- In this video, I'm gonna be sharing with you five things
every child needs to know
and why these are my intentions for 2019.
Now stick with me until the end,
because I'm gonna be sharing my word for 2019,
something new I'm experimenting with
and I would love it if you share yours with me
in the comments below.
If you want to love parenting and parent from love,
slam on that subscribe button
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(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The Parenting Junkie.
- Hi, I'm Avital.
I am a mindful parenting coach
and I'm the lucky mother of four.
I am blessed to say that my work helps thousands of parents
across the world reclaim presence, peace and play
for their families and I hope I can help you do the same.
So if you're ready to spread the word about conscious,
peaceful, unconditional parenting slam on that like button
and give me a love in the comments below.
Every so often articles circulate online
about what your four year old should know,
what your five year old should know,
what a seven year old should be doing by now
and whilst graphs and charts and measurements
and checklists can be helpful tools just for reference
and to know the types of things,
we wanna be exposing our children to.
Generally speaking, I think they create more fear
and anxiety, more comparison and competition
rather than a sense of holistic well-being,
of love, of acceptance, of flow, of mindfulness,
of peace, presence and play.
Plus, I think the narrative around parenting
and doing it all and teaching our kids
and getting the edge and getting ahead,
the rat race narrative needs to change
and I hope to be a part of that change.
I want to spread the message today
of my intentions for my 2019 year, but they are not goals.
Yes, I absolutely do set some goals.
For example, in my business, but when it comes to children,
I think it's a little bit dangerous
to be treating them as a project,
treating them as something that they need to become
by a certain age, something that they need to do
like reading, writing, walking, riding a bike,
tying a shoelace.
All of these skills are useful valuable skills
that we all want our children to acquire
and they're important assets that we should support them
in gaining but the idea that they have to do it
by a certain deadline, by a certain day or they're behind,
doesn't serve them and doesn't celebrate the diversity
of human life.
Children learn and grow at very different paces
and so today rather than giving you a list
of what your four year old should know,
I would like to give you a list of an energetic intentions
that you can set for your family.
Things that you would like to model for your children
rather than to force upon them.
Things that you would like to invite into your home
rather than creating a sticker chart
to make sure that they get done.
So reflecting on the year to come,
here are some of my intentions.
Now if you want the deeper list and if you want
to go deeper into this then head on over
to the Parenting Junkie Show Podcast
on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts
and subscribe to that show.
I would also love to hear your ratings and reviews.
But there I'm going to dive deeper into this topic.
Now stick with me to the end here,
'cause I'm also going to share a word
that I feel might be reflective of the year to come.
It's what I'm focusing on both in my business,
in my personal life and my parenting.
And so it's just a word that came to me
and I'm thinking hey, maybe this will be the year
of the mm word, which I'm gonna share with you in the end
and I'd love to hear yours.
Alright, without further ado, slam on that like button
and here are my five intentions.
Number one, curiosity.
Rather than telling my children they need
to learn certain things and acquire certain skills
by the end of this year, my intention is always
to really highlight and support their natural curiosity
and my own.
To follow their lead,
to allow them to continue to be the curious students
of the world that they are.
I want them to remain open and to realize
that whatever questions they have, whatever they'd like
to explore further,
whatever they'd like to learn about more is valuable.
That I don't have a presupposed agenda,
a presupposed curriculum of what they need to know.
That in fact, I don't think anybody in the world they know
is exactly what they need to know to thrive,
because that's so dynamic, personal and ever changing.
We all develop in very surprising ways
and so does our economy and our technology.
And so with all of these various accelerations
and changes I don't have a presupposed curriculum.
Of course there are some life skills
that I think everybody needs to have
such as basic math and reading and writing,
but beyond that specific skills that they need to develop,
I really think will come
from their innate sense of curiosity.
From just being open learners,
from being life long students
and I want them to see that in me as well.
I want them to capture me reading,
to capture me always listening to podcasts
and taking seminars and workshops
and expanding my horizons and being open to growth,
always learning more and being thrillious about the world.
So when my toddler and I go on a walk
and she stops on the side of the road to see a caterpillar,
I want to stop with her and look at it and take interest.
When my seven year old
is curious about creating YouTube videos,
I want to learn how to do that alongside him
and show him that that curiosity
is valuable and interesting.
When my five year old wants to learn more about paleontology
I want to go with him to the museum
and read the books with him at the library.
I want to talk about it, Google it, figure it out together
and show them that the world is full of information
that is theirs for the taking and that it's valuable
to learn just because they are curious.
