Last year, my oldest child graduated from college. Soon, my youngest will graduate from high school.
When I started this journey of writing and entrepreneurship, I was challenged to look at what people were naturally asking me to create or help them with. Because of my season of life, I quickly noticed a pattern of people asking me what my secret was in regards to parenting. How did I have a relationship with teenagers who wanted to be around me?
And honestly, I had no idea.
It started out with me trying to figure out how to communicate with teens. Was I actually maintaining a good relationship with them? What was I expecting? Did I really know my kids? And from there, I began to dissect not really how I stayed friends with my teens, but what it was that got us there.
That's how my free course was born, Parenting Holistically.
If I'm honest, it was something I was SO SCARED to do, guys. I don't have the answers to this parenting gig. It's hard. But I've come to realize that there are a few things, as a mom, that I did all along.
I realized pretty early on that my goal was not short-sighted.
Though I wanted to get through a day without meltdowns and catastrophe, ultimately, I wanted to nurture little humans into becoming healthy grown-up humans. 18 is not the end game. I want them to always want to come home. Even when they all go off to do their own thing, I worked to have our home to be a place they would never feel obligated to spend time, but somewhere they want to return.
I realized that I didn't have to know everything.
When doing research for my course, one of the most surprising findings for me was that most parents I polled of children–not ages birth through three–but parents of preteens and teens thought that they should know everything about their child. As parents, I think we have to realize that we are caring for multi-faceted people, and keeping this in mind is paramount to our maintaining good relationships! We are a part of their lives, not their entire lives–and that's okay. It's natural.
Mindsets aren't just ethereal, they are practical.
We can literally start with our thoughts, analyzing our relationships with our own parents, trying to understand our parenting mindset, but we can ALSO turn our observations into tangible, realistic goals and everyday solutions for parenting our kids. So, whether you are parenting teens, engulfed in the everyday life of toddlerhood, or anywhere in between, I hope that you can find some pointers in this course that may be a help to you! And what I'd love more than anything is if you'd share what you're learning as a parent, and how you're maintaining a relationship with your child that will last you not until an "end goal" of 18, but a lifetime!
What's YOUR secret, parent? I'd love to learn from you!
*** This is the final post in a series of blogpost/Facebook Live videos where I'm answering your questions and tackling subjects you've asked me about. If you haven't followed along on Facebook yet, you can do so here. Be sure to "like" this page to follow along, and leave a comment whether you catch a video live or on replay, so I can say hello to you and personally respond to your comments and questions! Thanks for joining me on this journey, friends. I'm amazed at what we can accomplish together! ***