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We currently live in a country facing excruciating economic crisis that is make parenting difficult. Fuel scarcity, a sharp rising of cost of living, and a shake of the status quo is our current nightmare. As parents, we have to continuously decide what is to be deemed a necessity and a luxury for our households. These changes impact our kids in difficult ways because we uproot them from their status quo into waters they are not used to. One of the main jobs of parents is ensuring stability for our kids amidst the chaos. How can we continue to nurture, protect, and inspire our kids when the world around us feels so unstable?
Having thought about this for a while, I came up with 5 ways of overcoming Malawi’s economic crisis as a parent. Most of the ways I will share, I have put them into practice and feel are doing wonders. They do not make things perfect, but at least you will ensure that you can maintain the stability of your kids.
5 Ways to Thrive as a Parent in Malawi
When you enter any grocery store, you will notice how prices keep rising every day. The more grocery prices rise, the harder it is becoming to stick to budgets and thus, hard to provide every need for the people in your households. Being a parent, one of the joys we get is being that smile and a twinkle in their eyes when we get our kids what they have been dying for. In light of the current economic crisis, we are now left between a rock and a hard place.
Well, these tips will not really get you out of that hard place, but they will ease the blame on oneself. These are strategies that, when implemented, will allow one to effectively purchase what is required for the household, but also ease the kids into accepting the current status quo regardless of the age.
Practical Parenting Tips for Tough Times
1. Mastering the Art of Budgeting
You can never go wrong with an effective budget. Budgeting is truly an art, ensuring that your money is spent in areas of importance, while also ensuring that you have enough left to do some saving should not be undervalued. The issue is, most of us do not do well with this art. It is like painting, it takes skills to make sure the strokes on the canvas paints the right picture.
Another problem that most parents face when budgeting is differentiating the needs from the wants. However, this is something that you truly need to get right. When you look at your expenditure list, try and ask yourself what you can live without, and what you can’t live without. Then on a sheet of paper, write them down in separate columns.
The priority should always be spending on the needs. Before spending on any wants, ensure all your needs have already been paid for, that way the money spent on wants is the excess money left over. Even then, after spending on your needs, save some coins first, then spend on the wants.
Another important trick is chasing promotions especially when grocery shopping. Always be on the look out on what items are on sale in different stores before you buy them elsewhere at an expensive price. When you do find promotions, always make sure to bulk buy so that you maximise savings.
Other ways that can make you save more in this economic crisis are things like having a small garden in your backyard. Not only do you save money that you constantly spend on vegetables, but you also are able to eat fresh vegetables and offer healthy meals to your family.
2. Providing Stability for the Kids
One important aspect of raising kids is providing them stability. Stability gives them comfort and security, and often, they do not like anything that makes their lives unstable. During an economic crisis like the one we are currently facing, will probably require you to make adjustments to your lives.
These adjustments will perhaps also affect your kids, and it is hard to make the little humans understand that such changes are necessary in an economic crisis. For starters, they do not understand what an economic crisis is, and the challenges that it comes with. In their word, any change is hell on earth.
Secondly, they believe that money automatically comes out of the ATM, so you are again pushed between a rock and a hard place. However, I can testify that whatever age a child is, they are able to comprehend that something unusual is happening. Here are a few things you can do to ensure you maintain stability.
- One of the best things is establishing routines. Routines are stable, they are events that are reoccurring and kids love that. They love when they can anticipate the next event that is about to take place. Again, it reaffirms security, even when they act differently sometimes. Be consistent after introducing the routines.
- Communication is key! Even when the person you are communicating to is a toddler. They too love communication just like we grown folks do. Be considerate with their age, and find an appropriate way of communicating that their status quo is about to change. It would be hard to say that there is an economic crisis in the country, but you could tell them that mommy and daddy do not have money. Also important is communicating what they get to maintain, and what might have to be stripped off because of lack of disposable cash.
- When deciding what luxurious items to remove from their shopping list, do not do an instant uproot. Rather, reduce it over a period of time. The same way you weened them off breast milk, or their favourite baby food.
When trying to save money, ensure that you focus more on either free or less expensive joys. In this case, instead of buying them a toy that is expensive, you would rather take them to playgrounds were they will have access to such toys and more at a very cheap price.
