6 Parenting Resolutions Worth Keeping in 2024

Purchasing a new online gym subscription and meal planning tool can help you start 2024 off with a bang with the greatest energy you can manage. Alternatively perhaps you have determined THIS is the year you will at last pay off debt and complete the degree you started some years ago.

While I'm supporting you on your objectives and I want you to look back on 2024 as the year you finally followed through on your crucial intentions, could I propose you include something else on your list this year?

a solution that will affect your family going forward for years. a fix that will make your house joyful and peaceful in ways you never before known. a solution that will help you to meaningfully re-connect with your children.

This, dear friends, is a resolution you can keep: in 2024 become the parent you have always wanted to be.

I want to provide six doable actions you may begin now to help you realize your resolution. This is a resolve about BETTER, not about MORE; better for your children as well as for you.

1. Review the Time You Spend With Your Children

• Think about your daily outings with the children. How frequently are you juggling the billion other tasks on your list, laundry, supper, or anything else?

• We are not always totally present in mind, body, and spirit even when we are physically WITH our children. Including me is:

• We pay a price for that. Children who lack some "fully present and engaged" time with us during the day will fill their attention baskets one way or another: whining, clinging, interrupting, sibling conflict. Of those, do any ring familiar?

• Though negative attention, all of these actions grab your attention. I understand it would sound ridiculous to believe a youngster would seek out negative attention when they do not get good attention. Actually, children just want their baskets filled.

• You may reverse such behaviors, though, by slightly adjusting the time you now spend with your children. I speak about deliberate, kid-centered, directly designated time.

• I advise you to spend ten intentional minutes, daily one-on-one, with every one of your children. Because of its amazing impact on the health of your child's mind, body, and soul, Positive Parenting Solutions here calls this MIND, BODY AND SOUL TIME® togetherness.

• Kid-centered means that, for the ten minutes, your child is in charge—they call the shots. Like a tea party? LEGO building is Getting ready father? A tickling fight? Sitting with your teen and listening to their preferred music You do as the child decides. (For as long as the exercise may realistically be completed in 10 to 15 minutes.) Giving your child power at this period helps them to fill their power buckets in amazing ways.

• By deliberate, I mean free from distractions; put down your phone, ignore that email, and cut off the viewing of the TV. For ten minutes, your kid is the focus of your universe; hence, it is imperative that you be completely present for your time with her.

2. Make Sure Your Child Sleeps Enough

• Sleep counts quite a lot. Children would never acknowledge it, yet to be at their best they need consistent bedtimes and lots of sleep. But sometimes the first things we give up as we celebrate the holidays is these essential elements of a good, tranquil existence; they also seem the most difficult item to recover in January.

• How therefore do we support bedtime from the late hours we have been accustomed to?

• Keeping bedtimes early and regular over the week—without much more than a 15-minute variation on the weekends—will help your children sleep more well. If you allow a late bedtime once, children will view the hour on the clock as always subject for negotiation.

3. Retool Routines

• After you have changed bedtimes, update your nightly ritual so the not-so-fun (brushing teeth, choosing an outfit for the following day) comes before the great stuff (reading with Mom or Dad till lights out at 8:30).

• We refer to this as a When-then Routine, and it can transform all the challenging times of day. For instance, your child can get thirty minutes of technology time after finishing his French verb homework. Then your daughter may eat breakfast when she gets ready, packs her backpack, and makes her bed.

• The last thing in the routine—enjoying media time, maybe, or playing with friends—can only come after the nasty stuff is over.

• Start small and change one habit at a time. Once you have simplified your bedtimes, for example, go to mornings. Follow the program and soon your children will take charge of their own plans with little resistance from them and less nagging from you.

4. Demonstrate the Behavior You Want to See

• Most parents either don't realize it or choose not to acknowledge it, but we do a lot that fuels our children's bad conduct.

• Has a parent ever said, "Do as I say, not as I do?"

• Was your next thinking, "Hey, that's not fair"?

• You are not the only one.

• Children view the world in black and white; if our behavior does not match our words, they will object and you will have an amazing power battle on your hands!

• While your kitchen desk is buried in a mountain of unread mail and documents, do you harp on your children for leaving toys all over the floor?

• Do you call on your children to stop shouting at one another?

• When you urge your kids to get their food out of the living room, are you still nibbling chips on the couch?

Read Also: How to Build Confidence in Kids

5. Task Every Child With a Job (or Two)

• Remember last year when your children refused to assist around the house? That does not imply your children should be free from assuming household tasks this year.

• Actually, youngsters of all ages like being useful and needed—even if they only fold towels and empty trash cans. Moreover, when you distribute the tasks, you will feel less stressed and more free to enjoy your family.

• Studies reveal that you will get less resistance the sooner you ask your youngster to help you.

• First, give each child a task.

• Then, and this is crucial—have every youngster completely master any new ability. (Keep in mind they could rather sweep the shower in their bikini or Swiffer floor instead of cleaning baseboards.)

• Once kids can manage the work on their own, make it formal and mandated by adding it to a When-then Routine, or planning in advance an acceptable punishment should the job remain undone.

6. Prioritize Weekly Family Meetings

• A new year frequently brings a new hockey schedule, new gymnastics lessons, or a modified carpool—all of which might need a team of experts to handle. Even those of us following the same old routines would most likely value some help to make sure everyone is where they should be just at the appropriate moment.

• Here is where a family gathering finds application.

• Plan a few minutes per week at a consistent time, like Sunday nights, to gather as a family and align yourselves. This is a time to handle family problems in addition to handling the practicalities of planning. You can talk about all of these things and more in a cool, collected manner at family meetings, whether the dog continues rummling through the garbage or your kids are having difficulties keeping their shared area tidy.

• Assign alternating tasks to every member of the family (Meeting Leader, Note Taker, Snack Server, etc.), offer beverages, and make it enjoyable if you want buy-in from everyone. Not only will you be connecting as a family, but your children will start assuming more responsibility and none will be left behind at swimming practice once again!

Finally Thoughts

This is the perfect moment to start changing your parenting techniques. Not to be the focal point of your New Year's goals because your family is just too vital.

Though the New Year has left you feeling disoriented, there is no need to trigger a panic attack. Using these ideas and techniques will help you start 2024 prepared for the most calm, fun year ever.