Intentional Parenting: Strategies for a Christ-Centered Family with Alicia Bennett

This episode is also available on the Raising Faithful Families podcast and YouTube.

Hi everyone. It's Katy with Raising Faithful Families. Today, we have a guest for you. Her name is Alicia. She's a Christian motherhood coach and she is absolutely amazing. When we talked, she had so many great tips. She's got four children, so she has gone through pretty much each of these seasons that any of you are in right now.

And today we're going to dig into the importance of the impact of and some strategies for intentionality in parenting. I know you're going to love it. So stick around!

All right. I'd love to have you start by introducing yourself and telling our audience a bit about what you do and who you are.

Alicia Bennett: Okay. I'm Alicia Bennett. I'm a mom of four boys, ages 14 down to almost six. He turns six in a week. When I was a little girl, I really wasn't a hundred percent sure that I wanted to be a mom. It was just not something that I ever played pretend, you know. It just wasn't on my radar. It was something I didn't see modeled as a goal. And so when I became a mom, I really struggled. I really struggled with finding contentment and being at home with my kids, even though the Lord very clearly told me to stay home with them. And I just really struggled in those early years. God really taught me a lot in that season.

Through all of that, through the counseling, the coaching, the growth that the Lord brought me through, I've been able to now turn around and help moms who are in that same season, just really struggling to be the mom that they want to be. Maybe they have a dream of being a certain kind of mom and just trying to help them see how their own thoughts and their own beliefs about motherhood, about their children, about who they are, about God, all of those things impact the way that they show up every single day as a mom. And that we can take our thoughts captive, like the Bible says, and change those thoughts, those beliefs, and our mindset around all those things to show up in the way that we want to for our homes, for our family, for our family culture to raise ultimately to raise kids who are bold and courageous for Christ. That's my heart and passion and calling—I want to equip moms to raise kingdom-minded kids who are bold, courageous, set on fire with a firm foundation for Jesus for the next generation.

I have a coaching program that I'm walking moms through one-on-one. It's very deep, very intentional, really hard stuff a lot of times, but the ultimate goal is to then help them equip them to turn around and teach their kids the same things that they are learning for themselves. I've seen this in my own house, and it's been wonderful to see in my kids. It's been wonderful to walk through hard times with other moms and just say, I've been there. I have a blog, Mobilizer Mom. I like to write, coach, and connect with other moms right where they're at.

Katy Bordeaux: That's amazing and so needed. I'm happy to have you on. One of the things that stood out to me when we first talked is your emphasis on being very intentional parents to your children. I think that is very important and I'd love to talk more about that. Can you share what that really means to you and why you make it a point to prioritize intentionality in your family?

Alicia Bennett: I'll start by saying that because I didn't really know what I wanted or how I wanted to show up as a mom, I read and scoured like hundreds of parenting books. I had no idea what I was doing, like no idea. I was eagle-eyed on any mom that walked into a room. I was watching them and trying to figure out how they did X or Y or Z. I just didn't know what it looked like.

When I say intentional parenting, I mean just like with everything else in life, whatever you're looking for, like towards and forward, whatever your goal is, that's where you're headed. If you don't know what you want, what kind of mom you want to be, what kind of parent you want to be, what kind of kids you want to raise, then you're just kind of being thrown here and there with the waves of the circumstance, situation, your emotions, the day. When I say intentional parenting, I really mean that, like, starting from square one in this area. You're looking at what fruit you want to see in your kid's life and in your life, in your family life. You're looking ahead. When you take the time to really look ahead and plan prayerfully with the Lord on what He's calling you to do, then you can tend to the things underneath the fruit, all the things that produce the fruit, right? The roots, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, all the pieces that end up producing the fruit. The fruit is the end goal. But in order to get there, you've got to look at all of the pieces. If you don't know where you're going, you're not going anywhere.

Katy Bordeaux: Very helpful for sure. So for a parent who might be listening right now who feels like they're starting just at square one in this area, what would be your number one tip for just getting started with increasing that intentionality in their approach?

