Stopping and re-evaluating my parenting

iStock_000000519933XSmallSometimes life gets so busy that my days seem to fly past and I lose track of the big picture. I don’t know if this happens to you, or not, but life can be busy and we can lose sight of what our purpose really is. I can find in my parenting that I am so busy taking the kids to various sports and activities that I can forget about their character development and the attributes they need to develop in for their future. I can see their individual strengths but am I creating an environment to nurture those strengths.

Thus, every six months or so, I like to intentionally stop and re-evaluate how we are going.

Some of the questions I like to ask myself, my husband & my kids are:

a)     What character traits does my child need to develop in in these next 6 months?

b)     What do I perceive are the issues that my child will face in the next six months to a year?

c)      What do I need to do, learn, adapt in my parenting style so that I can help my child to achieve that?

d)     How does our family need to change and adapt to help meet the current and future needs of our children?

e)     How are our family values and non-negotiables being played out in everyday life?

f)        How does, and should, our Christian faith impact our life at the moment?

g)     What do I need to change about myself at the moment to be the person that God is calling me to be?

h)      How are we all going at achieving the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year?

i)        How do I need to change the way that I pray for my child? What is God’s perspective on what is happening? 

Part of my struggle has been that I haven’t always transposed these goals into what they would look like at a weekly and daily level. It is so easy to then become negative and look at everything that isn’t as it should be. Instead, I then ask the question “What am I doing today that will help my child be all he/she was created to be?”

We used to have a custom for our evening meal as we all sat together around the table, to all share what the best part of our day was, and what we wish we could have changed & how we would have changed it. We have been a bit distracted lately & this has been missed. It is something I am going to re-implement tonight.

 What do you need to “tweak” in your family life at the moment?