Let’s be honest. Sitting down to read a good book for hours at a time doesn’t happen very often (or ever) as a busy mom. But that means that the time I do get to read I want to be even more intentional with what I’m consuming. My family has become my priority and the things I consume impact how I act as a mother, both positively and negatively. Here are the 5 books I’m planning (hoping) to read this year to help me on this parenting journey!

1. Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies
   • “This mom-to-mom guide will equip you to teach your kids how to form their own biblical beliefs about what is true and what is false. Through transparent life stories and clear, practical applications—including prayer strategies—this band of Mama Bears offers you tools to train yourself, so you can turn around and train your kids.”
2. Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids
   • “With this book, you’ll find powerful mindfulness skills for calming your own stress response when difficult emotions arise. You’ll also discover strategies for cultivating respectful communication, effective conflict resolution, and reflective listening. In the process, you’ll learn to examine your own unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions that reflect the generational habits shaped by your parents, so you can break the cycle and respond to your children in more skillful ways.”
3. Raising Mentally Strong Kids: How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults
   • “In this groundbreaking book where neuroscience meets love and logic, parents are given practical tools to help children of all ages go from behavioral problems like defiance, meltdowns, and power struggles to being: responsible, confident, kind, and resilient, better prepared to make good decisions, more focused and motivated, better able to have healthy relationships, and more.”
4. Embraced: 100 Devotions to Know God Is Holding You Close
   • Short and sweet devotions to start or end or day – or grab and cling to during a tough moment!
5. Journal Bible
   • I love the bible that I’ve had since I was a teenager, but I also love the idea of a journal bible that gives you space to really engage in the text during bible studies. Here’s a spiral bound one and a cute floral pattern!

Let me know if you try any of these! Also, I’d love to find a book that my husband and I can read together to better strengthen us as parents and will help create a stronger marriage. What are your book recommendations for Christian parents?