Intentional Parenting is a term you may have heard but have only given limited attention to the term. If so, you are like most parents.  We did the same thing because some of us who developed this guide had not taken the time to learn much about many parenting terms.   But we found after we started our search that we were really practicing some of the intentional parenting behaviors and did not know it.  For example, when writers wrote about the need for parents to do planning to be effective, we viewed this as a given.  Like all parents we planned for each day, the month and longer.  These plans did guide our day-by-day decision making and the commitments we made. 

But intentional parenting took on a better understanding when we read the following article: How to be a More Intentional Parent Every Day by Jen Mcconaghie. 

https://thistimeofmine.com/become-a-more-intentional-parent/

We have summarized selected concepts from the article.  However, we encourage you to take the time and read the entire article to learn more about growing your parenting skills. The following are some of the statements by Jen Mcconaghie  that we think clarify the term  “intentional parenting.”.

Several years ago, I went through a period when the days bled into weeks and time was just passing by. And if I’m being brutally honest, I have to say that my “life” started to feel like a job. The kind where you can’t enjoy Sunday night because you know everything starts again Monday morning. It sounds awful, I know.

So, I turned to the only thing I could think of: Google. I mean, the internet knows everything, right? So, if anything could help me figure out how to make it all easier, Google could. I was wrong.

I got lost in a rabbit hole of countless parenting “styles” and ended up feeling even more overwhelmed than before I’d started my search. (So much for that.) Can you relate? As parents. We spend so much time trying to figure out how to raise our children the right way. And sometimes, we can get so caught up in aiming for a moving target that we lose sight of our parenting goals.

Luckily there’s a solution. It’s called Intentional Parenting and it is something that can work for every family in every situation… Being an intentional parent does NOT mean starting over. It doesn’t mean throwing everything out the window and changing parenting styles. It doesn’t mean doing things that feel unnatural to you. And it definitely doesn’t mean adding more to your plate. No, being an intentional parent simply means adding more meaning to the things we’re already doing. In other words, to parent on purpose:

We often get caught up in thinking about all the things we’d like to do and change. But rather than focusing on the “don’t,” try picking just one thing you’d like to be more intentional about, and build from there. Here are seven ideas to get you started:

1. BE MORE DELIBERATE: If we want to be more intentional as parents, we have to practice making purposeful and deliberate decisions about how we’ll raise our families. When we put more focused attention on what we do and plan, we’re better able to control our lives rather than allowing our lives to control us. 
2. BE CONSISTENT: Being a parent is hard, and there are reasons why we just need to take it one day at a time. But the more we work toward consistency, the stronger our families will be. What does this mean? It means following through and doing as we say we will.
3. BE DISCIPLINED: Intentional Parenting looks like learning and deliberate practice. We have to fight hard to be the kind of parents we want to be for our children. And when we approach our own lives with more intention, it bleeds over into our parenting in positive and amazing ways. In order to give more intention, purpose, and focus to our days, we need to simplify with structure. In fact, it’s one of the most important things we can do for ourselves and our families.
4. HAVE A PLAN: Imagine for a second that you’re going on a road trip to a specific destination. One of the first things you’re going to need is a plan, right?  Without one, there’s a good -chance -things could get complicated. The trip might take a lot longer and you might get distracted, take some wrong roads, hit a dead end or two…or even miss the destination completely. Becoming a more intentional parent is no different. We need a plan.
5. COMMIT TO CONNECTION: Distraction. It’s one of the biggest threats to the stability of families today, and we all suffer from it. There are two places it hits families hardest:

• • Technology inside the home.
  • Time outside of the home.

Society pressures us into doing more and more – it adds up! We need to take a serious inventory of how much time our family is spending on technology and activities outside of the home and decide what’s important to us. Then act accordingly.

6. DEFINE YOUR VALUES: What goals do you have for your family? What traits and skills do you want your children to develop? How do you want to act as a parent? What is important to you? These are just a few questions to consider when defining your parenting values. Knowing them gives us a clear place to start and helps us come up with deliberate plans of action.
7. ALIGN YOUR ACTIONS WITH YOUR GOALS: When we say “I love you” to our kids, are our actions consistent with our words? Are we taking the time to show it? Are we doing things that help our children know we are committed to them?

There is a simple exercise we can all benefit from, and we should come back to it often. For 5 minutes, sit down and go over these questions:

• • What are my parenting goals?
  • What is important to me?
  • Which things do I want my children to know right now?
  • What goals do I have for my family?
  • In other words, what values do I subscribe to?

Write down some of your answers. Then decide if your actions are consistent with your values. https://thistimeofmine.com/become-a-more-intentional-parent/

Do you want to learn more about what has been presented in this topic?  If so, google the following:

Videos “intentional parenting”

Articles “intentional parenting”