When planning my Wise Parenting Project, I first had more than fifty resolutions on my list. Then I quickly realized it might turn into a “Mad Parenting Project” and boiled everything down to 12 simple things I really want to focus on this year.
While working on my resolutions, I also came up with my parenting motto:
Don’t wish parenting was easier. Wish you were better.
So for me, 2023 is not just about making the parenting journey easier but about building better parenting skills and better systems (a.k.a habits). One step at a time.
Here are my 12 Parenting resolutions for this year:
1. January: Create Family Mission Statement
As all sensible parents, we want our kids to grasp the qualities that are most important to us. Best way to do it? To clearly communicate our values and live by our core principles. That’s when Family Mission Statement becomes handy. This month we are planning to follow Stephen Covey’s advice from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families and create our very own “destination, a flight plan, and a compass.”
2. February: Implement Agile tools
When I worked in consultancy, project management tools made my life much easier and my clients happier. After reading Bruce Feiler’s inspirational book The Secrets of Happy Families, I was very keen to try Agile Parenting tools at home. Now that the kids are a bit older, I’m excited to dedicate the whole month to building a better system for family management. We’ll start weekly family meetings, introduce morning checklists and get better at involving kids in chores.
3. March: Have Special Time with each child
Most parenting experts say that one-to-one bonding time with each child is a total game changer. My goal for March is to establish regular and semi-structured Special Time dates with each child.
4. April: Prioritize play
Although we are pretty good at prioritizing free play at home, my goal for this month will be to have more fun together. We’ll explore our interests, play more together and embrace the playful parenting concept. Can’t wait.
5. May: Be proactive and less reactive
One of the key aspects of conscious parenting is self-awareness. It helps us understand where is our pause button when things get hot. So the goal for the month is to deliberately explore my triggers and emotions, master self-regulation and practice hitting the pause button when needed.
6. June: Master communication techniques
The communication philosophy from Marchal Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication has been a game changer for me. And although I already use it pretty often, I want to dedicate the whole month to mastering non-violent communication techniques and building my toolbox of effective communication strategies.
7. July: Prioritize date nights
Relationships between parents always set the tone for the whole family life. The truth is that while focusing on kids, it’s easy to forget about nurturing an authentic connection with your partner! This year in July, we’ll celebrate our tenth Wedding Anniversary, so I decided to dedicate the whole month to dating…my own husband. Although we are quite good at carving some time for ourselves, the intention here is to have regular, meaningful and memorable dates.
8. August: Have more talking time
August means school holidays and big adventures. So while I anticipate spending loads of time together, I plan to focus on building habits around having meaningful conversations.
9. September: Focus on everybody’s strengths
Positive psychologists say that our path to success lies in following our strengths rather than fixing our weaknesses. So I want to dedicate September to exploring our Character Strengths and deliberately using these strengths in daily life.
10. October: Set boundaries and clear expectations
Wise Parenting philosophy is all about offering loads of love, warmth and support while simultaneously setting clear boundaries and high expectations. This month will be about exploring the best way to do it.
11. November: Be a leader, not a boss
Bossy parents suck. Therefore, I want to dedicate November to brushing up my leadership skills so I can create lasting and continued growth.
12. December: Create memories
After reading Daniel Kahneman’s groundbreaking book Thinking, Fast and Slow, I’ve been chewing on the idea that creating great memories is actually a cheat code for creating a happy childhood for our kids. So I decided to dedicate the whole month to creating fantastic memories for the entire family.
Final thoughts
I usually set goals for the year, but for my Wise Parenting Project, I deliberately chose to make “Parenting Resolutions”.
Here is a simple why:
We achieve a goal.
We keep a resolution.
For example, my goal can be to create a Family Mission Statement. Once I tick it off my list, it may just turn into a piece of art on the fridge that nobody pays attention to. If I treat it as a resolution, I make a promise not only to create one but to actively use it and live by it.
So the bottom line here is that resolutions help us build a system of habits to gradually make progress and achieve greater goals.
Resolutions help you stay on the truck, even during turbulent times.
So don’t wish parenting was easier. Wish you were better.
Better at building effective systems.
Loads of love,
Irina
