However you feel about making new year resolutions, this very early part of the year at least serves as an annual reminder that we need to — at some point — take time to reflect on our lives, check where we are on our goals, and continue making plans moving forward.
It’s important to set and work toward goals in our parenting journey. We have to be seeking growth in our attachment relationships with our children to be able to experience it, and being the parent, that growth falls back on us continually working to move forward on our parenting journey.
Here are 8 examples of new year parenting resolutions:
- I resolve to admit when I am wrong, and to include my kids in the housework, even when it would be faster and easier not to. — Jennifer
- I resolve to breastfeed my child at least 2 years.– Kate
- I resolve to do more self-care, including regular exercise, more sleep, and eating greens everyday. — Monica
- I resolve to validate emotions and experience, to use positive language, to model what I wish to elicit, to assume the best of intentions, to learn from my child, and to be present. — Miriam
- I resolve to become aware of frustration, to see my child’s resistance as a wake-up call, to become more proactive instead of reactive, to speak respectfully of my child’s other parent, to make more emotional deposits than withdrawals, to see my child as good and not bad, to find ways to acknowledge and encourage my child, to see “misbehavior” as an unmet need, to give my child advance notices of a transition, and to help my child move closer to his purpose in life. — Bill
- I resolve to read a book related to each of API’s Eight Principles of Parenting, to teach baby signs, to learn infant massage, and to not spank and to instead practice positive discipline. — Christina
- I resolve to be more connected to my children. — Cason
- I resolve to trust my instincts, to nurse in public, to care for myself, to live in the moment, and to ask for help. — Courtney
Yes to #4 especially! I love learning from my kids and try to see through their eyes whenever I can. I try to write a blog post about each lesson they give me so I don’t forget!
Happy New Year!
Great list! I think that self care is so huge. It’s so easy to forget about yourself and when you do the consequences are dire. You have to be healthy for the rest of your family to be healthy! Thanks for sharing.
Naomi