One of my favorite things to do with my child every year is make vision boards together.  We sit in our living room with magazines, printed pictures, glue, markers, card stock, letters, and poster board. Turn on the music. For hours we just create! We create our vision boards close to New Years so that it can set our intentions for the new year. This year, my four-year-old son started calling them “Jesus maps.” And I thought that was so fitting and sweet, I have just gone with “Jesus Maps” ever sense!

Some people know what a vision board is. Most people probably don’t associate it with a “Jesus Map.” But I thought it was so fitting because a vision board is basically a board that displays all the desires of your heart. What my four-year-old son is so smart to know is that Jesus wants to help us manifest all our hearts’ desires. In fact, HE is the only one with the power to do so! Ask and you shall receive!

What Is A Vision Board?

A vision board is a board that has all your heart’s desires displayed with pictures, graphics and words. It is something many people do at the start of a new year in order to set goals, claim desires and announce intentions for a new year. Most people use magazines, cut pictures and words out that resonate with them. Next, they glue them to a poster board. Some people find pictures on Google and Pinterest beforehand and print them out in preparation to make their board. This is not about asking perfection from your child. This is about letting them be creative and think about what they want in their life!

I like to do this activity with my son and then teach him to use it to pray for his heart’s desires. The things he puts on his vision board are things that we pray for every night together. I also demonstrate praying for the things on mine, and sometimes he even chimes in! It builds a house full of dreams, and trust in God. It is also a great segway into talking about gratitude because so many of the things on our boards often come true! In fact, the precursor to making vision boards in our household is making a List of 100 Things We Are Thankful For from the year before. We do this around Thanksgiving. See my blog about making a Gratitude List with your kids. The Gratitude List is a great way to give gratitude for the many blessings of the year before. I like having this list present while making my vision board for the new year. It immediately puts me in the spirit of gratitude which is the best attitude to have when asking for what you want in the New Year.

If you are interested in making a vision board or “Jesus Map,”

This Is What You Will Need:

1. Poster board
2. Glue
3. Scissors
4. Pens, markers
5. Card stock letters
6. Old magazines
7. Pictures you have found on Google or Pinterest and already printed out
8. Lots of space on the floor or a big table to create
9. Music to listen to that gets you in a creative mood
10. Your list of 100 things you are thankful for from the year before

P.S.

Don’t let the New Year timeline dissuade you from doing this any other time of year. You can jump in and do a vision board anytime!

Affirmations are powerful. It is no wonder that telling yourself positive statements can lead to increased self-esteem, better confidence and more stable mental health. Have you ever thought about sharing this powerful tool with your kids? It can be a great tool for your children, as well! Getting your children into the daily habit of saying things to themselves like:

• I am courageous.
• I am strong.
• I am smart.
• I am kind.
• I am loved.
• I am thankful.

Just think what our world would be like if our children walked around believing these things about themselves?! I know what you are thinking. I can hardly get my children to say hello to friends and compliment siblings, never mind list off a bunch of positive statements about themselves. The key is to make affirmations a little more exciting, visual and accessible.

Here are seven effective ways to get children to do daily affirmations:

1. Write affirmations (draw pictures representing affirmations) with whiteboard pens on their bathroom mirror. This is a great way to incorporate affirmations into a morning and nighttime routine because they will be right there as they brush their teeth and wash their face.
2. Make an affirmations board with them and hang it right by your front door. If doing affirmations with your kids sounds a little daunting, this may be a good way to try it out. Put some pictures and words on posterboard that represent affirmations. Speak the affirmations out loud as you exit the house!
3. Buy them affirmations bracelets and let them choose which ones to wear day to day. Not only does this provide variety day to day, this is also great way to remind your children of their worth! They can wear them to school or when they go over to a friend’s house. If they ever need a reminder, all they have to do is look down at their arm!
4. Model affirming them and let them practice affirming you. Practice this until they can do it for themselves. Modeling behavior for your children is a great way to solidify something as a habit. They truly will emulate whatever you do, so why not make saying affirmations a new habit!
5. Make an affirmations jar. Write affirmations on different colors of paper and cut them into strips. Place the strips into a mason jar. Then you can even decorate it. Everyday pull a few affirmations and read them out loud. This is a great way to get hesitant kids involved because they love the “surprise” element of it.
6. Purchase an affirmations playdoh kit. Sensory play is a great way for little kids to start to learn about the world. Affirmations can feel inaccessible to little kids.  That is why I made the affirmations playdoh kit. It is a fantastic way for kids to start understanding affirmations via hands on play. Buy the kit at my Etsy Shop.
7. Record affirmations and play them on repeat. If all else fails, you can always record affirmations on your phone or a CD and press play before bed, in the morning, in the car or even when your kids are asleep. It doesn’t have to be a big production. They don’t even have to be paying attention or awake. Their subconscious mind will still pick up the positive benefits!

