To succeed in the New Year, we as parents have to set goals. These goals barely even make it to the second day of the new year because of course there will be the children busy innocently ensuring that the goals are difficult tasks to achieve.
So this New Year, one of your set parenting goals should be calmness and patience with the children. The domestic staff haven’t resumed after the festive season, you are up a little earlier than the kids and have the house all cleaned up, the children wake up and during breakfast, a just cleaned floor has tea poured on it. While calmly wiping it off, you hear your toddler scream from another part of the house only to get there and find her on the floor of your bedroom all decked in your hair shampoo. You are cleaning her up when you hear the others on the dining table yelling at each other for already shared eggs. At this point, you may just lose it!
This is the reason I have put this together!
Before setting your parenting goals in line with your parenting vision, there is the need to ensure that you create realistic goals, parenting goals that can be achieved.
These goals are important because they will not only give you a blueprint as to how you want your year to run but also provide you with a “check” when it seems you are falling by the wayside.
So here are easy ways to make the goals work:
- Write out the goals stating how you intend to achieve such goals. I usually paste my weekly goals on the bathroom sink mirror where I need to visit every morning (of course I would brush my teeth). So when I’m in the tub, I’m looking at the goals, when I’m brushing, I’m staring at them too. This helped and still helps me a great deal. My kids are grown and can read, so I code the pasted words (privacy). Haha!
- Prepare a Schedule and be ready to work with it: Routines help you remain consistent thereby increasing your chances of achieving the goals. Consistency has produced not just the best parents, but great world leaders.
- Focus on constantly practising them so they are part of you instead of working to meet a deadline.
Parenting goals are not just as every other goal, most of them do not have time limits.
You cant decide this year to be part of your child’s education and next year not to. We can only achieve a certain task in his class this year, hoping to scale up in same task next year.
To be continued…
