​

Ever felt like your carefully planned day just unraveled before your eyes? The meltdown you didn’t schedule happens, your plans fall apart, and you’re left wondering—how do I keep my cool and still parent well? In today’s episode, we’re talking about managing life’s interruptions with a heart-focused mindset. I’ll share how a simple shift in perspective can help you stay grounded and guide your child through their struggles—without losing sight of what really matters – which is  your child’s heart.

Simple Mindset Shift That Helps Parents Prioritise Their Child’s Heart

I’ve been thinking about the systems that I had in place that helped our family work – and I started to think about the mindsets I had that helped those systems keep happening.  So much of coping with family life, with life in general, comes down to our mindsets – what we believe about ourselves, the people around us, the circumstances we are in.  

One such mindset that is a starting place for me is – to know what is important in this moment.  

When I’m functioning well I don’t get sidetracked.  The purpose of this moment is to get the housework done, so I’m not trying to blog at the same time.  The purpose of this time is to recharge so I don’t try and squeeze in a few extra tasks while I’m at it.  

If you look at my calendar it looks like I’m fully booked.  I’m not but I have blocked out in my calendar the purposes of each block of time to help guide me through my day.  To be honest, these days those blocks are a lot more flexible and fluid than when I had kids, but I have used the same system for a very long time.  

Back when I had kids at home I would block out my hours along the lines of

• Personal time
• Housework / Responsibilities
• Focus time (this is when we did our structured lessons with homeschooling)
• Cleanup / lunch / rest time 
• Project time
• Housework / Responsibilities
• Family time
• Relationships/Rest

This structure to our days was flexible in that we did different things within those blocks of purpose but the activities we did may have changed, but rarely did the purpose. 

Something that always comes up when I talk to mums about bringing order and consistency into their day is the idea – or reality – that children have needs, and those needs don’t always fit a plan.  So how do we stay on track when our child has a meltdown, or a heart ache they want to talk about, or not talk about and yet it is still affecting their choices!  What do we do when a child is sick or the whole family is in a funk.

These things happen – in every family, every week, or maybe even every day!  

As I started to think about this I started to realise that the way I managed my day was only how I managed our time, or a better way of saying it is – how I created a context for our family to live life, to grow and deal with everything we had to deal with.  

My daily routine created a context for us to parent, the goal wasn’t to get through each of those blocks of time.  The goal was to parent the heart of our child, to encourage and help them to grow into maturity – in all spheres of their life.  We manage our time so we can do that.  That is our goal.  

So how do we handle when a meltdown happens, because we can’t make time for that on our daily plan – regardless of how regular these meltdowns appear to be! 

It comes back to our mindset.  

We need to remember our goal.  It is easy to think that the activity we have planned is what is important – but that is just the context.  What is important comes back to our goal: to parent the heart of our child and to help them grow into maturity in every sphere of their life. 

Here is a little checklist that will help you switch gears from seeing the activity as the most important thing – to seeing your parenting as the most important thing.

This is a priority checklist – maybe go through it in your head as you sense you have to switch gears…

1. To honour God in your words, thoughts, deeds (attitude and actions).
2. Relationship with your child.
3. Your child’s heart (teaching the heart, and them processing their choices)
4. Other people
5. Stuff, things, belongings etc

So to put this together in a way that can help you get through your day.  You have a plan for your day – the context in which you are going to parent in today.  Then your child thows a wobbly, has a meltdown, refuses to co-operate, is sick, is having a hard day.  Anything can throw us off track where our plans disintegrate.  How do you adjust to knowing what is important in this moment?  Go back to that checklist

• My need to honour God in my attitude and any actions I take
• My relationship with my child, no matter how they are acting, I love them, and want them to know that they are loved and safe with me
• When my child is ready, there may be something we need to talk about, process, learn, practice, deal with.
• Then when those three steps are sorted, then other people and other activities come into play.  

I talk a lot about our children’s hearts – and how what we do as parents is teach their hearts – their beliefs and values, and how to make wise choices.  They need to know what is right, why it is right and how to do right.  It is the same for us. Our actions, the choices we make, come from what we believe and value.  

So the question is – what is most important to you?

1. The activities you have planned for the day (and this includes responsibilities like housework), or
2. The heart of your child. 

It sounds like a trick question right?  Of course the heart of my child.  But unless our actions (and our attitude) show that, unless that directs our choices, unless that shapes our attitude, feelings and actions then we don’t really believe it to be true.  We might say the heart of our child is the most important but we get distracted with these other things.

I know though, reality is we do have to do some of these other things.  The house does need to get cleaned, the homeschooling does need to happen, we do need to catch up with friends, and read our Bible – life isn’t just about our children.  And for sure – it shouldn’t be.  But in those moments when your child is struggling – then yes it needs to be.  

We need to be able to help them in their moment of hurt, struggle, pain, overwhelm, ignorance – and to be able to do that we have to let go of predetermined plans.  At least for a few minutes – or however long it is going to take.

• Yes, that means some things won’t get done – at least for a season.
• Yes, it means that you’ll have to play catch up – if it is that important.
• Yes, it means you’ll have to forgo something you were looking forward to.
• Yes, it means that life won’t look like how you had hoped.

But this season won’t last forever.

Your child won’t forever struggle – they will learn, and change and grow into maturity.

But for today – you need to keep your eye on your goal and that is to parent the heart of your child, to encourage and help them to grow into maturity – in all spheres of their life.

Dig Deeper with Part 2 here>>>

Hi there! I'm Belinda and I'm glad you are here!

I am a family life coach and help parents to raise their kids with faith, values and life skills in a way that is intentional, relational and heart-focused. Read more in my Introduction page

You can learn about heart-focused parenting through my podcast, blog and weekly email (Heart Boosters).

If you need help you can book a coach call or email me here.

.

.

Search by using keywords to find what you are looking for