The up and coming New Year is a perfect time to reflect on the year before and to make plans for the year ahead. This is a time when people become excited about change and are more than willing to welcome it into their life. For families raising children there are a few New Years resolutions that you can make which will have a dramatic impact on your life! Here are just a few!
Start saving for college! College is expensive! You may think you have plenty of time left but the years slip away quickly. If you begin by putting $20 a week in an interest or stock yielding account, you will be able to save around $1,000 per year. Commit to increasing your donation each New Years and by the time your children are in 5th grade you will have quite a nest egg!
Make the resolution to introduce one healthy food to your children each week! Every mom and dad gets into a routine of macaroni & cheese and chicken nuggets. This works because the kids will eat it! But start young opening their palette and you will be surprised at the foods they like. Be creative and make one night a week a special “taste of the New Year” night! If you turn it into a special dinner every night, you will build upon their menu and their health. This can lead to great eating habits in the years ahead.
Make a New Year’s resolution to spend one hour every weekend (or once a week) taking a walk together as a family. Most households are filled with so much noise, toys and hustle and bustle that the quiet and beauty of nature often go unnoticed! This will also have everyone moving and even if your baby is a new walker, get them in on the fun!
Chances are high that you starting out recording memories and milestones with the diligence of an army drill instructor. Then time becomes slim, and children become more plentiful and before you know it, you can’t remember some of the simple things. Make a New Year’s resolution to record everything on a calendar and use New Years Day to take a walk down memory lane and record it! In the years to come you will be so glad you did. The best thing a family can offer their children are memories of good times spent together.
Back up your pictures! We all say we are going to do it and then don’t and then our computer crashes! Back up those digital photos and videos of your family or put them on CD’s and DVD’s! Never wait until it’s too late and New Years is a great time to do it. There after, make a vow to do it on every time change! Sitting at the computer backing up the endless photos will empower you to be more grateful for your family and allow you to revisit the past year with clarity. It is a good place to begin thinking about changes you can make that will positively affect your family.
Install or check on your smoke detectors! While not very exciting, this has to be done. More children every year are injured or killed in their home due to fire than from any other cause! Remember a month or so ago when the smoke detectors were beeping in the middle of the night and you just disconnected them…now is the time to make sure they are working again! If you don’t have them, install at least one on every floor of your home and especially in front of sleeping rooms. Make a New Year’s resolution to complete all of those daunting tasks that have been haunting you in the back of your mind for months. The simple, tedious projects that you desperately want or need done linger in your mind and can cause a lot of stress and worry as the months go by. Having them complete will feel like a fresh start.
New Years is the perfect opportunity to make lasting changes. One thing you shouldn’t forget to do is spend time with your spouse. No matter how busy you are with the kids, kids benefit from happy parents! This New Years decide that once a week or once a month you are going to take time out together! Not only will you feel a renewed sense of love and appreciate, but also you will get that much needed break that will leave you with the energy you need to get through another year raising children!
Plenty of people don’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions. If you are one of them, try to shift a change in your mind. You world is never standing still and sometimes you have to bend and flex in order to change with it. Raising a family means reinventing love, gratitude and hope within your home. Simple things like taking one small step to improve your own health or happiness will have a dramatic trickle down effect on others in your life. Rather than thinking of New Year’s resolutions as cliché, try to think of it as a way to wipe the slate clean and start over, losing the worry and frets from last year and looking forward to the solutions and abundance that await you in the next. No one is certain of his or her time on Earth and spending it wisely, lovingly and passionately should be the certain goal for this New Year’s. It is the one thing you will never get a chance to do over. Happy New Years!
