If you’ve found this page, you’re likely wondering, “What is Intentional Parenting?” Have you found yourself in a place in your parenting journey where you want more out of your relationship with your daughter? I have found that Intentional Parenting is the missing link. This post will share 5 insanely easy points to help you understand and implement intentional parenting.
So, what is intentional parenting? It is…
An Effort to Understand the Individual Needs of Your Daughter:
With most things in life, it is really easy to understand a concept when you can relate your own life to it. I don’t know about you, but it is really hard for me to remember back to my teenage years to relate to my teen. That is why intentional parents make an effort to get to know their daughter and who she is, then adapt parenting to her personality, NOT try to fit her into a mold you have created for her that is likely a reflection of your experience as an adult, not a teenager.
For example: if your daughter is artistic and likes to hang her art all over her room, but you are a minimalist parent who likes a neat and tidy design, an intentional parent would focus on helping her daughter hang her art in an appealing way and help her set up a space in her room to organize her art supplies so she can clean up easily. An intentional parent would NOT restrict artistic creativity in the name of cleanliness and would compromise to foster her daughter’s interest while teaching her to keep an organized, clean space.
Seeing Teachable Moments in Every Day Interactions with Your Daughter:
An Intentional Parent has a clear understanding of her daughter’s actions and whether the action was a common teen mistake or an intentional act of defiance. That understanding determines an intentional parent’s reaction and consequence. In many cases, your daughter’s actions are more of a teachable moment with natural consequences rather than an act of defiance that warrants punishment. Understanding this difference goes a long way for an intentional parent’s relationship with her daughter.
For example: If your daughter misses several assignments at school and her grade drops to a C, an intentional parent will get to the bottom of the problem and use it as an opportunity to teach her daughter about time-management and using her resources like a calendar and school management system instead of punishing her with the loss of cell phone, time away from friends, etc. This is not to say that punishments aren’t ever necessary, but an intentional parent knows when the natural consequence is a learning experience and punishment enough and when an actual punishment is necessary.
A Clear Plan for Aspects of Child Development and Growth:
You know how you always hear people say, “I’m sure glad I learned calculus in school instead of my taxes! Calculus sure has come in handy this tax season!” This plan is for those aspects of child development in everyday life that our daughters aren’t learning in school. Intentional parents look for opportunities in every day life to focus on important elements of development in their daughters.
For example: My daughters love playing volleyball. They are in different age groups so during a certain season of the year, I am committed to being a volleyball mom almost every day of the week. I use those drives to and from volleyball practice and games to talking about setting goals, working towards goals, goal progress, and prioritizing activities to reach goals.
Prioritizing Your Time and Energy:
Moms are busy and exhausted. That sentence alone could be an entire blog post. Intentional parents are always thinking of ways to prioritize their time so they have more energy to give their daughters. This doesn’t mean that you give up your job or that you have to give up your “you” time either; just that it is always a conscious thought on how to prioritize your day to get the most our of your relationship with your daughter.
For example: Google calendar allows you to have as many calendars as your heart desires. I have calendars for each of my girls that I keep updated with their activities. This gives me a clear view of the week so I can start to see when I can fit in quality time with them, my husband, and myself. I also have a daily 7:30 alarm on my phone to cue myself to go take my daily prayer walk, and an 8:30 alarm to cue myself to go check on the girls and begin our nighttime routine. (In the name of full transparency, I also have an alarm at 2:30 so I don’t forget to pick them up from school!)
Proactive in Building a Relationship and Trust with Your Daughter:
This is what intentional parenting all boils down to: relationship and trust with your daughter. An intentional parent is conscious every day to build a stronger bond with her daughter. She takes the interactions from the day before to learn and grow to make today even better. She is always learning more about her daughter to be able to parent fairly within her daughter’s emotional maturity so that her daughter can trust that she is growing up in an environment that mistakes are learning experiences, she is free to be the individual God made her to be, she is learning and growing every day, and her mother prioritizes their relationship.
What is intentional parenting? The examples look different for every family, but the aspects remain the same. Intentional parents are a save-haven for their daughters. <3
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