Regan Barnes - Momivate

Family Team Discussion

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Hi, I’m Regan Barnes from Momivate, and this is your two-minute Mom Tip empowering you to elevate your mothering experience.

We usually END our tip with a challenge, but I’m going to START that way today: Gather your family and have a discussion about how your family is a TEAM…

Have everyone close their eyes and visualize whatever comes to their mind when they hear the word TEAM. Then have everyone share! Maybe your discussion will go a little like our family’s did…

My oldest child pictured his favorite football team, the Broncos. Specifically, the logo since he was wearing Peyton Manning’s jersey. This taught us that there are individual team members and that teams are identified by certain artwork. I wondered if our family team has a logo of sorts?

Next, my husband brought up the Red Sox and how they finally won the World Series after decades of not… Talk about team solidarity, and keeping on attempting to win no matter how many losses precede the final victory!

My twins had the same thing in mind — they are, after all, identical — they had our favorite university playing against its rival. Upon further questioning, though, it turns out one of them was picturing a basketball game while the other had football in mind. That brought up the fact that there are different sports, and that there are competitions and rivalries… My brain kept trying to figure out how this applies to our family team.

My four year old’s one-word contribution was, “Winning!” He also noted that winning is followed up with partying!

My second oldest, Truman, pictured a team of people playing Dungeons and Dragons. This brought up the fact that not all teams are sports teams — a perfect way for me to introduce the idea that our FAMILY is a TEAM, and that we want to WIN!

Moms, try having this discussion about viewing your family as a TEAM — then share with us on Facebook if practicing this new family vision elevates your mothering!

Photo by Mike Scheid on Unsplash

What’s with the ‘Tude, Dude?

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Hi, I’m Regan Barnes from Momivate, and this is your two-minute Mom Tip empowering you to elevate your mothering experience.

Have you ever been in a situation where complaining or whining might be justified, but for some reason you chose to take a deep breath and stay calm. It’s not easy, but it’s rewards are immediate! The challenge to accept responsibility for one’s own reaction is one of those self-discipline muscles that we need to build — and life gives us plenty of opportunities.

When we can’t control anything else about our circumstances, we can at least keep control of ourselves, our emotions, our attitude.

Charles Swindoll, founder of the radio program Insights for Living, got it right when he said:

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important … than education, than money, … than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It will make or break a company, a church, a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. …

We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.

We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you.

We are in charge of our attitudes.”

I want to empower my children by teaching them this concept, and I work (it is definitely WORK) to set an example of it, and together we’re discovering all the ways we can improve our personal reality simply by smiling, or letting things go, or looking for solutions, what we CAN do, rather than dwelling on the CAN’Ts. We aren’t perfect, — and yet we try to maintain a good attitude about our imperfections!

Mama, examine your attitude and how you might upgrade it in just one way today, and see what a difference it makes. Then share if this practice elevates your mothering!

Photo by Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash

Screen Free Week

Hi, I’m Regan Barnes from Momivate, and this is your two-minute Mom Tip empowering you to elevate your mothering experience.

I get it! I get it, fellow mamas — I TOTALLY understand why TV is placed on a pedestal in our society. For one thing,

It’s basically a free babysitter, available at our beck and call
And it’s so nice that while my children are busy watching TV, they don’t make very big messes (although this also means they aren’t learning how to clean up messes…)
Another positive is that they tend to get so absorbed in the TV program that they don’t fight with each other! However, this form of hypnotized peace results in fewer opportunities to learn negotiation, compromise, forgiveness, and other positive relationship skills that come with conflict. Besides, when they’re done watching, it feels like they fight MORE than if they hadn’t watched it at all… as though the supposedly benign show has still had a negative effect.
Finally, PBS and similar educational programming make us feel good about letting them watch — “It’s like Preschool at Home” is one of the ditties I’ve heard the network claim… BUT preschool is interactive, multi-sensory, creative, and attendees can practice playing and getting along with peers… so I’m not convinced.

Why would I ever feel inclined to give up the free babysitter, free preschool, and fight-and-mess-preventer?

Well, the nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood has researched why it’s crucial to curb our children’s screen use. They sponsor Screen Free Week, providing tons of resources to help us succeed in this practically impossible endeavor.

Additionally, they help us as parents teach tech-responsibility to our children because the reality is that being screen-free is a luxury not many of us can afford, oddly enough. So we need to be putting the necessary effort into teaching screen self-control starting as soon as the baby pretends her banana is a phone.

It absolutely definitely one hundred percent totally completely and drastically affects the atmosphere in our home when our “master-and-slave” relationship with screens has “we, the people” as the masters, not the slaves.

Mom, try going screen free for a day or two each week, then share if this practice elevates your mothering!

Photo by AJIN AJEESH on Unsplash

Cherish the Doing

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Hi, I’m Regan Barnes from Momivate, and this is your two-minute Mom Tip empowering you to elevate your mothering experience.

Check out this quote by Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist and mother:

Cherish the doing a little more,
and the getting it done a little less!

I love this quote.

Too often, I’m trying so hard to get a bunch of stuff crossed off the to-do list, thinking that once those check-marks are there, I’ll be able to do the fun stuff.

Really, though, as a mom, the list just keeps growing… and that can be a suffocating feeling.

I joke about that with my kiddos, because the laundry is never really done — unless we take a day to run around naked!

Okay, so nudity might be slightly inappropriate — but ya gotta admit, there’s nothin’ like a dancin’ two-year-old’s flubby blubber!

That might be a more appropriate way to cherish the doing a little more — make the doing a little more fun. Turn up the music! Let’s Dance!

I’ll let myself eat a little chocolate during the doing, not just as a reward afterwards!

Take time to teach the little ones how to do the doing… they want to know, really they do! And that counts as quality time, during the doing!

What ideas do you have to help us all as fellow moms cherish the doing a little more? Motherhood is full of doing so let’s help each other enjoy the journey by deliberately cherishing the doing… then share if this practice elevates your mothering!

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Keep Calm and Mom On!

By Esperanza DeLaLuz

“I am just a mom.” I hurt when I hear someone say that! Mothers do the most important job on earth when they raise healthy, happy, productive children. Abraham Lincoln, our great president, said, “All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

What not everyone knows is that the angel mother to whom he refers is actually his stepmother. His birth mother died when he was nine and, the following year, his father remarried. Sarah had children of her own, yet she was a loving and devoted mother to all of the children, and she especially nurtured Abraham in his desire to learn and read.

This is a comforting thought to those of us who are stepmothers, aunts, foster moms, and grandmothers, or who are in other positions of nurturing. The task of mothering is not only the province of those who give birth. To “mother”—which is defined as “to look after kindly and protectively”—is incredibly demanding, and just as incredibly—and critically—important. To mother is a noble task and those who participate in it, to any extent, are doing a great and valuable work.

However, in the midst of diapers, tantrums, mischief, and defiance, it may be a challenge to feel that one is engaged in a noble task. Often it feels like we are in “survival mode.” Roseann Barr once joked that if her children were alive at the end of the day, she had done her job as a mother.

I know for every mother there are days which feel like that. On those days, it can help to remember Abraham Lincoln’s feelings about his “angel mother,” and recognize that someday it may be your influence that sways the world.

The next time you are deciding whether to scrub the crayon mural off the wall or frame it, remember Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, and mother on!

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash