Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale in online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey, and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life. Toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this! Welcome to the purpose of your mom show up at 474. Today, I am going to talk to you all about how to make a back to school vision board for you and the kids to make it fun. It is that time.

Cara Harvey 00:00:56 We’ve got fresh notebooks and routines and to do’s, but I want us to also make it fun. We spend so much time helping the kids get prepared getting ready. But what if we also help them dream? What if we also help them make some fun goals? And what if it was enjoyable? And we can actually just have conversations with our kids about what we wanted? I always make vision boards when it comes to the school year, but I’ve recently decided I wanted to do them with my kids as well because they see me doing it. They’re like, what’s that thing? Why am I not pulling them in? Right? I want to walk you through how to do a back to school vision board with your kids, which is a really fun and creative way to just spend some time together. Show notes are at a purpose driven podcast four, seven, four, where I’m also going to have a. If you’re watching on YouTube, you can click below printable for you. That has questions. We’re going to go through today that you can ask your kids to help them with this vision board, or just if you need some questions to to talk to your kids.

Cara Harvey 00:01:56 We’ll talk about that in a second, okay. Vision board matters not just with us, with our kids. Because when we start with dreaming, when we start teaching them how to make these visions, it makes back to school less about the homework and the to do’s and the things, but about what they actually want. So often our kids do not have the time or are given the space to think about what they want. A lot of times things are handed to them. We make decisions for our kids all day long, all the time, no matter what age they are. And I think it’s really important that we give them some choice and we ask them, hey, what are you excited about? I think we think we know, you know, pot kettle black, right? Like, I think I know what my kids want. But when was the last time I asked them? My son and I, we like to go for walks together after dinner. And these questions that I’m going to talk you through today are going to be great for me to take with us to help guide the conversation.

Cara Harvey 00:02:50 Because yes, I know how to talk to my kids, but sometimes it’s nice to have a little bit of help, right? I could be like, what are you excited about? And then I’m like, where do we go from here? Okay. This activity will also build connection, right? Let’s pause our day. Let’s have some time together and think about it. Let’s get in conversation with each other and it’ll set a positive tone for the year. Especially if maybe your kid isn’t as excited. New year, new transition, new grades, things like that. And it also helps them focus less on the schedule and the timetable, but more on their own hopes and dreams. Okay, it’s not about let’s do a fun craft, which it will be. It’s also about making a vision for your family for what they want. Now, I inherited from my stepmom who recently passed a ton of planner stickers, so I own a lot of things. I’m actually planning on doing a vision board workshop for fourth and fifth grade girls and Girl Scouts this year using all these materials, and I’m going to use them for my kids as well.

Cara Harvey 00:03:46 And that’s what you’re going to want to do before you go through and do the questions is prep your materials. Do you want to do old school, you know, cutting stuff out of a magazine with your poster board? Do you want to use something digital like Canva? Now when I create my own personal one, I am a Canva vision board girly. I can search. It’s absolutely free NBA.com. It’s absolutely free if you use. Don’t use the Pro pictures I can search like hey I want to write a book. So like women author book right. Like I can make eye images on there so I can come up with this. But there is something about cutting things out, right. So one of the things that you want to ask yourself is, what do I want to use for this vision board? Now my plan is to do poster boards. My plan is also the library has stacks of like free magazines. So I’m probably going to go and get some free magazines from that and start collecting them.

Cara Harvey 00:04:40 But I also have so many of these stickers that kids can use to decorate, and we’re going to use those. So do you want poster board markers or are you going to go a digital route? There’s no right or wrong, but decide I want to pause real quick and tell you about one of my incredible friends, Denise, and what she’s doing over at her site. Denise Albright. If you’re looking to declutter your busy mom mind and your home, you’ve come to a place. From juggling family schedules, meal planning, budgeting, and more. This is going to help you get all the solutions in one spot. Listen, Denise is a mom of three. She understands what it’s like. And in this digital age, downloading all of your thoughts and your plans through your mind onto paper can make it feel like it’s 1997, right? But we know what it’s like to have a clear head. You can get planners, tools, and her incredible app where you can organize all of your kids photos, artwork, and more.

Cara Harvey 00:05:33 If you’re trying to keep your space cleared and get rid of the paper clutter, you’re going to want to check out all that Denise has to offer. Her app has been a game changer. I will get pictures sent over from the teacher and I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to forget about them so I can store them in the app, label them first grade Isaiah and go back to them every single year. She’s got a solution to keep the kids memories in a place, and not all the paper drawings of the Pokemon that I don’t need anymore. Her Class Keeper app is a game changer. No more piles, no more glue guns to make scrapbooks, and your mom guilt for not having it all beautifully organized. I want you to go over to a purpose driven mom. That’s a purpose driven mom keeper that’s gonna link you over to all of niece’s free printables to get organized in your routines together. All of the incredible journals and planners she has, and her incredible Class Keeper app. That’s a purpose driven mom keeper.

