Thriving In Motherhood Podcast | Productivity, Planning, Family Systems, Time Management, Survival Mode, Mental Health, Vision

We have four very creative kids who spend HOURS each day creating things (the most recent was an elaborate tin can phone system complete with bells and wall mounts for the cans to go between the top and bottom bunk).

In this week's episode, I'm sharing the things we've done that have made the biggest impact on raising creative children.

8 Tips For Raising Creative Kids

1. Encourage their interests.

For example, from the time our son was 18 months old, he used our couches to build vehicles. To support this, we built wooden boxes he could combine with stools, chairs, and a nugget couch. This has sparked endless imaginative constructions.

1. Expose your kids to new experiences

Anytime our kids get in a funk and don’t know what to do, we try to take them somewhere and let them experience something new. These experiences provide fresh inspiration to fuel their creative ideas.

1. Have supplies on hand

We like to have scissors, glue, cardboard, and paint on hand at our house. Think about the things your kids like to create and make those supplies accessible, easy to use, and easy to put away.

1. Teach kids basic skills

We’ve taught our kids how to knit, crochet, carve, use the sewing machine, hand sew, and weave. Giving them these basic skills has allowed them to create even more things. While we don’t force these skills on them, we support their interests by teaching them what they need to bring their ideas to life.

1. Get books from the library on a variety of topics

Borrow books from the library on various subjects. Exposing your kids to a wide range of topics is crucial for sparking their creativity and broadening their horizons.

1. Help your kids create the things they want

If our kids say they want something we help them make it. We’ve made shoe and coat racks, bows and arrows, chisels, hammers, swords, and shields. When they were little we were much more involved. As they’ve gotten older and more experienced, we’ve allowed them more independence as they create and build.

1. Allow them to listen to audiobooks while they create

Audiobooks are a fantastic way to keep kids engaged while they create We’ve found a good audiobook can extend their creative projects.

1. Model creativity

Creativity starts with us as parents. By modeling creativity, involving our kids in our projects, and providing inspiration, we set the stage for them to be more creative. We actively support their ideas and encourage them to explore and experiment.

One of the most impactful things you can do as a parent is to develop a high tolerance for stepping back and letting your kids create. This might mean occasional disruptions, like missing kitchen chairs or dealing with creative messes. We’re currently teaching our kids to clean up after their projects, balancing creativity with responsibility.

The more we embrace their creativity, the more it flourishes. Every mess, project, and mistake all add up to a fulfilling and creative life.

Whether you are exhausted, depressed, sick, burned out, or just want a break, in today's episode I'll be sharing my #1 tip that I've used for the last 10.5 years of motherhood to get me through the day when I need some space we still have the day to spend together.

The solution has two parts: Go outside and do something creative.

When my kids were little and we lived in an apartment, this looked like bringing things I could do with my hands to the playground: whittle spoons or animals out of sticks or scrap wood, crochet blankets, make shoes out of leather, or peel apples to make applesauce.

As my kids got older and we now live in a home, this often looks like doing house projects. Recently we've done major updates in our garden, built a retaining wall, made a bed frame, cut out wood animals for the kids to carve with friends, and we are currently building a rock climbing wall in the garage.

Always I've played instruments, often outside, for a low-energy creative option. A ukulele, guitar, or fiddle is a convenient option to grab and go to the great outdoors.

No matter what season of motherhood I'm in, the result has been the same.

Everyone was happier once we stepped outside. Fighting decreases. The kids get engaged in good play. I get some space and a break from having people touch me. And creativity brings some joy and satisfaction into my day, no matter how tired or crummy I feel.

The thing I wasn't expecting was just how creative my kids would become from watching me over the years. There is never a dull moment at our house. Someone is always making something, or playing an instrument, and they are usually outside.

It is so easy to fall into the "all I do is.." trap.

You fill in the blank - change diapers, drive kids to school and activities, feed people, nurse the baby, chase after the toddler. No matter the season of motherhood you are in, there are things that we do over and over again. And when we start to think that it is all we do, we can start to feel miserable and resentful of the people we love the most.

The antidote is simple but incredibly powerful: do a monthly review.

Even after 7 years of this 10-minute exercise, I am still surprised at how it changes my perspective and how I feel about my life.

