memories. These are examples of fun memories in our devotion time. And there are many more activities I’m going to show you that you could create fond and fun memories during this special time when we are home most of the time, together. ‘R’ is relationship, we've talked before, the 3 ‘R’s in our relationship in our family, is the relationship, our role model, and our responsibility. So, when we have good relationship, we have strength in our family.
Empathy, empathy is feeling how each other feels. Not just put them down, say oh don't worry it's gonna be okay. We are then turning down how people may feel. We want to accept how they feel and feel how they feel and say, you must be disappointed that you didn't get to see your friends for such a long time. It must be so difficult to study online and not being able to interact in person at the school. So, name the emotion, how they may feel, and feel how they feel. Empathy, very powerful, especially during such stressful time and uncertain times is very important to relate how they feel. That way, you're not showing apathy. I don't care how you feel. We don't want that or sympathy. I feel sorry for how you feel. We don't want that either. We want empathy. I feel how you feel, and give a name to the emotion and connect with them that way.
And ‘N’ is noble character. During such difficult time, it's more challenging, and yet very important for us to demonstrate Christ-like character. Noble character is really the most profound and most evident to each other when we're going through difficult times. And it's also the time that we test our faith, how we are strong in trusting and obeying God. So, noble character gives us strength. And then grace, we want to give each other, some room and flexibility and grace. Forgiving each other when we may lose our cool and giving each other, second, third, and fourth chance when we may make a mistake during such a stressful time.
‘T’ is talent to serve, that we allow each other to serve. You may remember we talked about family chores isn't chores and duties and tasks. We call them privilege. It's a privilege to use our talent to serve each other. And try to let the children do what they enjoy doing, whether it's the cleaning dishes or mopping the floor. So, in terms of these privileges, let's pick one. And separately we have games and fun times as well. As we serve together as a family, it's a family bonding time. That's another way for time for fun memories.
Finally, the ‘H’ is HEAR 6As. So, HEAR is when we want to be a good active listener, and repeat what they said, and show interest, and ask good questions or open-ended questions. And this HEAR is also a small acrostic. Help each other during this difficult time. Be an encourager, catch them do right, not just catch them do wrong. And the moment you see they're doing the right behavior that we are working on; we want to encourage them, be affirmative, and then advice. Instead of telling and instructing or lecturing, we could make suggestions and advice, and discuss with each other. Respect them as an individual so that they should also have their own ideas and own suggestions. Especially teenagers, let them have some space, respect their space.
This way, we want to hear the six ‘A’s of acceptance, to accept the way they are, and love them the way they are unconditionally. Show our affection during the stressful time, that we can hug each other, we can play funny games. And appreciation, as we do family privileges together that we want to appreciate each other. And thank them and being polite, not just polite to our friends and neighbors. We should have the best polite attitude with our family members who are the closest to us. And then be available, that we want to spend time that's positive and fun memories.
And willing to apologize. I have learned so much on how to apologize to my family when I lose my cool, did the wrong thing or made the wrong assumption. Sometimes I say, “I’m sorry children, I just lost my temper, would you forgive mummy?” If they forgive me, we're all very happy. But when they say, “no, not yet”, I have to pray and have courage to come back and ask them again with the thick skin. This does not degrade my authority with them. That actually build up a better respect, that they see that your parents are actually humble and acknowledge our own mistake and apologize. And the final ‘A’ is amen. That we pray with each other, pray for each other, and pray by each other. Every day in our family, when the children are growing up, especially during stressful time. That's when we can experience the grace of God, the strength from God together as a family, strength in our family.
In summary, we want to love a whole lot more, to fill our family with loving attitude, loving atmosphere, loving actions, and words. Then we could coach them if they are not doing it right and discuss and go through this STRENGTH HEAR 6A. And then finally, if we need to, we would discipline them. And even when we discipline them, we want to do it in a positive way, not scolding and pointing or lecturing, but really discussing and understand what happened. What do we do wrong? What is the action that may lead to certain result? So, what do we want to be careful, and how do we practice and correct that. So, that’s how we build strength in our family during such stressful time.
And these are now many practical ideas of being friends with each other in stressful time, such as the COVID. And these are practical ways that we actually do in our home for fond memories. So, what are the FRIENDS? ‘F’ is family activities together, I'll show you pictures and examples shortly, such as cooking, eating together, playing games, planting, gardening, knitting, movies, reading, shopping, sports, outdoor hiking. So let the children suggest what they think would be fun to do and it has to be agreed upon as a family.
‘R’, respect them as a smart individual, independent person. So, we can have heart-to-heart chat. And I suggest each parent should do at least 10 or 30 minutes, one-on-one time, at least once a week with each of the children. And not talking about school or college application, but really hear them out. Listen, respect them. ‘I’ is to investigate different creative ideas and the children are very good with google search, youtube, what books to read and talk to friends and find good ideas to fit our family and find many different alternatives that we can investigate.
‘E’ is to encourage any small, positive change. We want to reward them, catch them do right, and celebrate small wins. ‘N’ is never just tell, don't lecture, instruct, command or control. Instead, we ask for their opinion, what they think and what they may like better, or you can vote. So that way their voice is being heard and accept their ideas as much as possible. ‘D’ is to delight in learning from them, with humility and let them take charge that way, you build a third ‘R’ which is responsibility. And finally, ‘S’, share the joys and sorrows of life, do life together, including our ups and bounds during the stressful time.
These are examples from our family during this COVID season, very difficult time, this is our new normal. We don't get see each other much. When we do, we put on the mask, celebrate birthday, and when they don't come to celebrate, they send flowers, food, and gifts. And then my daughter got a dog very adorable. Taking care of a pet during stressful time is actually a good idea, because that keeps good company and fun things for the family. Yet it's important for the children to take responsibility. So, we celebrate with what the children love. They love the dog, named Kitch. Then I celebrate and made an acrostic, and this little flyer to welcome Kitch. And really celebrate how my daughter loves to cook, so that's a kitchen name after the Kitch. And how it's important to build inspiring friendship with the dog. It’s teachable, and it's a caring companion, and it's a homey buddy, because this dog is very smart, very creative. And then during COVID, my son celebrated 30th birthday. So, we have a fun way to celebrate using a special surprise, decoration, and acrostic for his name. And always this Luke 2:52 verse, which we’ll come back to in the future session.
Then we have Mother’s Day celebration, and how they always encourage me that I’m a light. And remember my name Elaine means light, so that we want to be light and salt and shining for Jesus. And then they also made acrostic for me using the word MOTHER, and it’s about what do I mean to them. Then for Father’s Day, there's no acrostic because my husband doesn't use acrostic. They write a very nice letter thanking dad. How grateful they are for this loving husband, father, son, brother, and being a friend. And then for our wedding anniversary, more flowers, and more food and more fun, outdoor gathering because of the COVID season.
And then for my birthday, for the first time my daughter couldn't come because of COVID and got a big flower arrangement from her, and with a very sweet message that she's very grateful and admire what I have. So, thank you for my children. And that's how we build relationship throughout the decades. We play games every weekend on zoom, that we would get on and share, pray, and plan things and do life together. This is ‘codename’, it’s one of our favorite game, and our children always win. This is another game that we play. Every week we talk about what happened, highlight, low-light, and what we can plan and how to pray together. So, that's how we want to take advantage of the time together at home and share harmony at work and at home with our effective time management tips. See you next time.
Reflections:
1. Do you like working from home? why?
2. What do you think is the biggest challenge of working from home?
3. Which of the methods of balancing work and family shared by Teacher kung today can you apply immediatety?