The Walk

I have been focusing my efforts on my kids. I have always wanted to be a better mom but wasn’t sure which way I needed to go in order to do this. Did I need to be stricter? Did I need to get them more slack? Did they need me to fix every fight? Did I need to back off and let them resolve it? Sometimes it is really hard to know what the “right” thing is so I felt a sort of lost in the parenting world, not knowing which choice was the right one, worried I was ruining my children by not parenting them correctly. These quotes have been so helpful to me to know what to do. I didn’t need to focus on the daily things as much but to step back and focus on the feeling in the house. We were living together but we weren’t really a family it felt like we coexisted. The quote that helped me the most was from Sister Lynda S. Reeves. She said, “The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.” I wasn’t starting their days off right. We weren’t praying as a family or holding regular family home evenings. I decided to focus my efforts on this and so far it has helped my children listen more, fight less, laugh more, enjoy and content just being around each other. They are still kids and they still do fight but it is a step in the right direction and it is a huge answer to pray. The crazy thing is the answer was so easy, but I was looking so hard for a more complicated fix I didn’t even notice the solution that was staring me in the face. We have tried holding daily scripture study and prayer in the morning and at night. We are more consistent when we do it at night but I find it is more beneficial when we do it in the morning. It is harder to coordinate and requires more effort but it is more than worth it to have less contention and more love during the day. I am so grateful for this experience and will continue to do this with my young family. This is such a perfect time in their lives to get in the habit of daily scripture study and prayer so it will be a habit when they are older, so I’m grateful for the timing. I enjoyed doing this challenge.