Intentional Parenting

In honor of our upcoming trip to the homeschool conference, I decided to make this month all about my second goal for the year 2019: Intentional parenting. Or, more specifically:

Goal #2: Understand and facilitate how my children learn and grow.

(You can read more about My Goals for 2019 here.)

Intentional parenting. What does that look like for you? Some days I feel like it’s this unattainable standard and other days I realize the fact that I’m involved with my kids at all (rather than farming them out to someone else) is a sign that I’m an intentional parent.

This month I’ll be sharing a few ways I am intentional with my kids. I’ll go deeper on topics like unplugging, facilitating their interests and smarts, our routines, and more. And I promise–I am seriously just as much of a mess and feel as much like a failure as every good mom out there.

But you know what? We’re not failures. As long as we are getting up every day and doing what needs to be done, we are not failures. Proverbs 22:6 (AMP) says:

“Train up a child in the way he should go [teaching him to seek God’s wisdom and will for his abilities and talents],
Even when he is old he will not depart from it..”

In other words, seek to understand your children. What makes them tick? Activities they enjoy? What are they gifted in? How are they smart? If you pay close enough attention, you can figure these things out and make your plan for training them up and facilitating their growth.

This is one great advantage of homeschooling. But I can’t get ahead of myself!

For now, here are the specific ways (in each area of my life) my goal of intentional parenting is playing out in 2019.

Intentionally unplug every day and be present for my kids. (Career)

I will definitely be writing at length on this topic, but for now, suffice it to say that my attempts to unplug from the ever present web has made a difference when it comes to my parenting. Perhaps that is no revelation to some of you, but it has been a good lesson for me!

One of the best ways I have found to be an intentional parent is to just work on being present. No matter how dull driving trucks and building train tracks may get.

Communicate my discoveries about our kids to my husband. (Marriage)

Here’s the thing: as parents we talk all the time about our kids. It’s rare that we don’t talk about our kids, even on date night. But most of the time it feels like complaining. About their picky eating, their tantrums, the lack of naps…

But one thing I have found I don’t talk about as often is their gifts and abilities. Since I am at home with the boys all day, my husband doesn’t witness as much of their growth and learning as I do. I want to be more intentional about highlighting those things for him at the end of the day.

I want to tell him not just about the milestones. –“Oh! Shepherd stood up on his own for ten seconds today!”– But also about what I am discovering in their personalities. What they are good at and what they enjoy doing. So that my husband can also better facilitate these things in them. That way we can do intentional parenting together.

Discover how my kids are smart and tailor their schooling to each style. (Children)

Homeschooling in depth is still a ways off for us–Jonas will only be starting homeschool preschool in September and it will be pretty unstructured. But I want to start observing the different ways my children are smart. What do I mean by that?

One of my favorite homeschool speakers/authors/educators is Dr. Kathy Koch. She has a wonderful book 8 Great Smarts that outlines the different areas children are smart in: space, logic, writing, etc. She argues that ALL children are smart, just in different ways. And if we can harness that, we can teach our children better by catering to the way they think and learn.

Related: Dear Mom, Study Your Kids

Make regular playdates. (Friendships)

Last fall I had the entire month of September planned. To the teeth. With activities, playdates, outings, you name it. We didn’t have a moment unscheduled. And then hurricane Florence came through and completely wiped out all my hard work. Since then I’ve struggled to create regular playdates with friends. And I want to get back to that!

Create a play space and toy rotation. (Home)

This takes a lot of intentionality. But if you can create a specific play space and put most of the toys out of sight, you can save a lot of stress. I have found that putting most of the toys away and rotating them out keeps things new for longer. Plus I don’t have to clean up EVERY game and toy EVERY day. Cause you know as well as I do when the kids have access to all the toys at once… they pull every single one out and play with none of them.

Implement French eating practices to encourage healthy eating. (Health)

Last year I read French Kids Eat Everything and it was so inspiring. I had fairly good eaters at the time because Shep was still an infant–welcoming of everything I’d feed him–and Jonas had learned pretty well to eat what I gave him. Mostly because I’d been able to concentrate on training him alone. As time has worn on though, I’ve gotten weak. Junk food has made it’s way into their diets making them pickier and harder to please.

Which means I will probably be breaking out the blender and reintroducing some flavors in their most simplistic form again. If you don’t know what I mean by that, stick around! I’ll be writing this month about French eating practices and what my kids eat regularly.

Teach simple spend, save, and give practices. (Finances)

They are still a little young for this, but I want to at least be getting myself in the right mindset financially so I can be prepared to teach my kids how to properly spend, save, and give. Intentional parenting means I have to practice what I preach, right?

Plan activities into each day. (Leisure)

This takes major intentionality. One thing that saves us a lot of daily aimlessness is when I actually take the time to plan activities. When I wake up without a plan for at least one structured activity, things usually descend into chaos and boredom.

And how hard is it really to just sit down for 30 seconds the night before and decide on one thing we can do together the next day?

Pray with my children. (Faith)

I already do this every night–even when I’m literally having to hold my growling toddler down to get him to lay down and go to sleep. (Not exactly what I had hoped for when I imagined what praying with my children would look like.) But I want to be a little more organized about it. Not crazy, but just better.

Create kid-friendly capsule wardrobes. (Personal)

Finally, and this is something I’ve been working on slowly over time, I want to create capsule wardrobes for my kids. Maybe that sounds too posh or anal to you, but I have found it really helps getting dressed go smoothly and stylishly.

One of the things I looked forward to as a parent was dressing my kids cute. I didn’t want them loafing around in basketball shorts and gaudy graphic tees. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s just not how I dress and it’s not how I want my kids to dress.

The solution I’ve found is that they each have something of a capsule wardrobe for little people. Almost all their clothes are in the same 4 or 5 colors and all mix and match easily. Plus they do not own a pair of basketball shorts. LOL! Some dreams do come true. You just have to believe. And buy toddler jeans.

Stay tuned for more on intentional parenting

These are the ways I want to focus this month on being a more intentional parent. What does being an intentional parent look like for you? Have you done or are you working on any of the things I listed above?

Follow me on Instagram @huntressathome and join me in my journey towards a more simple, minimal, intentional life.