Process to Becoming a Successful Mother and Student

Jessica Stalsby
Professor Cavell
English 1001, Section 02
1 July 2013

The role of a mother is a highly demanding role in itself. Making the choice to become a mother and a college student is even more demanding. Once that choice has been determined, one wants to ensure that they are effective at balancing the two roles successfully. I will describe how to maintain a healthy balance between being a successful mother and a successful college student. I implemented a particular process when I decided to enroll in college. I am a mother of 4 children and a step mother of 3 children. I knew that in order to succeed in college and maintain a healthy relationship with my children, I would have to put order into place in both areas of my life. The key to becoming and maintaining success as a mother and a student is centered around organization. The organizational process to being a successful mother and student includes many steps. Those steps include: establishing specific and achievable goals, setting priorities, possessing a mind set of determinatation and devotion, being self disciplined and structured, and lastly, being able to still have time to love and laugh with your family. The first step in my process was establishing specific and achievable goals. I knew what I wanted to do, so I had to get a little more specific with my goals. My goal consisted of the date I planned to graduate, where I wanted to start my career and a dollar figure that I hoped to make.
Once I had my goals in place, I then developed the mind set needed to start the mother/student role in movement. I knew I would need to be solely committed and devoted to attending school and maintaining a healthy relationship with my family. I also would remind myself on a daily basis of what my goals were. That would help me continue to be determined and devoted. Once I was enrolled at school and had a schedule in place, my next step was to implement a structed routine. To make this routine, I created a term schedule (fixed, unchanging) for each week. This schedule would list all events in my life for that week that were could not be changed or rescheduled. That would include my class schedule, appropriate study/homework time for each class, doctor appointments for myself or children, commute time to and from school, extracurricular activities for children, church times, meal preparation times, daily chores, allotted family time and sleep times. The term schedule was very detailed, I scheduled every thing I needed to do in a days time. The schedule allowed me to see on a day to day basis what “free” time I would have after all the must-do’s in my life had been fulfilled. Once I had the term schedule in place, I then had a routine to follow. Following a routine allowed me to stick to my priorities and ensure that the important items in my life were executed on time. When I had free time, I would use that time to do the “extra’s” in life!!