Imagine what your life would look like if you truly could enjoy every single moment with your kids- even the hard ones.

Imagine a reality where you’re able to stay calm, avoid yelling, and really help your child understand their big emotions.

How would their life change if they knew you loved them, even when they were mad?

Big emotions and meltdowns are just part of life. They are inevitable. And so it’s really important that we learn how to regularly expect them and accept them.

I’m going to walk you through 4 steps that will help you turn this heartfelt vision into your everyday reality.

This Week’s Voxer Question: What is the biggest challenge that you face when it comes to really fully enjoying the time that you spend with your kids, especially in those difficult moments?

Let’s jump into those 4 steps to enjoy your kiddos more!

1. Be Proactive

I want you to take care of yourself first. I think it is truly vital for you to be able to enjoy the moments with your kids, even the hard ones by taking care of yourself because we need to be fully capable of handling all different situations.

Here are a few complimentary episodes of mine that speak to this more specifically.

Ep 147. Making Self Care a Reality In Your Life

Ep 49. 8 Ways to Connect with Your Kids in the Car

Ep 85. Simple Ways to Connect with Your Kids 

Ep 35. How to Recover From a Mommy Meltdown

Another aspect of being proactive is to ask for help from your spouse and your family so that you can eliminate external triggers.

What I mean by that is, that sometimes we snap at our kids because we’re annoyed with our surroundings.

It’s really important that we understand if we want to enjoy the moments, we have to be proactive.

We have to set our family up for success as well as ourselves in order to be able to handle the hard times and those tough situations.

Lastly, plan ahead!

It’s really important that we are always paying attention to our schedule, we’re always thinking a few steps ahead about what is coming up, and what we need.

Something else to consider is that we are leaving enough space and enough margin in our schedule to really set everybody up for success.

2. Be Present

I want you to unplug, put away electronic devices, and put away the distractions when you’re spending time with your children.

I want you to be fully present and engaged in that moment.

Because when we do that it actually leads to more meaningful connections.

What I want you to really think about is when you are with your children, I want you to think about how they feel. Do they feel like they are the most important thing to you?

It’s really important that we find what the pressure points are in our day. And we find what the really deep-rooted issue is in our heart, because we can’t change if we don’t even know what the problem is.

And so I want you to be really conscious of, are you spending time with your kids? Or are you spending time with your phone? And put the phone away. The kids don’t know what we’re doing on our phone.

Another aspect of being present is paying attention.

It’s really important for kids to give them our eye contact, to give them physical touch, put our hand on their shoulders, give them hugs, give them snuggles, give them kisses, no matter what age, because I don’t think that there’s ever an age that you outgrow wanting love from someone, especially your mom.

Quality time is also a huge component of being present.

There are a few things a few ways that I like to do this, the first of which is special time.

And it’s one on one time with each of your kiddos each and every day. This is time that they get to spend doing whatever they want with you.

I promise you if you spend quality time with them, doing the things that they love, every moment with them becomes more and more enjoyable.

I also want you to consider date nights hanging out with your kiddos taking them on a special one on one date makes them feel incredibly important to you.

Family date nights fall into this as well!

3. Be Mindful

I want you to take time to appreciate the little things about your kiddos: their laughter, their curiosity, their innocence, and the small moments that bring joy.

One of my favorite authors is Rachel Macy Stafford. She has several incredible books, but one of which is called Hands Free Mama. She talks about ‘sunset moments.’ And that’s exactly what I’m talking about here- those small moments that are just so easily missed if you don’t stop and look for them.

I also want you to put yourself in your child’s shoes and think about how it feels to always be told what to do.

Even though your kids need direction, and they need guidance, how can we rephrase what we’re saying so that it doesn’t always sound like we’re telling them what to do? How can we give them more autonomy?

It’s really important that we as parents understand that we do have to set expectations regularly. And we cannot expect our kids to remember the expectations at all times.

With being mindful, I also want to encourage you to try to say yes more often and try to compromise with them and work together for a creative solution, where they’re getting what we want. But so are we.

The last component of being mindful is to be interested in what your kids are interested in.

When we take the time to care about what our kids care about, instead of just pushing it away, there is so much room for connection.

4. Be Loving

When tough moments happen, I want you to view them as opportunities to grow and hone in on those specific skills that they need help with.

I want you to correct with connection and not punishment.

I’m not talking about consequences. Consequences are different than punishment. I’m talking about connection, and how we can correct with connection. And that’s way more effective than consequences.

I also want you to also practice mindfulness techniques to stay present and aware of your own emotions, and your own interactions with your kids.

Because mindful parenting can lead to better communication and understanding.

And then finally, I really want you to listen to what your kids are saying, even when they’re yelling, I want you to identify what their struggle is.

I think it’s so important for us to not shut things down and allow our kids to be upset so that we can actually hear the full story and so that we can actually help them understand what they’re feeling.

We can enjoy tough moments with our kids when we teach them that both of us can win.

When you take the time to go through these steps and really implement what I teach. I guarantee you you will see a huge shift in not only your attitude but your child’s attitude as well.

Complimentary Episodes: 

Ep 147. Making Self Care a Reality In Your Life

Ep 49. 8 Ways to Connect with Your Kids in the Car

Ep 85. Simple Ways to Connect with Your Kids 

Ep 35. How to Recover From a Mommy Meltdown

Ep 78. How to Enjoy Your Difficult Child 

Ep 10. 4 Things Your Kids Need the Most

Resources:

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