In this week's episode, I'm sharing my findings from my most recent review in April and show you how you can do it yourself too.

5 Questions To Ask In a Monthly Review:

1. What have I discovered or learned this month?

2. What have I accomplished?

3. Where have we gone?

4. What significant things happened in our family?

5. What books have I read or listened to (or podcasts or shows if that is the season you are in)?

When you ask these questions you can see how rich your life actually is. And you can begin to build momentum and keep the progress going.

When you see you read a book - you are a reader! What else can you read? When you see you've made progress on projects or goals you can feel motivated to take the next baby steps. When you discover or learn something you realize just how interesting this life is and wonder what else there is to learn. When you see all the places you've gone it is easier to get out of the house again.

And when you record the significant things in your family you realize why your house is in the state it's in...or maybe more accurately, how great you are really doing as you invest in these people and relationships.

And if you discover that you don't have much to write about, you will have a clearer picture of WHY which brings much more compassion, grace, and understanding as well as gives you clues on how to move forward.

You can do this in the Thriving in Motherhood Planner on the monthly review page so you don't even have to remember that a month has gone by - you just do it when the page shows up - or in a notebook or journal you already use.

If you want to do it with someone to celebrate your progress and plan what you are going to focus on for the next 30 days with some accountability, come join us in Soaring Mother's Society where we share our monthly reviews in small groups.

With summer quickly approaching, I needed to refocus on what we are going to make our learning priorities for the next few months. We go year-round in our homeschooling so that we can have the ultimate flexibility to take breaks or just enjoy the nice days outside. And, hot weather here in the South has us indoors more than in the winter months.

In this week’s episode, I’m sharing the question I asked to give me the clarity I needed to decide what we are going to focus on in our schooling and home so that we can have confidence in how we are using our time and energy.

The question I asked myself is: “What do each of my kids need to be prepared for next fall?”

With this question, I was able to narrow down the few things that matter a lot and let go of the rest.

For us, we are making a family project of working through Story of the World 4 this summer so we can enjoy modern history when we start Alveary in the fall.

We are also focusing on some specific skills tailored to what each child needs, instead of keeping up with all of the subjects and curriculum. Everyone is continuing with math and a few of my kids are starting All About Spelling. We started a writing club by buying our own notebooks and writing on our own time, sharing what we write when we are ready.

We are also working on organizing bedrooms and our school space in May to have our environments set up to make it easy to do what we want to do. I’m prepping the Alveary curriculum in June while getting ready for our annual cross-country road trip.

Resources We Are Using This Summer:

Story of the World 4

Alveary (use code JJACKSON for a $25 discount)

All About Spelling

For the last 30 days, I've been using the Thriving in Motherhood Journal. Before this personal challenge, I would use it about once a week when things were hard and noticed a nice lift to my week. But as this year has continued to surprise us I started to flounder and wanted to see what impact the journal would have in my life.

In this week's episode, I'll share some of the logistics and tips for using the journal, the impact it had on my life, and my invitation for you to give it a try for yourself.

You may be wondering what it actually took for me to stick to my 30-day challenge. Here are some things that I found helpful:

• Have a pen ready

• Have multiple windows of when you will use the journal and put it in the next likely spot (next to your bed, office, kitchen, etc.)

• Be flexible with morning or night (or both).

• Pick it back up when you miss a day.

• Don’t pressure yourself to answer every question. Pick the relevant ones for that day and leave the rest.

• Don’t worry about keeping the daily and weekly pages perfectly ordered.

When I started this challenge, I was floundering. We’ve had a hard year on lots of levels - health, jobs, lots of things going on, kids struggling with different things (including surgery), and the unexpected keeps popping up. I have felt exhausted.

Here are some of the positive impacts I noticed during my 30-day challenge:

• Using the journal has empowered me through this season. I’ve been surprised at how much joy I have felt in the last 30 days.

• I’ve been able to parent better, more consistently, and more confidently instead of pulling into myself and surviving through the hard days.

• I’ve processed some hard emotions/situations so I could truly find peace and let go.

• I did a lot more service outside of my home in 30 days than I did all year. Small ways, like helping return a grocery cart and carry food out to the car, and bigger things too.