Alicia Bennett: Sure. Well, I doubt everyone is really starting at square one in this area, but if you're listening to this and you want to know how to be a more intentional parent, like I said, you've got to look at the fruit of what you're doing now. What fruit are you seeing in your kids' lives right now? And then what fruit do you want to change and why? Ultimately, why—that's the most important question. Why is that important to you? I would really encourage someone to sit down with their spouse, if you're married, and write that out together. Dream that out, prayerfully dream that out together. In 18 years, when your kids are 18, 19 and they're launching from the home, what kind of character do you want your child to have? What kind of values, virtues, and experiences do you want them to have when they leave and why? Again, the why is the most important question. Then you can turn around because that's looking at the fruit, the final, the launching stage. Then you can turn around and look at the roots, the current situation of what's going on. The Bible tells us that we'll be known for the fruit that we bear. An apple tree cannot bear orange fruit and a lemon tree cannot produce tomatoes. The root of your family tree will produce that fruit, the goals that you want to see. Once you have dreamed together and you know what your end goal is and what fruit you want to see, you can turn around and ask yourself some hard questions. How are you demonstrating those values, virtues, those character qualities you want your kids to possess? How is that playing out in your parenting, in your home, in your married life as a couple? No pun intended, but at the root of it, your family culture is built upon you and your spouse, the adults in the home, right? What roots does God want you to work on in your own life so that you can demonstrate that to your kids? You can't give what you don't have. Kids are like little mirrors, they're always mimicking what we are showing them and doing. It's taking a really intentional look at how you are showing up. That's why doing the coaching that I get to do with moms is so important—to help them see how their own thoughts, beliefs show up in their parenting and how then their kids are actually mimicking those in their behaviors or attitudes that you're seeing and maybe you aren't liking. It's really hard to admit that you might actually be creating some of those outcomes that you don't like to see.

Katy Bordeaux: I agree with that completely. One of the things that we are very aligned on is the importance of knowing what you're aiming at, that vision for your family. How would you say someone can figure out what their goal is or what they should be working towards right now as a family?

Alicia Bennett: As a family, you and your spouse get to wrestle with God on that, right? Ask Him to reveal that to you. You get to dream with God. You can ask some of the questions that I mentioned before about what fruit you want to see when your children leave when your children are launched from your home at 18. You can also think back about your own parenting and your own upbringing. What influenced you? Think about what parenting role models you have in your life, who in your life you see parenting in a way that you want to be. What inspires you? What specifically are they doing that you want to mimic? You can even sit down and ask them about that. How did you get to a place where you're doing this really well? Or I really like the way that you do this with your kid. Can you tell me how you do that? As you do that deep root work, it will help you really narrow down. I tell people like three or four top values that you want your family to embody. That really becomes your family goals, your family rules, and rhythms and culture will be based upon those three or four values. If you really know them and you've got a hold of them and verbalize them, your kids will be able to verbalize them. My kids know because it's in our family statements and our family rules. We talk about it all the time. They know what our top three family rules are or family values are because we talk about it all the time. When you do that, it just communicates really clearly expectations. It helps you stay focused as a mom, as a dad, on the important things. Then all those little things, all those unimportant issues that so many parents, especially in the teenage years, get so caught up on, just become things that aren't as important because you know they're not important. You have decided that these three or four things are the important things to your family.

Katy Bordeaux: That's really good advice. Parenting is never easy. Even when we have something that we've "mastered," we're all going to face different challenges. What would you say is the biggest roadblock that actually threatens your ability to show up intentionally in your family right now? And then what would be a tip for how to overcome that?

Alicia Bennett: If I'm honest, I am my own worst roadblock. I mean that literally—my own thoughts, my own attitudes, my own daily feelings can hinder the way that I show up intentionally for my boys and for my family. My own sin nature and the lies that Satan whispers to me are usually what get me started, but it's my thoughts and my feelings as I sit in those lies, as I allow them to grow, that really keep the train going in the wrong direction, if I'm honest. For me, what I need to do is I need to take my thoughts captive. I need to slow that train down long enough to be able to capture those thoughts. I challenge anyone listening to write them down. Taking them out of your head actually allows you to objectively see them outside of the tumultuous thoughts that just keep going. One thought feeds another thought that feeds another thought and you end up in this spiral. When you get them out of your head, you can actually take a look at them and decide whether or not that's truth, whether or not that's real, whether or not that's actually what's happening. We get kind of stuck in our own stories. For me, I take my thoughts captive. I write them down. Foundationally, I spend time in God's word every single day. Meditating on God's word and filling my mind, my thoughts, my heart with truth because where truth lives and grows and gets bigger, lies cannot stick. Lies will not have ground to grow if the truth is already flourishing there. Taking time every single day for me spending time in the word so that I am grounded in truth is foundational. That's definitely number one. Journaling my thoughts on paper so that I can actually see objectively instead of just letting them rattle around my brain. Talking to someone about them. If I'm still wrestling with them after I get them out of my head, talking with someone, a mentor or coach or trusted mature friend, not just a friend to gossip or complain to, but someone to say, "These are the thoughts that I keep wrestling with. I know that that's not true, but I'm still stuck in them." We can get really stuck in those thoughts. Especially because they're usually thoughts that have roots that go deep into some past trauma, some past situation, something past that Satan has a foothold on, and we might need help to overcome those. With a friend, with a coach, with a mentor. Honestly, I think those are the top three—those three tips are essential. If you look at our culture, Satan knows that those things work because he's constantly and consistently trying to keep us from doing those things. He's always trying to keep us moms, especially believing that we're too busy to spend time in God's word or with a friend, to get together with someone. We definitely don't want to let anyone know that we're struggling. It just keeps us out of God's word and isolated. Those are exactly what Satan wants—us in that place so that we don't spend time in the truth. We aren't meditating in His word. We're not journaling and taking those thoughts captive and allowing God's truth, God's word to renew our minds.

