It is sometimes so easy to slip into the same routines with your children.  We’re so busy with work, after school activities, cooking, cleaning, taking care of a million and one things that we get on a treadmill of sorts and just go through the motions with our children daily without really being present and in the moment with them.  How many times have you answered a question your child asked without really thinking about the question or the answer, just to tell them something so they would walk away so you could finish what you were doing?  Most of us are guilty of this.  It’s not that we don’t love and adore our children.  We just have a lot on our plates and we forget to stop and think before we parent.  Here’s a handy list I came up with to try to ask yourself each day to self-assess your parenting.  It’s not to make you feel bad if you didn’t do everything on the list each day.  No one is perfect parent.  Even your friends who seem to be perfect parents on the outside.  They screw up, too.  We all do.  Don’t punish yourself if you weren’t the parent you wanted to be today.
Print this list and use it as a daily reminder to help you be the best parent you can be.