If you liked this blog post you might also like How To Make A Vision Board With Your Child.

You don’t have to explain to me how busy you are! I am just like you. Modern motherhood is a lot! Most of us have way too much to do and deeply yearn for more connection time with our kids. We feel like we must choose between getting things done and spending time with our kids. But we don’t always have to choose between the two. Below describes 7 ways to have both.

7 Ways To Have Both:

1. Create A Morning Routine: Routines aren’t just good for your children. They are also good for YOU! Build a routine that works for all of you. If you can’t live without your morning cup of coffee, teach them how to make a morning cup of tea. Sip your coffee and tea together and say some morning affirmations. Link to my blog post about morning affirmations here. Next, get dressed, brush your teeth and do your hair. Then, eat a good breakfast together. Practice setting an intention for the day before you walk out the door. Model it for them, and then help them set one too!
2. Let Kids Help You Cook: Making cookies, cupcakes and popsicles with your kids is one thing; but what about packing school lunches, making dinner or cooking breakfast together? These are things you must do anyway, so why not involve your kids? Remember you are teaching them very important life skills by involving them in your day-to-day work. For example, my son loves to chop! I bought him a child safe knife from Small Hands. While I am stirring the frying pan or boiling a pot of water, my son is often chopping the ingredients to add! For breakfast, I love to give him things to spread. We make bagels with cream cheese, toast with peanut butter, pancakes with butter and honey. I use small cheese spreading knives and let him have at it. For lunch, we use bento boxes and a finger food combination of meat, fruit, carb and veggie. I like to use the brand Yumbox to pack his lunches in. I may have all the different foods ready, but he likes to choose what section of the bento box each piece goes into. Voila, he packed it himself!
3. Involve Kids In Your Problem Solving: Having a bad hair day? Struggling to keep the house clean? Needing some adult time? It is totally ok to tell your kids about real life things you are experiencing. In fact, you modeling how to handle real life things is a great learning experience for them. When I was having trouble keeping up with all the housework, I involved my child in coming up with a solution. We talked about all the things that need to get done to make a household function, the best days and times to do them and barriers that keep us from them. As a result, we decided we needed a visual chore board to help keep us on track! We did some searching together for boards we liked. We now have a couple of chore boards that we both picked out on Etsy and use daily!
4. Vision Board Together: This is a great way to bond with your kid! It is also a surefire way to speed up manifesting the things you want in your life. You can read my blog all about vision boarding with your children here.
5. Pray Together: Develop this beautiful habit together and pray out loud together. This is something sweet and simple you can do with your child daily. Not only are you teaching your child the invaluable skill of prayer, but you also get an extra benefit! If you teach them to give thanks to God, as well as ask Him for the help they need, it doubles as a way to hear the ends and outs of what is going on in your child’s life. You get to hear what things they are struggling with and things they are really enjoying. You now have another way you can provide help and guidance to them.
6. Exercise Together: This is one of my favorites. We have a little neighborhood gym that lets me take my son. If that doesn’t work for you, you can build a little in-home gym or workout outside. The point is simply to find ways to involve your kids in exercise with you. I love doing sit-ups with my son. He can always do more than me. This makes him proud and me cry/laugh.  I also bought him a little two lb. weight set. He uses those right alongside me when I am lifting weights. Also, I find dancing aerobic videos are something we can enjoy together!
7. Garden Together: This is something my son and I love to do together. It gets me outside, he learns how to take care of plants, pull weeds and find bugs. We both learn how to grow food and use it to cook together. Gardening together has also been a great segway for me to teach him about the health benefits of food.

Remember

These are suggestions. They are not meant to overwhelm you. Pick one or two that work for you and leave the rest alone!