Embracing Intentional Parenting

This weekend I killed my son’s betta fish.

And it's true I did - I killed Felix. We had bought him that day, and I was worried that he would be cold overnight because we had overlooked buying a heater, so I wrapped his little tank with a heating pad crossing my fingers that it would work. And it did — a little too well. I cooked his fish overnight.

Of course, waking up to my son’s tears was horrible.

But then my son said to me, “We are going out RIGHT NOW and getting a NEW FISH,” and I got triggered - I crankily said back to him, “We are not getting any new fish until you do the proper research, which neither of us did and that's really why he died!” This, unfortunately, is imperfect parenting in action.

I’m sure this story inspires empathy, like, “Wow, that's one of those situations you could feel really sh%tty about even a week later, and I'm so sorry.” And thank you, I appreciate it, but I am actually OK. I regret making myself feel better by passing some of the blame onto my 11-year-old’s lack of fish research. After all, I am the parent, and I should have done some myself before spending $22 on a fish. And he certainly didn't need me to throw it back on him when he felt super sad about his mother killing his new friend.

So yeah, I feel guilty about that, but do I feel like a Bad Mother? Do I want to run away and cry in my closet, filled with shame? Actually, no, I don't.

And that’s a massive improvement for me. I never was a “sh%t happens” kind of person. I have always been an “it’s totally my fault, and this mistake defines me now” type.

And so this fish incident is a moment I will hold on to because it reminds me that it's one thing to have an intention - but it's another to take that intention seriously.

I take my intention to be a happier human seriously by reminding myself daily of it and taking the repeated action of gratitude to achieve it. And without taking those series of steps, or what I call parenting with gratitude™, over the past four years, again and again, I would have had a much worse weekend than I did.

Parenting with gratitude™ is the simple equation that I have developed over the years to take what was once a fleeting wish of showing up for my kids as loving and kind most of the time - and make it a reality,

I want to share the recipe that has made Parenting with Gratitude™ really work for me, and it is:

Intention + Attention + Action + Repetition = Results you can see and feel.

And the first step is Intention - in fact, I call it my GoodAF Mom Intention, which for me these days is to be a happier human and to be kind.

That doesn’t mean all the time. It means more than yesterday or being a little less hard on myself the next time I murder a fish. And because I know at some point you reached an “enough is enough” moment or two, and you decided that something needed to change, I will stress that this GoodAF Mom Intention, the one that anchors you, will be the most crucial part to taking the steps to parent differently.

Over the years, my intention has morphed and changed as I have grown and rediscovered the parts of me that were a little bit lost. And as my intention became just figuring out how to be happy, I also learned that I didn’t have to be happy all the time to make this change. It was the intention that mattered. It's what changed my focus and fueled my inner healing.

But having an intention is not enough - it really is about what you do next.

My intention to be a happy human affected my attention. I began to look for things that made me happy, and the most obvious were my kids. Just watching them show up every day made me happy. I was grateful to be with them each day. My intention got me to a place I had never stayed for a very long time - where I stopped pushing myself to be better and just took the time to observe, to watch what I already had - and it was pretty great. Sure, we can wish things to be different, but unlike what we were told as children, knowing is actually NOT half the battle.

In fact, this is what Dr. Laurie Santos, cognitive scientist and host of The Happiness Lab, calls the G.I.Joe Fallacy.

To quote Santos, “We actually have to do all kinds of stuff other than just knowing stuff to change our behavior. If we really want to change our behavior, we have to change habits. We can’t just learn the stuff.”

The phrase “Knowing is half the battle” is actually dead wrong. We can’t just learn that gratitude will make us happier or that self-reflection is the simplest form of self-care. According to Santos, we have to do it - not just once, but change our habits (or the series of learned behaviors we have formed over time). This is why even though Action is crucial to parenting with gratitude, it’s the repeating action of being grateful in many, many, many different ways that lead to real, lasting change.

According to a 2015 study that looked at why some people act on their dreams to become entrepreneurs while others only think and dream, it was determined that the key to the implementation of an intention - the DOING instead of just the knowing - boiled down to having what they called a “commitment devices.”

These commitment devices can come in two forms. One relies on self-regulation and was introduced by Peter Gollwitzer in 1999, called “Implementation Intention.” Basically, once you set a clear goal with achievable steps, you can also attach it to existing experiences through an “if-then” plan. Basically, thinking through what you will do in certain situations that may challenge your intention or goal. The simplest form of an implementation intention is every time you touch the front doorknob, you say keys inside your head. Here are some others:

“I intend to run daily, so I will lay out my running clothes each night and keep my headphones by the door.” Great specific goal and intention. Your Implementation Intention for this situation could be to think about running and how good it feels every night when you lay out your clothes.
“I intend to stop yelling, so I will take a moment after it is over to notice what types of things are running through my head.” Great specific goal and intention. Your implementation intention for this goal could be reminding yourself repeatedly (when you aren’t yelling) that Moms make mistakes too, and the pause and the repair after yelling is the most important part to teach your kids. It’s not about yelling, it’s about what you do after.
“I intend to be more grateful. Therefore, I will write five things daily while drinking my coffee.” Great specific goal and intention. Your Implementation Intention would be when you think about drinking your coffee as you go to bed, say gratitude list. The association between the two will eventually become part of your brain’s automatic systems in the morning.

The other was an accountability device - So telling someone that you were going to start a gratitude journal or you intend to work on your mental health this year is a catalyst for creating action, for bridging the gap from intention to action because generally, as a species we strive for favorable opinions of our peers.

You can do it.

Using the knowledge of behavioral scientists mixed with my parenting with gratitude™ formula, we can become attuned to what we want and how we will get it. This customizes our goal and makes it achievable because it's not about what other people want or even what we may have thought we wanted two weeks ago.

Let’s try the formula together:

Intention + Attention + Action + Repetition = Results you can see and feel.

What is your intention? Maybe it’s to show up as your best self and to parent differently.
What attention does this intention need? Well, what is my “best self” in the first place? This is where self-reflection comes in very handy. Maybe your “best self” can come to the surface once all the Mom Guilt and shame of making mistakes has subsided.
What are the repeatable steps you will take to get to a place where Mom Guilt feels less like shame and mistakes feel more like learning opportunities?

Well, for me, I chose gratitude. A committed daily practice of remembering all the good things I do for others and what they do for me proved I wasn’t bad, and it has detached me completely from shame, from only identifying as a Bad Mom. Rooting out daily moments of gratitude has allowed me to see my inner goodness, it has allowed me to access my best self without fear of internal judgment, and it has given me the freedom to keep making the mistakes so vital to learning.

Sure, I may be a fish murderer, but that doesnt automatically qualify me as a Bad Mom – I am a Good AS Fuck Mom who made a mistake. And you are a Good Mom, too – so find an intention statement that works for you, one that, with a bit of attention, you can bridge the gap to action and finally see results.

Once you ask yourself the hard questions, make a list of ways to take action, and use me as an accountability partner, join my email list and hit reply, or DM me on Instagram I’ll listen. And if you're stuck for an intention, I know you are reading because maybe you have had enough or you are curious about what it would take to be more fun, well maybe for the next week you can try this one for size: