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Intentional

Intentional, Mindfullness, Natural Strength Parenting™, Parenting Tips, Strengths

Parenting is Tough. We Can Help!

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Parenting is Tough! We Can Help! Being a parent is the most important and challenging job you’ll ever do! Natural Strength Parenting™ from Beech Acres Parenting Center can help you navigate these challenging times and help you enjoy parenting your child more. What is Natural Strength Parenting™? Natural Strength Parenting™ is a unique approach to parenting that encourages you to be intentional and mindful while focusing on your child’s innate strengths. Building on their strengths will increase their confidence, self-esteem, and resilience, which can lead to positive well-being. Natural Strength Parenting™ combines intentionality, the 24 character strengths, and the positive psychology of mindfulness into an effective parenting model that can profoundly impact your family. Start By Being Intentional To be intentional is to live a proactive, purposeful life instead of a reactive life on auto-pilot. Here are some simple steps to get started with intentionality: Discover Your Family’s Strengths Did you know everyone has 24 character strengths inside of them? Natural energy comes from using our top 5 – but all are inside! Human reflex is to fix what’s wrong… but brain science has taught us that encouraging your children’s strengths builds the resilience and skills to resist the negative influences surrounding them. Here are some simple steps to get started with strengths: Practice Mindfulness We can only see our child(ren)’s strengths if our minds are open to them and purposely noticing what she/he is doing. Likewise, we can only set a specific intention for the future if we are aware of our current situation. Start with these simple steps to implement mindfulness: Putting It All Together Let’s see how this all works together. Let’s say you’ve set an intention to raise a strong, independent daughter. You can reinforce this intention by making subtle changes in everyday moments. You’re in a hurry to get home after basketball practice. Your default might be to snap, “Get in the car! We’re running late. Instead, you could remember your intention and mindfully engage. You might recall that she was afraid to try out for the team. “You used your strength of bravery when you tried out for the team.” Ask a powerful question in the moment: “What new thing did you learn today that will help you be a better player? I want to hear about it on the way home, but we’ve got to gobecause we’re running late today.” See how a small change can make a big difference? That’s Natural Strength Parenting™ at work.

White graphic with orange text that says "Setting intentions for 2023"
Intentional

Setting Intentions for 2023

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Imagine what this year could look like if you take the time to genuinely connect with your family and yourself by focusing on your strengths, mindfulness, and being more intentional with your time together. Head Focus on your Love of Learning to improve your family’s overall well-being. For Your Family A new year brings about new opportunities to improve yourself and the world around you. One way to do this is to involve your entire family in home improvement projects. Have a room that needs to be painted, a bookshelf that needs to be built, or perhaps an outdoor landscaping project? These are great opportunities to develop your family’s strengths of Love of Learning, Teamwork, and Creativity by researching, planning, and executing these projects together. Watch “how-to” videos together. YouTube provides a vast wealth of knowledge for these types of projects. Research paint colors by understanding the science behind how colors mix to make new colors. Discover how planting certain trees or flowers in your yard can positively impact the local and global ecosystem. These fun projects can bring your family together, increase your happiness, reduce stress, and improve your overall well-being. For Yourself Take the start of the new year as a fresh opportunity to finally begin that new thing you’ve wanted to learn. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a second language. Perhaps you want to learn an instrument or learn to draw or paint. This year set an intention to get started. Once you’ve done that, create some milestones for yourself to ensure accountability. Doing something like this for yourself develops your strengths of Love of Learning, Bravery, and Perseverance. Heart Focus on your strength of Love to build your family’s emotional health. For Your Family Spending quality time with those we love is critical to our emotional health. This year be intentional about the time you spend with your family. If you have busy schedules, as most families do, set a time each day to spend just 15 minutes together. If it is unrealistic to have dinner or read together every night, be creative. Make the most out of those rides to school, practices, doctor appointmentsor therapy sessions. Ask powerful questions and listen expansively to their answers. Takea mindful moment together before you start your day by completing a breathing exercise. Your smartwatch or smartphone can probably help here. And always remember to end each day with a hug! Setting these intentionsto spend quality time together each day increases the likelihood of actually spending time together. For Yourself Try this brief exercise to center yourself and focus on Love, Hope, and Sense Of Meaning. Place your hand on your heart. While your hand is on your heart think about someone who has recently made a positive impact on your life. Can you set an intention to write that person a message of Gratitude for what they have done for you? This exercise not only gives you pause to focus on your own heart but affords you the opportunity to connect or reconnect with those you love. Hands Focus on appreciating Beauty and Excellence by getting active and having fun! For Your Family Let’s play! Getting your daughter to ballet practice on time and ensuring your son understands the right bus route to take to school are important, but don’t forget to take some time for fun. Try putting together a puzzle, assembling a Lego set, or simply coloring a picture together. Kids still love slime! There are plenty of recipes, colors, and even easy-to-use kits you can find online. Host your own “ baking” challenge. You’ll get to work with your hands, spend time together and end up with a delicious dessert or after-school treat. Working on any of these projects engages your strengths of Teamwork, Zest, and Appreciation of Beauty and excellence. These moments together can be fun and special. Make the most of them. For Yourself Any of the activities for your family can also be done solo as well. You’d be surprised how relaxing coloring can be. Doing something active alone can be refreshing and fun. Set an intention to complete that yard work you’ve been putting off or plant a garden. While you’re outdoors, take a moment to appreciate the beauty of your yard, the trees, and the nature all around you. Spend time journaling, actually writing down or typing out your thoughts and feelings can relieve stress and calm your mind. You can also use this as an opportunity to connect with others. We communicate so much beyond the words we say to one another. Is that an opportunity for you to be intentional and help someone (family, member, neighbor, co-worker)? Shovel a neighbor’s driveway or simply offer to open a door for a co-worker. These intentional gestures can mean a lot. Download this activity here.

