At one of the parenting seminars put on by the Pritchards, I learned it was important to really have pre-thought purpose to my parenting. In attempting to be intentional about parenting, it’s important to have a plan. What is your discipline structure going to look like? What will your weekly schedule be? What do you want to teach your children? What are your end goals? It is important to talk about these things with your spouse to get on the same page. If you don’t know what you want to teach or how you are going to respond to your kids behavior, good solutions will not just happen by accident. If you don’t have a plan, you will be a reactionary parent when it comes to your children’s problems or misbehavior. Reactionary parenting is not well received well by kids. Kids have the amazing ability to sense when you do not have purpose and play on that weakness. It also can lead to a lack of consistency, which never helps in improving your children’s behavior. If you are a reactionary parent, you are just teaching or responding off the top of your head, and it often comes in those extremely frustrating moments, which only leads to a negative reaction from both you and your children. Your parenting should be thought out and presented to your children in a clear way so that they know exactly how you are going to respond to their behaviors and can have confidence that you have a plan that will guide them to succeed in this life.
I agree 100%. Having a plan is so important. Kids know when you aren’t sure of yourself. Consistency is key. What do you think about having a couple of career/skill goals for your children? We have been thinking about what we would like our children to be good at and want to make a plan to help them get there.
Thanks for linking up at Mom’s Library!
For me, I think my kids are too young to establish career/skill goals. Right now, I’m trying to expose them to as many things possible to find out where their niche might be. I look back on my own life, and I see all the adventures I tried and things I pursued (I had a variety of interests), and I see it finally making sense and coming together in my parenting, the blog, hobbies and the serving ministries I’m involved in. At 5, I wouldn’t have wanted to zero in on one thing to spend all of my time on. That said, an Olympian might tell you a different story. I guess it’s just trying to figure out what is best for your kids.
Interesting question – thanks so much for posing it. Makes me think.