My 10 Goals for a Happy Family and my New Blog

"Managing a home and family is no less demanding or time consuming than running a large corporation... the development of lovely, joyful, responsible children doesn't just happen accidentally, any more than a successful corporation just happens. A unified, organized, progressing family requires a unified, organized, progressive plan! Setting goals and producing a plan are just as essential to a mother and father as to a good company." Linda Eyre A Joyful Mother of Children

Since the summer I've read (or skimmed ;)) 30+ amazing parenting books and counting. The overlap in the experts' ideas has lead me to 10 areas of awareness or goals I've started working on to strengthen my family and home:

Build Routines- Routines don't just happen (at least in my family) but are an amazingly powerful tool to help everyone's day go smoothly, eliminate contention, meet everyone's needs, create a feeling of order and calm and... keep cavities at bay. Also a tool to teach kids the power of work.
Practice Calm and Connected Discipline- A number of my readings prove the most long-term effective way to teach kids is by remaining calm and focused with prepared tools on hand when disciplining instead of giving in to yelling, anger, frustration, and "losing it".
Support Good Choices- Often the parenting paradigm is backwards- kids get more payoff and attention from parents when they make choices that have a negative impact than when they are making good choices. By noticing, verbalizing, rewarding, and stickerizing good choices I hope to help build and reinforce them.
Enjoy One Another Consistently having fun as a family through building family traditions, strengthening relationships and skills, laughing together, connecting and building memories.
Speak Love I speak love to my children as I pay the price to really know them individually- spending one on one time together, making eye contact, giving gifts, giving affection, noticing things that make them unique and listening to them. Also may prevent a host of discipline and esteem problems.
Record and Remember- Capturing happy moments in photos, journals and videos, organizing and taking time to remember them builds family joy in the present and motivates us all in many different ways to be better for each other.
Explore-Discover-Learn- Kids are wired for creative exploration, discovery and play and are happiest when they do this. Providing time, opportunities and tools to keep this enthusiasm alive strengthens my connection to my kids when we do it together and leads to the development of talents and a love of learning that may build a foundation for a productive and happy career.
Strengthen our Community and Build Friendships- Getting to know our neighbors, building our schools and community, connecting with families who have kids my kids' age and providing my kids the time and availability to build and prioritize friendships teaches them to be a good friend and build good friendships. It gives us opportunities to lend a hand and find a hand when needed.
Give and Be Thankful- The development of gratitude and awareness of blessings ever-present in our lives came up in almost every book I read as a tool for strengthening family connections and increased well-being. Part of that awareness for thanks is giving back and finding opportunities to serve our community, country and world.
Nurture Faith and Spirituality- A relationship with God helps bring out my best and builds joy and happiness in my life. Many experts recognize it as an important foundation for wholistic childhood development.

These goals are all great and many connect with each other but they're also intimidating and overwhelming, so the glue that actually makes them happen is Plan and Be Prepared. For the past month, each Sunday I go through them in my binder, break them into little action items, and plug them into my monthly calendar and daily schedule. By consistently doing a little bit I'm amazed at how much I'm able to accomplish.
Which brings me to my little announcement- with the help of my amazing friend and PR talent Lyndsey I've decided to move my parenting project to a new blog www.givingkidsourbest.com Each week I'll post a few times about one of these 10 areas and try to get your feedback and advice. You've already all helped me so much as I struggle to reach my goal of making my 2x2 home a peaceful and happy place that nurtures and grows my kids into their best, so I hope you'll keep sharing your insights. Churchill said "We shape our homes and then our homes shape us" - hopefully this will lead my 2x2 situation to a good place ;)