Orange graphic with a photo of sticky notes that have characteristics on them
Intentional, Parent Connext™

Resolve to be the Parent You WANT to Be: Intention Setting for the New Year

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The start of the NEW YEAR is a great time to reflect on the year past and make resolutions for the coming year. While you are thinking about your work and personal goals, reflect on your role as a parent as well.  What does it mean to be Intentional? “Done on purpose, deliberate.” –Oxford Languages To bring committed focus and attention to something important to you. When you are being intentional, you choose to make decisions and take actions based on what’s important to you. Being intentional means getting clear upfront about your values and what you want to achieve. How Can I Be More Intentional? Identify your top values. “Values light the way.” A value is “a way of being or believing that you find most important.”- Brene’ Brown Discuss your top VALUES as a family. Can you agree to the top few values you hold as a family? Display your values in a visible place to serve as a reminder for your family (the refrigerator, your calendar, put a post-it on the bathroom mirrors). Use mindfulness: Be fully present, at the moment, aware of what we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive and overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”- mindful.org Plan your day and time in accordance with your values as much as possible. We all have to work, go to the grocery store, do the laundry, etc., but we can choose how we show up in those moments and how we spend the other time we have in our day. Be clear on the result you want. Visualize how you want things to look a year from now. Keep that “picture” in your mind on a day-to-day basis to guide your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Refocus and Reinforce: Use mindfulness to regain focus. Remind yourself of your values and intentions frequently. Go further by connecting with a Parenting Specialist TODAY!

Photo of a child holding a pen and notebook with red text over the image that reads "Self-reflection is scary but necessary for growth."
COVID-19, Intentional, Uncategorized

Set an Intention to Reflect on the Past Year and Allow Yourself to Grow and Move On

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Set an Intention to Reflect on the Past Year and Allow Yourself to Grow and Move On. Guest Blogger Craig Dobson, Team Lead Beyond the Classroom Reflection is a healthy, appropriate activity for you and your family to complete regularly. This might be something you do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You may also find that you are too busy to even make dinner between work, school, and activities, let alone time to reflect on your day. But intentional, mindful reflection is so important and can have a big positive impact on your life.   When we reflect, it helps our brain connect our memories to our emotions and provides valuable perspective on our experiences. Regular reflection helps us to understand why a situation happened the way that it did and what we can learn from it. This is all part of the learning experience. If you set an intention to allow your mind time for reflection you are more likely to have less stress, reduce resentment over past situations, and increase positive emotions.  Thinking about life since the pandemic began until today, here are some powerful questions to ask yourself. How often are you reflecting on your life? Do you have a conversation with your children about self-reflection? Do you have conversations about COVID-19 with your children? Are you both sick of hearing about it? What are your children sharing about how they feel?  If your children are younger, do they remember before March 2020, aka “the before times”? Do you? What strengths have they been using to cope?  What strengths has your family relied on this year? As a parent, what is something you learned about yourself as a parent?  What is something you are proud of from this past year? Set aside some time to reflect on these questions. Use a journal or a notes app on your phone to jot them down. This allows you to be intentional about your reflections. Someday you also may want to go back and read some of your reflections 10, 20, 30, or 50 years from now and remember “What was it like to live through and experience Covid-19 in 2020-21.” Of course, you might not want to, as well. In fact, you may want to throw these reflections and the whole year right in the trash. The power of reflection time is allowing your mind space to sort, embrace, and deal with your emotions. The past year has brought sadness, pain, anger and regret to many. If you are feeling this way, do this activity slowly, give yourself grace, and permission to step away from your reflection, and return when you are mentally ready.  “Self-reflection is scary but necessary for growth.”

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