new years resolutions

Mary’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2024

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

It’s 2024, which means that Child(ish) Advice is four years old (old enough to be in preschool).

The lull between Christmas and New Year’s always has me contemplating what goals I’d like to set for the upcoming year. This time around, I found myself writing the same goals that haven’t been achieved for years (or piggybacking on goals that have recently been met). The resolutions started feeling like a never-ending hamster wheel. I don’t want 2024 to be mundane.

During our monthly meeting, Patti had mentioned creating resolutions about how you want to feel rather than what you want to accomplish. That perspective shifted my mindset on how I want to live in 2024. So, with that said, here are my New Year’s resolutions.

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Patti’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2023

| Patti Webb

This Christmas, all of my cousins bought our grandparents Skylight frames. It’s a digital frame with an app that allows people to add photos and video directly. I sent four years’ worth of kids pictures to each of their great-grandparents and Lolo and Lola.

It gave me a chance to go through my phone and sort all of these photos of the girls. Reflecting back on everything we did with them when they were little, and now as school kids, the highlight reel really is heartwarming. That doesn’t mean that our day-to-day is any less challenging or that burnout isn’t perpetually looming on the horizon.

I did accomplish what I said I would do last year: to be more selective with my time and attention. I said no to more things and didn’t overschedule or overcommit. But that’s not just what it’s all about.

In a recent news article about Yale’s viral course on Happiness, it’s not about being time-rich. It’s about actually having fun. While we can spend time recovering from work or winding down, relaxing things are simply just relaxing. They are NOT invigorating.

Full transparency: I signed up for the Yale “Science of Well-Being” course on Coursera right after I finished listening to this article.

So now that we have this context, I’ll jump into my Resolutions.

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Mary’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2023

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Wow, Child(ish) Advice is now three years old. Thank you for all your continued support and trusting us to provide meaningful content as we begin the new year.

For me, if 2022 was all about laying the groundwork for personal and professional development, then 2023 is about reinforcing and refining these goals, trimming deadweight, and being more efficient and purposeful in my actions. So what do I plan to accomplish during this trip around the sun?

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Patti’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2022

| Patti Webb

The end of 2021 had a very different vibe for me compared to previous years. We planned a special trip to London for this Christmas and as always, there were last-minute complications and unforeseen events. By the time we made it to Heathrow and back, Troy and I were in unprecedented levels of parental burnout (which will be shared in a later post).

So that state of mental and physical exhaustion is the context going into this year and this resolution post. But it does have a silver lining, don’t worry.

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Mary’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2022

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

As Child(ish) Advice completes another trip around the sun, I want to say thank you for all your continued trust and support as we continue to provide content, tips, and activities for kids and parents.

This past year has been a fun and welcomed challenge, filled with TikTok videos, research, and continuing education courses, on top of raising three kids under five. And with the arrival of 2022, I’m looking forward to growing personally and professionally. Here are my New Year’s Resolutions for this year:

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