• I captured many magic moments during the last 30 days and now my days are full of them.

• My health wasn’t great during this window but when I did my monthly review I discovered a miraculous amount of things got accomplished. I attribute this to the power of having the vision in my Thriving in Motherhood Planner and asking the daily questions in the journal about the next three steps for my priorities that week.

• I got rid of mom guilt which normally rears its ugly head during hard survival times with the question, “What would help me feel successful today?” This question allowed me to pivot to what mattered most each day.

• I have struggled with anxiety about facing the next day in the past and fret at night about what is to come, especially when I’m sleep-deprived. But this journaling process helped me live more in the moment each day and ending the day with magic moments, gratitude, big wins, and God’s involvement in my life made a big difference.

• This process led me to naturally have a better routine before bed and get rid of tech when I was journaling.

I’d like to extend an invitation to you to pull out your Thriving in Motherhood Journal (or get yours today) and commit to 30 days of journaling. Watch and see the difference it makes in your life.

If you've already been using the journal, I would really appreciate it if you left a review on Amazon to help other moms find it and see if it would be a good fit for them. And as a special bonus, if you leave a review on Amazon, you’ll be entered to win a 2024 coil-bound Thriving in Motherhood Planner!

There are some amazing bonuses you can claim when you purchase the journal to help you get the most out of it so don’t wait to get yours!

I got a fantastic question from a mother who is using the 2024 Thriving in Motherhood Planner this year: "I get confused sometimes about the distinction between things like goals (quarterly vs. yearly) vs. projects vs. habits vs. Big 3 vs. focus vs. tracking. Should these things all be related or not necessarily?

For example, on page 31, I'm not sure what goals vs projects are. Do I choose a big goal and then break that down into projects, or are goals and projects different? Should my daily, weekly, and quarterly goals all go back to my 10-12 goals for the year? I guess I'm just not clear on how these things are different or if they should all be connected!"

In this week's episode are going to do a deep dive on the difference between Projects, Goals, and Habits and how you can practically organize your ideas to make things happen with the Thriving in Motherhood Planner.

First, use this how it works best for you! There are no grades or right or wrong answers. But, if you’re curious, here’s how I use my Thriving in Motherhood Planner in these different areas.

• Projects: Projects are things with multiple steps that need or want to happen. For example, on my list are creating a family meal binder, updating our family yearbooks, planting raspberries, planting a medicinal and culinary herb garden, and cleaning out garden pathways.

• Goals: Goals are a little more personal and stretching—definitely outside of my comfort zone. This year, I put three goals down: write a book, do community service as a family, and do a cooking camp with the kids. These are also multistep goals, but they are also about shaping who we are as people and doing things that are intentionally hard.

• Habits: Habits are also about becoming—but on a daily level. For me, I wrote about prepping for the next day and knowing what's going to happen so we get a head start, tracking finances, daily exercise, and reading with a commonplace notebook.

Could some of these be mixed in different places - absolutely.

Another way to think about it is that Goals are things I want to HAVE, projects are things I want to DO, and Habits are things I want to BECOME.

Also, I don't fill out page 33 (Goals, Habits, Projects page) for the whole year all at once. I do it quarter by quarter. Sometimes, it is in planning, and sometimes it is in review to just see an overview of what happened.

Will goals or habits have projects involved? Very possibly! Do I use the goal planning pages for a project? Sometimes! Do I not use a goal planning page for a goal? Yes!

I like to have my daily, weekly, and quarterly goals funnel down from my vision. Some years, my vision is clearly defined on page 33, and sometimes, it is NOT. But I am picking what I focus on each quarter based on my vision and my month based on the quarter. My big three for the week have at least one thing from my vision on it most weeks (and sometimes it's taken up with homeschooling, celebrating a birthday, or getting the car fixed).

Focus is usually more about who I want to be, a scripture that I want to remember, a thriving thought that is helping me navigate day-to-day life or something that is challenging me and I want to navigate it better. It is nice to have it as a reminder on my weekly page spread.

Tracking is for the daily habits I want to keep a record of accomplishing. In some seasons, it is really motivating to check them off, and other times, I think just doing the things is enough and could care less if there is a check in the checkbox.

