Real Life Parenting Hacks: Thirty Practical Ways to Bring Hope and Help to Your Home

By Wanda Smith

You can live that peace-filled, thriving mom-life you’ve only ever dreamed of!
Parenting is tough. Throughout our lives as parents, we often face marital strife, financial challenges, loneliness, discouragement, and fear. Yet we still feel the pressure to live up to society’s ideal of “the perfect parent.”
In Real Life Parenting Hacks, Wanda shares the creative ways God showed her to raise her daughters with purpose, on purpose, throughout her life as a parent. With some simple routines and mindset changes, you, too, can claim a sense of peace in your heart and your family.
This book offers tools to help you:
• handle fussy eaters
• overcome bedtime struggles
• learn to work through screen-time issues
• abolish fear from your home
• develop your ability to stay calm when life is out of control
From cultivating a toy philosophy to paring down at Christmas, Wanda offers practical and useful tips to save money, eliminate stress, and raise your family to love themselves, others, and Jesus.
Real Life Parenting Hacks will encourage you in the daily task of parenthood and assure you that you are anointed to be the best mom or dad for your child!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781486619634

Book preview

Author

Preface

I would never describe myself as a supermom. Maybe that’s why I feel passionate to share the tips and tricks—the hacks—I’ve learned over the years to help you through the hardest job in the world.

A hack is defined by Urban Dictionary¹ as a clever solution to a tricky problem—which is the crux of this book. As parents, we could all use clever solutions to help us walk through this journey.

Parenting did not come easy for me, although I wouldn’t change this journey for anything. I’ve admired others who parented with grace and ease while I often felt clumsy and clueless. I never aspired to carry around someone’s newborn baby, and never dreamt of becoming a parent, so when it came time to start our family, I entered it with hesitation and trepidation.

These thirty parenting hacks are practical strategies from heaven for raising children. I know God gave me the grace to raise our children and I’m truly thankful for the opportunity to carry them in my womb and in my heart. I pray these lessons I’ve learned will bring ease, comfort, and peace to you in your parenting journey.

My husband, Dave, and I have two daughters: one entering her teen years and one young adult. We have also spent considerable time with our two nephews (also young adults) as we walked alongside my sister’s divorce and single parenthood from the time her boys were ages five and eight.

Hack One

Abolish Fear

in Your Home

This is my number one hack of all time.

Shortly after Dave and I were married, I came across a book called Uprooting the Spirit of Fear by Creflo A. Dollar, through which I learned that fear is not an emotion. Rather, fear is an evil spirit.

This revelation alone will solve many issues, such as nightmares, shyness (this isn’t a personality, but rooted in fear), and fear of the dark, water, animals, spiders, monsters, public speaking, dark alleys, an angry relative, and so much more!

When we realize that fear is a spirit, we can rebuke that fear from our children and invite a spirit of peace to come. We can teach our children to take their thoughts captive and not give in to fear. They can learn to discern when fear is speaking and that they don’t have to listen to it. Learn to take authority over that spirit and tell it to flee; your children will follow suit. Kids are very sensitive to the spiritual atmosphere and can discern when fear is present. They can close that gate in the Spirit and experience complete freedom. We must know our authority as believers and teach our children to take authority over the spirit of fear and tell it to leave them alone.

This will play out in your home all day and all night. When you have the peace of the Lord—the peace that passes understanding that guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus—there is nothing like it. Peace means nothing missing, nothing broken.² Peace is a tangible atmosphere that can, and will, penetrate your home. Abolishing fear and inviting peace will revolutionize your child’s life. It will also revolutionize our homes and the generations to come.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

—2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV

Confession: Fear is an evil spirit. Therefore, I take authority over the spirit of fear and tell it to leave me (or insert your child’s name here) alone in Jesus’ name. I declare that I live in faith—not fear.

Hack Two

Make Home

Your Refuge

No strife allowed! After abolishing fear, turning your home into a refuge is my second-most important hack.

If you can see your home as a refuge from the storms of the outside world, you’ll see the importance of guarding and keeping it as a peaceful, safe retreat.

I can’t stress this enough. Our home used to be full of strife. Rarely was there a tension-free day. We exchanged hurtful looks or words, argued, and more. We lived in a fairly remote area during the first fifteen years of our marriage, so I felt alone—and was alone—most of the