What Gets in the Way of Your Best Intentions as a Parent?

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Sarah here. We hope you enjoyed last week’s blog on parenting with intention. Hopefully, you’ve been able to put intention into action. Last week, Lisa talked about roadblocks that can make parenting with intention more difficult. This week, we’re going to continue focusing on some of things that get in the way of your best efforts to be intentional as a parent.  
 
Parenting with intention isn’t a one-and-done act. It isn’t an accomplishment that you can complete and check off a list. Instead, parenting with intention is like meditation- it’s an ongoing practice that you can always do more or less of. Because of this, the roadblocks to parenting with intention may be dynamic over time and across situations.

We want you to engage in a little practical self-reflection. Read through the questions that follow and notice what thoughts come to mind after you read each question. Focus on the present and recent past when reflecting. If you’d like, you can jot down your answers, but no pressure. Remember there are no right or wrong answers.

• Are there things about how you feel that have gotten in the way of you parenting with intention?
  • Consider thoughts, beliefs, feelings, memories, physical sensations, energy level, and overall health and wellness.
• Are there things about your self-care (how you are or aren’t taking care of yourself) that have gotten in the way of you parenting with intention?
  • Consider things including your daily schedule, sleep routine, eating habits, activity level, hygiene, spiritual activities, personal hobbies/interests, social engagement, and household maintenance.
• Are there things about your environment that have gotten in the way of you parenting with intention?
  • Consider your physical environment, including your space at home, degree of household clutter, seasonal/holiday demands on physical space (e.g., decorated Christmas tree still taking up space in the living room), and feasibility of using indoor and outdoor space at present (given the weather, time change, etc.).
• Are there things about your co-parent that have gotten in the way of you parenting with intention?
  • Among other things, consider your co-parent’s parenting style, their own commitment (or lack of commitment) to parenting with intention, areas of disagreement between you and your co-parent (e.g., situations in which you would handle things differently), current interpersonal dynamics between you and your co-parent.  
• Finally, can you think of any other external (outside of yourself) or internal (within yourself) barriers to you parenting with intention?
  • You may consider work demands, schedule constraints, attitudes or behaviors of extended family or friends, the presence of other people at home (e.g., your child’s friends regularly coming to your house, your sister and her child visiting for a week, etc.) or anything else that has impacted your ability to parent with intention.

 
So, now that you’ve reflected on possible roadblocks to parenting with intention, what do you do? That depends. In some cases, how you intentionally parent may need to adapt. For example, if your intention was to spend time outdoors together as a family but there’s a blizzard outside, then adapting your intentional action makes sense! Perhaps you could spend some purposeful time together as a family indoors. If your self-care is abysmal right now and you can’t even fathom being intentional because you’re so sleep deprived, then prioritizing sleep and self-care now is the intentional action that will allow you to intentionally engage with your family later.
 
Remember that roadblocks aren’t a sign to quit- they’re just a sign that we need to do something different. By periodically doing this intentional parenting self-reflection, you’ll be able to identify and address barriers and avoid stalling out. And, incorporating this type of self-reflection into your parenting practice is itself a great way to be intentional as a parent.

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