I want them to learn that there's no hierarchy,
that it's not more valuable when they're interested
in science and less valuable when they're interested
in art, but that whatever they are interested in
can be meaningful and valuable and worth the time.
So curiosity, maintaining that sense of curiosity,
and one of the important things about maintaining curiosity
is not to make it into something that we reward or punish.
Not to make it about achievements or goals
but rather about the process itself.
Celebrating the process of discovery and learning
and just asking good questions.
One of the things I like to ask my kids at dinner time
is do you have any good questions today?
Do you have anything interesting that's on your mind?
What are you most interested in learning about this week?
Often in school settings or just even at home,
we've been so conditioned to think of learning
as something that we need to push and reward
and buy them a treat for it.
I want to take the opposite approach
where it's just obvious that you're curious about the world
and I'm just here as a sounding board, as a facilitator
and a mentor and a support to your curiosity.
Number two is competence.
I want to really set the intention
to highlight my children's sense of competence in the world,
their ability to master new skills,
to handle adversity, to face their fears, to do hard things.
This is intrinsically linked to resiliency and to grit
and I have videos about that
if you're interested in learning more.
But the general idea is that I don't want to do anything
for my children that they are capable of doing
for themselves.
I want to show them that they can cook,
can be part of the household, can contribute
by tidying up, by folding their laundry,
by setting the table, by helping with the baby,
by visiting a sick friend,
by doing things for their community
and for our household and for themselves.
They are competent individuals who are problem solvers.
And I want to set that intention
of really creating a household that highlights
how competent you are, how yesterday you couldn't do that,
yesterday it seemed too difficult, but you tried,
you persevered, you got a little support,
you got a little more information and in the end you did it.
I want to be saying you did it throughout this year often
noticing that my children are competent
and the truth is I need them to be
because with four little kids at home,
I can't always do the things they all want me to do
and so highlighting their competence is self serving as well
but I think it's great for kids.
I think too often in our culture,
kids are stripped of any opportunity
to be contributing individuals, to be capable,
to be those that solve the problems for themselves,
those that overcome the challenges for themselves
and that's something I really want to focus on
as an intention.
Building our sense of competence,
from competence comes confidence
and that's incredibly important.
Number three is connection.
I know connection is thrown around so often
and it's become a little cliche.
So here's what I mean by that when I say I want
to set the intention for connection in my home this year.
What I want to really set the intention for
is make the time, the space, the effort
for each individual in a home to feel seen,
heard and valued.
I want them each to feel that they are loved
and that they love others.
That they are part of our collective.
That they belong.
That they have a place.
That when they need to be heard, they are listened to.
That they know that their point of view
and that their preferences matter
and that of course they respect other people's points
of view and preferences too.
More on that soon.
Connection is about feeling belonging.
It's about feeling I come from somewhere
and I'm part of those people.
I'm part of this household.
I matter.
They care about me and I am heard, I am valued,
I am worthy of their love.
So creating connection with my children
means taking time to look each one of them
in the eyes each day, taking time to listen
to them tell me a story or share their feelings
with me each day.
It means practicing my peaceful tantrum method.
If you haven't heard about that,
check out my free master class on the PEACE formula.
The peace formula for tantrums and meltdowns.
It works for both and you can get that on the website,
theparentingjunkie.com/tantrums.
It's free, sign up and take it.
But taking time to let my children tantrum or meltdown,
get out their feelings and for me to listen
that is a connection building tool for me.
Taking the time to read to them or listen to them read,
taking the time to just walk alongside them
or observe them while they play.
These are the things that build connection for me in my home
and of course physical connection.
Lots of hugs, rough housing, and just being generally close
to my kids and my husband.
So making time for connection,
making time that everyone feels like
well, mom really had that time for me.
Mom saw me.
Even if it's just a few short moments each day
is an intention that I am setting.
The next one is communication.
Sure we all want our six year olds
to know how to tie their own shoelaces
and wash their hands with soap after they use the bathroom
and hold a pencil correctly.
Those are important, but what's much more important to me
and it's not to say that they are mutually exclusive,
they aren't at all, but what my focus is on
is on communication, healthy communication.
Problem solving, conflict resolution,
emotional regulation, the ability to say what I need,
what I want without hurting others.
The ability to moderate my language
and be careful with how I speak to my siblings and peers.
The ability to ask for what I want politely,
kindly and assertively.
The ability to listen.
All of these communication skills are things
that I really want to set the intention to model
for my children and to actively guide and facilitate them
in developing making sure that they can learn the skills
to stop whining, to take deep breaths,
to get present with my feelings
and express them in a more productive and efficient way.
