Intentional Living Resources

I have very little parenting experiences.  Only 8 years and 9 months of it to be exact.  However, I have been fortunate enough to have come in contact with some women with more experience and really great ideas about how to intentionally parent your child.  I am going to share some of the resources and ideas that I have benefited from here.  I fully recognize that there are A LOT more out there and I would love for you to comment and tell me what has helped you.

On Intentional family building and character building

1. Praying Values- I have mentioned this more than once I am sure but one thing we love is choosing a value for each member of our family that we feel like is appropriate for that person and then praying it over them and looking for opportunities to build that in them for an entire year.  We have done this for 3 years now and it has been so cool to see what God has done.

2. Just ADD Family- I just bought this box of ideas from Family Life Ministries.  It is full of "recipe cards" which are activity ideas for family and character building.  We will start it next week but I am going ahead and recommending it here because it came recommended to me.  You can get it HERE

3. Lynelle Zandstra speaking CDs- Every year at camp Lynelle Zandstra gives a talk on parenting.  Several years this talk has been the highlight of my week.  She has great insight on things like disciplining instead of punishing.  Her talks are relevant for families with small kids all the way to college students.  You can get her CDs HERE and they are awesome. 

4. Choose Words Choose Life- This book consists of 51 dates with object lessons for parents and kids.  It was written by the same person who has the speaking CDs in #3.  Just all around good stuff.  You can get that HERE.

5. God's Wisdom for Little Boys (and a girl version too) was given to me by a great friend right after Jack was born.  Each page has a character trait, a picture, and a corresponding verse.   This was a great resource for me to help Jack learn what these words meant while at the same time seeing what God says about them.  Jack still talks about this book and I will pick it up with Sam soon.  It is a good start for a word study at a young age. 

Okay so I know this just barely touches the surface of what is out there and I am by no means an expert, but these things have and will help me so I wanted to also share them with you.  Like I said, if you have something you would like to recommend too, please add to the comment section because I want to know all about it.