Cara Harvey 00:06:30 And then I want you to set the scene. Make this fun. Not a rushed activity. So is there a night that works best for your family where you can sit down and do this? Do you have a weekend afternoon? My son is going to be eight. He might be done with his in 20 minutes. My daughter is almost ten. She could work on this all day, right? It doesn’t matter how long they spend, but you do want to give yourself more time than you think you’ll need so that you’re not feeling rushed, so that you’re feeling like you can enjoy this and not okay, we have 20 minutes and then we have to go run to the next activity. Okay. I also want you to set the scene with some music. Get some snacks. Clear up the table. Put on your playlist. Currently we are on a zombies kick. Did anyone else watch the new zombies this summer? So we’ve been listening on repeat. We’re also a Hamilton family, so we’ll have Hamilton going in the background.

Cara Harvey 00:07:22 Some worship music sometimes depends on the mood. Pick your mood, pick your playlist for you and your kids. Put some snacks on the table, make it fun and you have choices here. Now you can let each of your kids have their own vision board and do it on their own. Or you could do kind of a big family board together. We did a family board. We did a backwards vision board for the summer. So instead of a bucket list, I took half a piece of poster board that I had found around the house, put it up on the wall. We wrote Summer 2025 and my kids every day this summer wrote down something fun that happened. Like something they enjoyed. What did we do that was fun? Today? Instead of let’s check things off a list, it was more about thinking in the moment, about that specific day and finding joy in every day. Not we have to keep doing more type of things. I liked this approach with my kids this summer. Now, I do like the bucket list because it gives us ideas of things to do, but this worked really well for us.

Cara Harvey 00:08:19 So maybe you want to make a family board, or maybe you want each one to have their own. Again, I know my kids, they’re gonna have their own or they’re gonna fight. So we’re going to say everybody gets their own board and we do it that way. Gather the materials, plan the time out, get everything set up. Once you’re ready, you’re going to start with a conversation super open ended to help them think about their year. I’m probably going to do this part on a walk with my kids before we sit down to do crafts, okay, to help them plan it out, we’re going to probably take a walk and I’m going to go through these questions. So again, if you go to a purpose driven romcom podcast 474 or swipe up and click on the show notes. You can grab these questions. There’s about 20 of them. I’m going to go through a couple of them. Right. So what’s something new that you want to learn this year? There’s a section about your friends.

Cara Harvey 00:09:08 Who do you hope to spend time with? What makes a great friend and how can you be one? So see how it’s not just about one person. It’s about the character traits. Maybe some things about some routines. So a couple examples here. Is there something that you want to do every day after school? Read. Play outside. Draw. My son was going to say Minecraft right? What can we do to make homework feel better for you? Good questions right? This is about their dreams. Like imagine your best school year ever. What would that look like? what are your favorite colors? What make you feel super excited? Help them kind of pick their theme. Some things about achievements, like what’s something you want to try this year? How are you going to celebrate when you get there? Now again, I’ve got about 20 questions. You can go to the link that’ll be in the show notes. You can print them out. Do these with your kids okay. Start with the conversation.

Cara Harvey 00:09:57 Ask them so that they are thinking about it. Now again, I’m going to probably take my kids on a walk. First, there’s something about movement and conversation that we love. Maybe we’ll go for a hike, or just a short walk around the block and just get the conversation flowing, but you could do it all while you’re sitting around the materials. I know my kids, so I know that the second I bring them in front of the materials, they’re going to not listen to me. So I want to make sure that while I’ve got my materials gathered, yes, I know I have everything I need. We don’t have to go to the store again. I’m not putting them out yet. Does that make sense? So we’re going to start that way with this conversation. Then I want them to pick some themes. All right. Let’s talk about sports and activities. Let’s talk about learning. Let’s talk about class the friendships things you want to do at home. What are some things we want to do as a family as we go into the fall? Things like that.

Cara Harvey 00:10:44 Let them pick the areas they want to put on their vision board. And depending on the age of your kids, you might also want to have a word wall. So I have like these big chart paper and they’re like post-it. So like they stick to the wall that we use for scouts. So I’m going to put them up on my wall. And as kids say words, my kids, I will write the words down. This does a couple things. One, it helps with spelling so you’re not having to spend the whole time like, mom, how do I spell this? But it also gives them ideas. So somebody might say, oh, I really want to try an instrument. Okay, so I could write instrument down and someone might say, like, I want to get straight A’s. They might say, I want to learn to ride my bike. Right? I want us to go on a hayride. I want to spend time with my friends. So I’m going to write all these things down as they’re saying them out loud.

Cara Harvey 00:11:32 The other benefit this has is they’ll remember it. How many times do you say something and then forget you said it later on, right? So now they’ll remember the things that they said when they get to mapping things out, when they get to finding the pictures they want, they’re going to go through and they’re going to pick their learning goals. They’re going to go through and say, these are the subjects I want to work on. These are the things that are important to me, so let them do that. It’ll help them feel ownership. Then it’s the fun part. Okay. So you’re gonna explain to them what the vision board is and how what this does is it uses pictures and words and things that represent and show what our goals are. This way we have a plan. We have a place we want to go. I want to make this soccer team. I want to read another book like you have a goal in mind, and it’s a really fun way to showcase it. So the next step in this is we’re going to look through magazines.

