As all moms do, I wear many hats in my life and am constantly juggling and trying to keep my family happy and healthy! I am a mom to three beautiful, amazing, and energetic kids ages 7, 6, and 3 months. I am married to a busy college football coach who is truly my best friend and an awesome teammate. l am currently in my eleventh year as a full-time high-school teacher and recently completed my Master’s Degree in Exercise Science and Human Performance. Growing up on a small family farm in a tiny rural town, I spent most of my time running free outside, riding horses, playing sports, and reading books. Nowadays, even though I still live close to the family farm I grew up on, my kids’ lives look a lot different than mine did growing up. Times have changed and I believe that parenting has too.

The older I get the more I realize happiness is a learned behavior that takes concentrated effort to cultivate. Working in the secondary classroom has developed my passion for helping kids learn how to gain skills that will enable them to create a positive attitude and resiliency in their lives. Resiliency is becoming crucial in order to find happiness in today’s hectic world. Like all other skills, happiness takes a lot of practice and work to maintain. As parents, it is important that we model happiness and resiliency as well as provide our children with experiences that will encourage them to cultivate these skills on their own. 

My experiences with my high school students, as well as my husband’s experience with his collegiate athletes, have had a big influence on the way we try to parent our own children. So many of the students that I teach lack the self-confidence, drive, and the mental toughness it takes to create happiness and success for themselves because they have never been taught how to positively overcome and do hard things. Working and studying in the field of Exercise Science, I am constantly reminded of the correlation between exercise, good nutrition, and solid mental health. This is why I believe that teaching kids the importance of moving their bodies and supporting them to set and reach goals is imperative. Kids need to be taught and encouraged to do hard things in order to develop the skills necessary to be positive and resilient in all aspects of their lives as they grow and develop.

As we are “Hunting 4 Happy” and making small positive changes in our own habits as parents, our children will naturally benefit from those changes as well. I often use a variation of the famous quote by Wayne Lukas, “The speed of the leader is the speed of the pack” and know that mothers are usually the most influential leaders in their children’s lives. I am beyond excited to share what I am learning through my experiences in hopes that something might help you in some small way. Every experience, failure, and success has pushed me to grow into a stronger, happier woman who is better equipped to lead my pack to create happy and healthy lives for themselves.