If you have any more questions about how I use the Thriving in Motherhood Planner or whether it’s right for you, email me at [email protected], and I’ll get back to you!

Cleaning my home with my children has always been my number one priority. When they were babies this looked like using cleaning supplies that would be safe while they were in a baby carrier on me. As they were toddlers, it meant they could clean with me, and I wasn't worried about what they were touching. As they get older it means having materials I'm confident they can use safely by themselves.

But knowing that this is what I wanted and executing it were two different things. In this week's episode, I'm sharing all the things I've tried and what worked, what didn't work, and what we are doing now that has been the right fit for us.

I tried many things over the years. The first was to walk through the cleaning aisle at the store to find the products we needed. But due to overwhelm (the number of options, not knowing which products were actually safe, and calculating the expense of it all), I always walked out of there with nothing. This also meant that for years, the actual cleaning in our home was minimal because I was so worried about picking the wrong thing.

My friend Hannah (we were neighbors in grad student housing - true friendship is formed in not ideal living conditions) created a course called Simple Green Cleaning (not available right now) that taught me how to clean the majority of my house with a few basic ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, and dish soap. I thoroughly enjoyed feeling confident cleaning my house and mixing up what I needed when I needed it. But when I started teaching my kids how to do it, they were so inspired by the process that they created their own cleaning supplies by mixing soaps, shampoo, conditioner, and lotions, and it made a pretty big mess. This didn't quite work with my purpose of cleaning with my kids.

A few years ago, we decided to try Force of Nature, which is completely safe for skin, disinfects, and can be used on all surfaces. It has been a game-changer. We have ONE cleaning product we use on EVERYTHING.

It makes it simple to teach our children how to use it (plus they LOVE the process of making it and never complain when I ask them to clean) and I never have to worry about what they are breathing in or is touching their skin.

While I haven't done a petri dish test to confirm how well it disinfects surfaces, but it cleans well enough to remove all smells and clean surfaces, so that is good for me! When it comes to my main priority of cleaning with my kids, this one checks all of the boxes.

If you want to try Force of Nature yourself, you can get a discount with this link:

Force of Nature

Get 40% off bundles in April with code: PLANET40

Get 60% off Cleaning and Laundry Duo Bundles with PLANET60

When I had three kids, four and under, I learned about Charlotte Mason and her principle of spreading a wide feast of ideas. Practically, this looks like 20 different subjects in a Charlotte Mason classroom that get covered during the week.

Before we were in the formal school years, I got into the habit of discovering where all the different sections of books were at the library so I could just walk the shelves and grab some that covered a wide range of ideas without any preplanning. For years, we have had this system in place that has provided an educational cushion through all the ups and downs in our lives and given our kids a lot of learning in a very natural way.

For years, we have had this system in place that has provided an educational cushion through all the ups and downs in our lives and given our kids a lot of learning in a very natural way. I also supplement by putting books on hold at the library that deep-dive into what my kids want to learn more about so that I’m not hunting for specific books once we get there.

In this week’s episode, I’m sharing practical tips for not losing the library books and keeping free books free, bringing some great books into your home, and some of our recent favorites.

How we avoid fines and the library to keep our books free:

• We moved all our personal books upstairs to a home library and have a separate bookshelf downstairs for the library books to create separation.

• We have ONE library card, so we don’t lose track of the books we have checked out, what’s on hold, and what we have to return.

• We try to get to the library on the same day every week so that we don’t have many different due dates to keep track of.

• I try and go to our library account after we get home from the library to renew any books that we might have missed returning.

• We have a library book bag that holds between 20-30 books, which creates some margin.

Recent Library Book Favorites That Were So Good We Would By Them

1. Professor Wooford McPaw’s History of Astronomy

2. Papa is A Poet A Story about Robert Frost

3. The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto

4. Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain

5. Hawk Rising

6. Send a Girl!: The True Story of How Women Joined the FDNY

7. Find Me! Adventures in the Forest

8. The Apartment: A Century of Russian History

9. Under Your Feet... Soil, Sand and Everything Underground

10. Charles Dickens (Little People, Big Dreams)

11. A Walk in London

12. Cooking Class Global Feast!: 44 Recipes That Celebrate the World’s Cultures

Synthia Simenson is a mother of five (almost six) children ages 10 and under. She went through the struggles that I think we can all relate to when we first become moms—overwhelm, unsure of where to focus her time and energy, and not even sure what she wanted life to look like. I hope you are as inspired by her journey as I am, from those survival years to making intentional changes that created space for her to dream.