Katy Bordeaux: You're so right. Being super busy and then trying to pretend like you've got it all covered and you're not struggling through anything—those are two things I have a tough time with as well. How are you able to intentionally invite God into your family life and keep your faith at the center of your family and make that sort of engaging and fun and something that your children love to do as well?

Alicia Bennett: Like I've said before, you can't give what you don't have. For me and the women that I coach, being in the word ourselves is first and foremost, most important because we will overflow what we have. We will just naturally overflow what we have. If we are in the word and filled with truth, that's going to more naturally come out of our mouths and in our lives and in our attitudes day after day, even in the hard moments. To the discussion about an issue with friends, to coaching a child through a challenging situation at school, it doesn't matter. If we're in the word and the truth is there in our minds and our thoughts and we're meditating on them, it will come out. That to me is first and foremost, most important—to be living in that truth and His love and His ways so that I overflow the truth. Pursuing Christ daily on my own and then as a family, we also set aside intentional family discipleship time each and every day. For us, that looks like... I mean, I've done a whole podcast on family discipleship and what that can look like. Really, for us, we have a set time every day that we spend doing a devotional together, a Bible study. It looks different in different seasons, different ages, different times of life. I'm not saying we sit down and have our Bibles open and we sit and study God's word for 30 minutes. It can be as short as a five-minute little blurb. After we watch a family movie together and we're like, "Hey, that seemed a little off. Why do you think this happened to this character? How would God's truth be applied to this circumstance that we saw in this movie?" It can be as small as that. During the summer, I particularly in the summer because my kids go to a great school that we love, but it's not a Christian school. During the summer we spend, we do spend time where we open the Bibles together every day and we do a Bible study, but that's not our norm. That's something we do in the summer. Obviously, during Advent, it's like an Advent seasonal devotional kind of thing. We've done crafts, we've done games. During the summer Olympics, we will do a special devotional around learning about God's heart for the world as we watch different peoples and cultures at the Olympics this summer. We do lots of fun things. Spend time in God's word yourself so that you're naturally overflowing it into every conversation. Then have some set family time where you're doing something to grow spiritually. It can be small, it can be big. I've done a whole podcast on all the different things that we've done as a family for family discipleship.

Katy Bordeaux: That's awesome. It kind of takes the pressure off because you can be flexible and you can let it work with your life. It doesn't have to be every single day. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can still have intentional time right before bed, even if it's just five minutes and you're talking while everybody's running around getting things ready for bed.

Alicia Bennett: We've done it so many different ways because we have been doing family devotionals since my oldest was two and he is 14. So we've been doing it for 12 years, I guess.

Katy Bordeaux: This has been super helpful. I'm sure that my audience will want to reach out to you or find you. Where can they find you to connect with you and learn more from you in their journey?

Alicia Bennett: Thanks. I am pretty active on Instagram. You can find me at @MobilizerMom on Instagram. I post a lot of encouragement there, also mom, parenting tips and ideas, and my own wrestling and thoughts, coaching tips and all that. I have a blog that I like to write on, MobilizerMom.com. I am publishing this summer my very first family devotional on the summer Olympics. That will be available to purchase on Amazon in the middle of June, I think.

Katy Bordeaux: That's exciting and I'll add those links for everybody to be able to connect with you pretty simply. Thank you for coming on. It's been great to talk to you.

I hope this episode was valuable for you, and I pray you're walking away with a new insight, perspective, or idea to implement as you move forward. Remember that God makes everything we truly need available to us. The life you've prayed for is just waiting for you to take the next step. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review so that we can continue showing up and reaching families who need this message. Until next time, take care and stay blessed.

Thanks for listening!

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