A New Year is Approaching and as parents consider how to make it your best year.

Parents often forget to set aside time to pray and plan regularly for their family. My husband and I held a monthly Pray and Plan that became the backbone of our parenting.  We focused monthly on our family, ourselves, and each or our children. We took an hour or more to do this. That’s part of what helped our children thrive (two are rocket scientists).

Get ready

• Grab your calendars (or turn on your digital one) and some prepare and a pen
• Have a bottle or water or other drink and a healthy snack
• Agree to focus on the topics and not bunny trail or argue

The Plan

• Start with a simple pray for God to guide your time
• Focus on one child at a time. Decide on one challenge the child needs to work on and one accomplishment the child met. That gives you one thing to encourage and one thing to praise. Consider ways to encourage the child to meet the challenge. Do they need some tutoring or new types of reminders?
• Focus on the calendar. Circle in your calendar any dates that will be stressful for your spouse. Those are dates to pray for your loved one and be especially considerate. Make hubby a special meal or buy your wife flowers or offer to bring home a meal.
• Fill in calendar dates of kid activities, church events, school events, etc. that are committed already. Then look for some rest times to keep free and a day or two to fill in for family time. These can be simple like a family game or movie night. a walk in the park, or local free event.
• Discuss your family goals. This might change monthly. One month might be financial goals or discipline methods, while another month might be character or career development goals or vacation plans. Listen to each others’ dreams and consider how to encourage one another. Don’t try to pack too much into the time or you’ll be overwhelmed and shy away from doing it regularly. You can map out or list topics you want to focus on over the coming year and prioritize when to do each.
• Pray. Go through the list and pray for each child, the dates on the calendar, and the goals and dreams shared.
• Accountability.  Review the previous month’s pray and plan to see what worked and what needs to change.
• Schedule the next pray and plan.

Businesses move forward because they have a plan. A family will work together and build stronger bonds when you, the leaders, plan and pray over the plans. It helps you have direction and keeps you united in parenting.

How do you make plans as parents?

Blessings,
Karen