3. Community! Support Network! Community!
Having community is so important to parents. I have always stressed on the importance of having a support network, people that you can truly lean on. Read How to Build a Strong Community for Your Baby. A community will not just offer you a shoulder to lean on when things get tough, but they will help lift you up when you are down.
More than anything, they will ensure your kids are protected until such a time that you can provide the stability that is required in their lives. An economic crisis could leave you feeling stressed and not like yourself, having a support network will enable that the stress you are going through is eased.
One way I have seen my brother and his wife use this during this economic crisis is trading of skills with their friends. They have an easy agreement, each family gets two weeks in a month to drive the kids to school, and ensure the food they carry is enough for both their daughters. Let me explain better, my brother has a daughter and the other family also has a daughter, and they both learn in the same school and stay in the same location.
They divide the month equally, and each family gets two weeks to drop the kids off. However, if one family is dropping the kids this week, it means the other will provide the snacks. While one would be worried on the kind of snacks the other will provide, they decided on something great, a timetable. Each week, the moms agree on the snacks the will provide and ensure it is does not go beyond the budget.
If one feels they have a strain, they communicate and the other has to take their load until a time when they are able to get back on their feet. I feel that this is one of the best ways of utilising your community.
Your community does not always have to be your family and friends, you can lean on other parenting groups, the church, and even organisations that offer the same.
4. Do Not Lose Sight of Your Mental Health
Like I keep saying, an economic crisis will bring a lot of stress. Not only are you worried about making ends meet, an economic crisis will continuously throw at you a curve ball. That, together with constant demands on what the kids want, black tax, and your own self needs can make you feel like you are failing.
First off, you are not failing at all. Everything is rising while your income remains constant. You will feel like you are working for nothing, which is right. You will feel like your hard work is not paying off; well, you are in a country that does not reward hard or smart work, just theft. Each time you take a step forward in making your life better, you will pushed ten steps back.
One thing you can do is ensure you are not losing sight of your mental health. Those little humans that call you mom or dad depend on it.
Take a break sometimes and breathe. This is the best self-care you can indulge in. You might not be able to pamper yourself cause “economic crisis,” but sometimes a 10-minute break from everything and everyone will have you recharged. Find a quiet place that you can go to, take a moment to listen and reason with yourself, and often times, those are the times you come up with the best plans.
If you feel so overwhelmed, it is also important to utilise the community we just talked about. Talk to your friends about your feelings and your fears. You could find gems of advise from people that are on the outside looking in, and often could be the best way of relieving the stress.
The most important thing is to find the small wins in your daily activities. Even when anything else seems not to be working, rejoice in the small things that worked on that day. If you are able to find a good promotion that will help save you a bit of cash, rejoice in it. Then look back at what did not work, reflect and analyse how you could have done things better to get the best results.
5. Teach the Kids Resilience
This is the one thing that I am trying to implement, and still feel like I am not doing a good job. However, one step at a time.
A few month after my son was born, the President announced that everyone in the country had a loan of K600,000 (about $350). That is, if they were to equally distribute the national loan to every citizen. That was in 2021. Over the years, the national loan has rose from K2.1 trillion in 2021, to K8 trillion in 2024. Which means the individual debt has also exponentially risen.
So, it is important to teach the kids while they are young resilience, because it is obvious that they too will have to ensure a couple of economic crisis too.
Teaching them has to be age-appropriate. Even if they are toddlers, involve them in budgeting their own resources. They will find it fun. When they undergo a problem, instead of solving the issue for them, empower them to come up with ways of solving the problem. These are basic skills that they will need throughout their lives.
The part I am failing the most is ensuring my son celebrates positivity. This is to ensure that he is more grateful of the things he currently has, instead of throwing tantrums on the things he wishes to have. But I am geared to turn this around as time goes by.
Economic Crisis? You’ve Got This!
I do not want to say that the economic crisis is temporary and that things will get better anytime soon. We could get a breather during the campaign season, but once the election is done, we might go back to this.
The best thing is not to lose your head, be resilient, and you will sail in the right direction. Most of all, ensure to talk about it when you feel that life is getting tougher, and seek help.
How have you been surviving in the current economic crisis? Share tips and story that can help another parent in the comment section below, and if possible, with your communities as well.