Things like minimum baselines for taking care of herself and her home, weekly out-of-the-house dates with her husband (a minimum of 3 hours!), and creating a schedule so she wasn't reinventing the wheel every single day (notice the 3 pillars of thriving there?!).

She also began asking this life-changing question: "What is something you want more of?"

As she and her husband discussed this on their weekly dates, their answer was travel. They both love being in new places, connecting with people, and spending time together as a family while having new experiences and discovering things. Leaning into that dream has turned into years of trips all around the world.

Synthia's Hacks For Traveling Internationally With Kids

• Plan trips that you are excited about because it is overwhelming and stressful, and you need something to really motivate you to do it because there are so many benefits

• Each kid has a day bag and night bag (toothbrush, pajamas, night diaper, etc.)

• Pack a swim bag with everything needed for swimming or a beach day

• Church bag with everything for church - bows, snacks, activities, etc.

• Make a customized packing list on the computer, print it out, and modify it according to the trip. Then, hand the list to the older children and have them pack by a deadline. This keeps you organized and lets the kids step up.

• Bring everything into a dining room or guest bedroom so it is consolidated into one space

• If going on a two-week international trip, start packing two weeks before because there are going to be that many details and things that go into it.

• Have a babysitter come over to help with packing

• Everyone gets their own snack bag that lasts for the entire trip. They get to pack 10 healthy snacks and some candies. She never regrets packing lots of food options to help with hungry moments.

• Have a restaurant bag with diapers, wipes, and black t-shirts for little kids instead of bibs to cover their clothes, and use it all week to keep them clean

• Listen to podcasts or YouTube videos about the place you are going to (start 6 months before) to get lots of ideas about what you can do without sitting in front of the computer all the time (though there is plenty of that, too).

• When I plan trips with kids, I skip over any blog that talks about travel without kids. I only read from sources that include "...with kids."

• Have a toiletries bag that is 90% ready to go for travel with duplicates of everything

• Have bags with long handles that go over the headrest in the car to help keep the kids' things organized so things are up off of the ground

• Always have 10 empty grocery sacks with you - there is always a kid who throws up, or has an accident, or there is garbage - and it helps you feel really prepared

Traveling with your family might not be your dream, but I hope that this week's episode inspires you to ask the question, "What is something I want more of?" and see where it leads.

Have you done those exercises where you write out your priorities or values? It is easy for me to put on paper what I care about, but where are my time and energy really going?

In this season of survival mode for our family, we have really stripped away a lot of what we usually do, and it is easy for me to say that we aren't very consistent in things that I wish we were better at.

But as I sat pondering this one morning during my scripture study, I realized that I actually AM consistent at some things, even in survival mode, and those things are my true priorities. I wrote three different lists to help me get a more realistic picture of what I care about with not just my words but my actions, and then I evaluated and made changes from there.

In this week's episode, I walk you through the entire process, using my answers as an example to get you started. Once again, I just used a Think and Process page in my Thriving in Motherhood Planner for this exercise.

3 Questions to Determine Your True Priorities:

1. What am I consistent at?

2. What am I almost consistent at but drop the ball quickly when things are hard?

3. What is done occasionally that you wish was more consistent?

Once you've written your lists, ask these follow-up questions to help you evaluate and make changes:

1. Is there anything obvious you would like to change?

2. Is there an easy swap from something that is more consistent that doesn't matter as much to something that is less consistent and matters more?

3. What needs more accountability?

4. What could you create a system around so that it doesn't require as much from you?

I realized that a lot of the things that I drop in a hard season, I am pretty good at picking up again once I have available energy. But there are some things that are done more occasionally that I realized I need to create systems around to give my kids more responsibility to be consistent in certain areas.

After going through this process, it clarified to me where I need to devote more time, energy, and resources to make the biggest impact on consistently living out our priorities.