Shawni takes her job as a Mother very seriously and strives to promote joy in the {often treacherous} journey of Motherhood on her blog (71toes..com). She enjoys presenting motherhood ideas at Time Out for Women and she and her mother recently published a book called A Mother’s Book of Secrets.
Shawni’s fifth child (a daughter named Lucy) was born with a rare genetic syndrome that causes blindness (amidst a myriad of other health problems). Because of this, Shawni and her mother started the “I Love Lucy Project” (ilovelucyproject.blogspot.com) and have become advocates for the Foundation Fighting Blindness and other organizations that may be able to help Lucy.
Shawni loves photography and even though she gave up a rapidly growing family photography business to be there for her kids when they got home from school, she is rarely found without a camera strapped around her neck. She is also a self-proclaimed travel addict and rarely goes to sleep without having an in-depth conversation with her husband about what foreign country they may be able to finagle a way to live in for a while.
She was named the National Young Mother of the Year for 2011 and was also recently featured on Mormon.org.
Dave had the kids write out their schedules for Family Home Evening minute-by-minute, practice times are all set, jobs are being done and all that jazz, but I need to have my own time lined out and managed well in order to help each of them the best I can.
This means I need to really know exactly what they’re up against with school, friends, etc. I want to get to the bottom of their most desired extracurricular activities and I want to know what they may be worried about, etc.
And with five kids running around sometimes the unique, individual needs of each one of them get lost in the shuffle.
That’s where “Five-Facet Reviews” come in (another great idea from my parents).
The idea is that you sit down with your spouse (or someone else who knows and loves your children) once a month (or whenever is feasible) and talk about how each child is doing in their “five-facets” of life:
1) socially
2) spiritually
3) mentally
4) emotionally
5) physically
I love discussing the specifics of each child with Dave in the light of these particular categories because man alive, there is so much that he notices that I don’t. And there are so many solutions he comes up with that I never in a million years would have. There’s something about having that detailed conversation that puts up red flags in my mind about things we need to work on that I may have never thought of otherwise. It also helps me feel content about the things that are going well. It helps me be deliberate, and that’s my main goal as a mother.
Most of all, Five-Facet Reviews help me see into the personalities of my children in a deeper way.
And I love that.
Now, please don’t picture us doing this like clockwork every month (although I wish we would). In our family it doesn’t work to do some formal deal like my parents did. Sometimes I just make sure we cover these topics casually during a date-night or Dave will bring up something he’s been worried about one particular child as we fall asleep at night. Dave doesn’t clap his hands in glee when I say stuff about five-facet reviews because he doesn’t go for formal stuff like that. But we are both well aware of the “facets” and we make sure we talk them through whenever we can.
Because of these discussions I’ve been prompted to push a little more spirituality with some kids. Dave and I discuss Lucy’s eating habits and how we can guide them. We’ve talked about how Max needs help getting more excited about reading (please send great book suggestions if you have any…), and things like whether or not we should push Elle into trying out for the volleyball team. In our discussions we have realized things like how Grace needs more math help and Claire needs to somehow get more sleep. Then we make a plan and get to work.
It helps us to know our children in a deeper way.
Really know them.
I think parenting has to be made and re-made over and over and over again. It seems like just when we figure out the perfect solution to a particular situation through endless tweaking and prayer and pushing, another child will throw you for a loop and will need parenting from an entirely different ball-field. Each child is so darn unique. That’s why I love this so much. It makes the “re-mix” of parenting for each child that much easier.
~ Shawni