Positive Parenting: One Room At A Time

My children’s birthday celebrations are also the celebration of my birth as a mother.

I believe parenting is a lifelong journey. The course changes with every day, month, or year that gets added to your children’s lives.

The first two weeks before the check-up, the first couple months and vaccines, the first year with feeding, rolling over, crawling, walking, first words, first tooth; the (I-don’t-know-why-they-call-them) terrible two’s. Pre-school years, kindergarten, elementary school… it’s all different and I know.

Perhaps your journey is about to start, just started, or is way ahead of mine. No matter where you are at being a positive mom, and no matter what your circumstances are: a single mom, a married mom, single child, multiple children, working mom, stay-at-home mom, stepmom…we are all on the same quest.

Our journeys may be different but the destination is the same: raising positive children and allowing our kids to succeed and reach their highest potential while having joy and faith.

Because our journey is different, it may seem that for some, the journey has a lot less bumpy rides.

It may discourage you and disappoint you.

It may seem that it is easier for other moms to have a more positive attitude, spend more time with their kids, balance life as a wife, mother, and professional.

This is my inspiration for this post. You know, it is not easy to raise children and teach them to choose the right, but I think about my own children.

People always compliment me on what great behavior and what incredible manners my daughters display. It is certainly easier to raise children when they are well behaved. It is even easier when you have a profession that allows flexibility to spend more time with them.

But this is not a result of getting lucky.

I look back 7 years. They were one and two, both in diapers. I worked long days and even longer nights. Countless sleepless nights. Missing my children. Longing to create and grow my own business so I could quit a job that did not fulfill me. No family around and no husband to back me up.

Was it easy to be a positive mom? No, but it was my choice. I decided I was going to take whatever honorable action required to move forward in making my children happy and maximizing their quality of life. I took it one day at a time. I prayed for a specific day, for a specific issue, and focused on acting on that until it was satisfactory.

I once heard one of my Church’s leaders compare the answer to our prayers with how a house becomes lit one room at a time. It made me think about how you also have turned the switch on. It made me further think about how one room lights up and can help you find the next.

If you are in the dark, go into the room anyway, face your fear. Your lights will adjust and you will start to see. Find the switch and take action. A positive parent lights up their home one room at a time.

So every day, I light up my switch.

It is still challenging, but after 7 years, I reap the benefits. It is certainly easier but it is not less challenging. And think of the years to come! I choose to believe I will reap the benefits of today’s efforts.

Positive Parenting is not just a day-to-day process, but a moment-to-moment process.

Life is made out of moments, let’s make them memorable, let’s make them positive.

Founder of the Positive MOM® and creator of the S.T.O.R.Y. System: a blueprint to craft and share powerful stories that will transform your results and help others do the same. Dr. Elayna Fernández is a single mom of 4, an award-winning Storyteller, Story Strategist, and Student of Pain. She’s a bestselling author, internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, and 5x TEDx speaker. She has spoken at the United Nations, received the President’s Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award, and was selected as one of the Top Impactful Leaders and a Woman of Influence by SUCCESS Magazine. Connect with Elayna at thepositivemom.com/ef and follow @thepositivemom. To receive a gift from Elayna, click HERE.

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