How Busy Parents Can Teach Important Life Lessons
Your kids mean the world to you. You want to connect with them, build enduring relationships, and teach them the life lessons that really matter. Sometimes, though, it feels like “real life” gets in the way.
There is so much expected of us as parents. Real life takes work, and sometimes it’s go, go, go to get it all done. We feel like we can’t do it all. How can we possibly teach our kids life’s most important lessons when we just don’t have time?
Gratefully, sometimes the greatest lessons happen without any extra time.
This is the second in a two-part series about how to teach our kids life’s most important lessons. Read part one here about how to create a meaningful, scheduled family time to teach and connect with our kids.
Rose Bushes and A Life Lesson
My mom works magic with roses. Where I grew up, Mom raised a beautiful rose garden in our front yard. The bushes teemed with buds in various colors. Mom taught me how to prune, and we regularly worked as a family in the yard.
However, one particular day is clear in my memory. It doesn’t stand out because the sky was bluer than usual, although it was blue. The roses were not thornier than other days. Rather, it was the conversation that stood out and stayed with me.
Here we are decades later and I remember Mom teaching me a story about how true confidence encompasses both humility and the knowledge that we are each Divine in origin and limitless in potential. It was a lesson that I’ve shared with many others, a lesson that shaped my worldview.
Yes, we had scheduled family time where my parents taught us. But this conversation happened while Mom and I were working with roses because my parents were also amazing at making use of spontaneous meaningful moments.
Meaningful Moments
A powerful way to strengthen parent-child relationships and teach our kids the most important life lessons is creating meaningful moments throughout each day.
Whether we are pruning roses with our kids or driving them to baseball, we can make our time together meaningful. Three tips can help us do that.
3 Tips to Connect and Teach Through Everyday Moments
1. Learn Beforehand
My mom never could have shared that life-changing story with me if she hadn’t read it to begin with. In order to teach our kids, we need to keep filling our wells of knowledge and experience.
We can use some of our personal, quiet time to think about our kids, understand their needs, and recognize their upcoming stages that need preparation. We can ponder and study their challenges and ways that we can best address them. If you don’t already have a habit of daily personal, quiet time, check out this post for why it’s great and how to make it happen.
Keep learning, and you’ll find the answers you need, sometimes even before you ask the question. With those answers in hand, you will be ready to teach and meet your child’s needs when spontaneous opportunities arrive.
2. Set the Intention
We are not relegated to an accidental life.
Instead, we have the power to create the reality we desire. It starts with setting the intention
With that intention in your mind and heart, you will recognize and embrace daily opportunities to connect with your kids.
3. Be Present
I’ve seen meaningful moments happen over meals, in the car, and on the way into the grocery store. Connections can happen with active listening, laughter, sharing a hobby, or working together. They can be preceded by frustration or excitement, sadness or joy.
Connecting in moments that build relationships and teach important life lessons can happen anywhere and at anytime. That is, anywhere and anytime we choose to be present.
Being present is a state of mind. It means our thoughts are focused on our child, even if our hands are busy pruning roses.
It is so easy to let our thoughts wander to To-Do Lists or the latest news. My kids call me out on it far too often. Instead, we need to concentrate on ideas such as what this child is feeling, how I can help this child in the long run, and how I can express love in the moment.
That moment of being present is when our prior learning and set intentions come together in the here and now.
How to Be Present with Our Kids
Being present is a state of mind. Here are some ways we can practice that state of mind.
- Stop what you’re doing
- Keep the cell phone away
- Make eye contact
- Notice details about facial expressions or tone
- Ask questions
- Listen, listen, then keep listening
- Don’t interupt
- Laugh together
- Respond and teach intentionally when appropriate
Connection Opens Hearts
As I typed this post, my kids got home from school. One of my sons came over and sat next to me. Maybe because “meaningful moments to connect” was on my mind, I stopped typing and looked my kiddo in the eyes.
He told me all about the test he took that day (each question, it was pretty cute 🙂 ) and how he felt about it. “Don’t move on,” I thought. “Just listen.” So I kept listening and he gave more details about the pre-test he missed and how he prepared for this.
After a few minutes, my son took my hand and said, “I love you Mom.” Then he got up to get a snack.
I sat there and watched him walk away, grateful I hadn’t multitasked that moment. We won’t be side by side forever, and I could have missed it.
When we really connect with our kids, our minds and hearts share the same space for the moment. This connection softens hearts, leaving them open to bond and receive important life lessons.
So look for one moment today that you can really connect with your child. It won’t take you any extra time, but the effects may very well last forever.
Have you experienced a spontaneous, meaningful moment as a child or with your kids? Share in the comments.
Was this post helpful for you? If so, please share it on Pinterest!