In a way that the other person can hear it.
To learn not to call someone names
and not to blame other people and not to play the victim
but instead to take some responsibility
and to be a problem solver.
To learn not to be complaining and lingering
on the negative all the time but rather for looking
for ways that I can improve the situation
or that I can express gratitude.
All of these things I believe we are all learning
throughout the whole course of our life.
It's not something your seven year old should know,
but it's an intention that I set for my family
that we constantly enrich
and develop our nonviolent communication skills.
Check out the book if you haven't read it already,
but to really develop those skills each and every moment,
each and every day as those conflicts arise
and they do all of the time.
So we have plenty of time to practice these.
And my final c is care.
I set the intention to really model
and create an environment of caring.
Caring about my own self, caring about my surroundings,
my environment, the planet at large,
caring about others and caring about my friends,
my community, my work, et cetera.
Just really being in a hot space where I care.
I care and I can show up and contribute
with all of these tools that I've discussed in my other Cs.
But the caring means that I focus on
how I can really contribute to the family.
How I can be careful with my belongings,
I can be careful with my space,
I can be careful with my purchases.
I can be careful with recycling
and with caring for the planet
and I can be careful with my words,
with how I choose to spend my time.
So that intentionality, being deliberate,
caring about what I bring to the table.
I want to set the intention that in our family we care.
We don't just do things in a rash way.
We don't just shoot from the hip
and do whatever we feel like,
but we show our intentional caring
through our intentional actions, our intentional words
and even our thoughts about a situation.
So helping to cultivate an intention of caring
between the siblings, between ourselves,
myself and my husband and our children,
and between myself and my partner,
and of course between our family unit
and the world at large.
How can we be a little bit more caring,
a little bit more careful with how we contribute
and what we do in the world?
How we spend our time, how we spend our money,
how we spend our resources, how we use our words
and our actions.
Okay so those are my five intentions for the year.
You can see they're a little bit different
from my intentions to teach someone to hold a pencil
or tie their shoelaces or potty independently.
Although those things are all very important as well,
but those are the types of intentions
that I hold in my heart and one word's that come to me
kind of as an over arching theme for this year is,
unfortunately not a c, but it's growth.
I've been thinking how can I grow as an individual?
How can I grow up?
How can I mature even more?
How can I really grow into my role, into my message,
into my mission, into my vision both for my family
in my role as a parent, a caretaker, a partner, a wife,
a home maker and in my business.
How can I grow, spread my message further,
grow in my capabilities and in my competence,
in my caring, in my contribution, my communication,
all the different things that I tried to do
through the Parenting Junkie.
How can I grow, how can I grow the platform,
grow the offering or grow my giving,
grow my contribution and grow my mission
and of course grow our community so that this message
of peace, presence and play spreads further,
takes root, takes hold and becomes the new norm.
That is my ultimate growth goal.
And so that's kind of a word that I have as a guiding factor
for this year.
Growth and I mean it in the best possible sense,
the internal growth, the growth
that means becoming a better version of ourselves
and living a better life and parenting in a better way.
That type of growth is what I'm looking for
this year and I would love it if you could share any word
or any intentions that you have for this year below.
I would absolutely love to hear either here
or over on Instagram.
Just tag at Parenting Junkie and use the hashtag,
parentingjunkie so that I can see all
of your beautiful intentions for the year.
And if you'd like to borrow mine then go right ahead.
Now if this video spoke to you
and you think other parents would enjoy it,
hit that like button, the thumbs up.
Doing so will get it more visible for other people
and we can shift the conversation a little bit
about the goals that we're setting for the year.
You're also warmly invited to join my Facebook group,
Love Parenting with Avital.
It's where all the best parents from the globe hang out
so be sure to head on over there.
Lastly if you would like my free childhood design guide
it's a great way to start off the year.
You'll learn how to simplify, declutter,
create the important play zones that your child needs.
It's also free.
It's in a simple PDF guide.
Just head on over to theparentingjunkie/design
and grab yours, it's free and I would absolutely love
to get that to you .
Also please subscribe to the channel.
Hit the subscribe button, hit the notification bell
so that you are sure to never miss an episode.
They drop every Monday
and next week here's what's happening.
And answering the question of how do I do it all?
Because apparently I do it all.
But those of you who know me well
know that I hate the term supermom.
And there is certainly no magic behind how I do it all.
I'm gonna be breaking down
how I personally get things done in my life.
How I run an online business, homeschool my children,
et cetera.
What it takes to make that happen.