Cara Harvey 00:12:22 We’re going to draw pictures by ourselves. We’re going to write words on them okay. And we’re going to use stickers. So you explain how you’re going to use it. Have you been wondering how you can make AI and ChatGPT a tool you use, and not something that overwhelms or irritates you? I know I did not want any part in the eye when I heard about it a few years ago, but now ChatGPT has become my personal assistant. I have put together 40 of my favorite prompts specifically for moms to help you manage your schedule. Break down your goals, create meal plans and more. You can go to a purpose driven romcom prompts and grab these absolutely for free, and start using the ChatGPT tools for good and helping your day feel lighter and better. That’s a purpose driven mom, I promise. I also recommend that you create one of your own, so I’ll probably take the one that I’ve made on Canva. Print it out and have it taped up so my kids can see what I’m talking about.

Cara Harvey 00:13:25 Maybe I’ll make a full poster board of vision board before, maybe not. Now this part is going to take the longest. You’re going to have them flip through the magazines. You’re going to have them look for pictures that represent their goals. You’re going to have them be creative as they make their vision board. Now, I would recommend having them pick everything they want first, then putting them on the poster board, then gluing things down because you don’t know if you want to move something, you want to make sure, hey, I have five sports pictures, but no school academics, no books, right? So you want to make sure that it’s even. So I always encourage my kids like cull afterwards. Right. Sort afterwards. Start with like, oh, this inspires me. Oh this is good. Oh I like this one. Then you can go to now I want to narrow my focus down. All right. And then you’re going to go through and do that. Let the music flow.

Cara Harvey 00:14:16 Let them draw, let them decorate. There are no rules. So if you have a kid who might be a little bit of a perfectionist, work with them on. It doesn’t have to look perfect. It doesn’t have to be spelled well. It doesn’t have to have beautiful artwork. This is all about making it work for you. And if they need help, go back to the questions. Right? Well, mom, I’m not sure what to put next. All right, well, what are some things you want to do at recess? Oh, I’d love to play Gaga. I don’t know if your kids are Gaga kids. My kids are Gaga kids. I want to go play Gaga. All right, so what can we find? How can we represent Gaga? we could find a picture of a ball. You can find a sticker. We can draw a ball. What do you want to do? Go through the questions again. All right. Let’s see. Here’s another one. Let me find a good one here that we can use.

Cara Harvey 00:15:00 What’s a subject that you’re excited about? I really like math. My daughter loves math. Okay. So how could we show math? Well, we could do, like, plus minus addition, multiplication signs. I love this idea. Where do you want to put it? Help guide them. Now you can work on your own while they’re working on theirs. Or you can spend more time kind of helping them. Again, I do recommend having yours done first so you can spend time kind of guiding depending on what old your kids are. If you have teenagers, you could probably do it all together, because I have elementary aged kids and we haven’t done this all the time, so it’s a newer activity. I’ll probably have mine done first. Okay, then we’re going to display them. Okay. So you’re going to spend time doing them. This could take a while. So be patient with your kids who want to, you know put some finishing touches on them and say it when they’re done. Hey, can you tell me about your pictures and what they mean to you? Have them.

Cara Harvey 00:15:47 If you do it without everyone in your family and they have an older sibling or an aunt or a grandma, come over. Your partner comes home from work. Hey. Tell them. What does this mean to you? This way. Not only is it here’s a picture of a soccer ball because I like soccer, but it’s like, well, I really want to make this soccer team. So I got this picture, okay? And have them explain it and then display it. You can keep them in their own bedrooms. They can keep them down in like our backwards bucket list we kept down in our kitchen so we could all see it. But you want to keep it so that you can keep it alive. So how are you going to keep these vision boards alive? You are going to make sure that these boards are going to create ongoing conversations about their goals, their hopes and their dreams. Regularly. Check in when you go to tuck your kid in. If they have their vision board next to their bed, you can ask them, hey, did anything happen today that was on your board? Or what’s something you did today that’s moving you closer to something that you put on your board? Anytime they have a win, big or small, as a school year, go back to their vision board and point to it and say, oh my gosh, you said that you were going to practice your cello three times every week, and you did that this week.

Cara Harvey 00:16:54 Look at how you said you wanted to do this and you actually did it. Okay. I also recommend updating them. So by making them live, which you can do is maybe. But since it’s August, use this vision board for like September to December and then over winter break when you have more time together. Edit it. So what you could do is you can have them put hearts or check marks on things that have gotten accomplished. You can have them add. So if they want to like staple or tape an additional sheet of poster board onto theirs to make it even bigger. Cross things out. And this is important to talk to them about how it’s okay to have a goal and change your mind. I think this is a lesson we don’t teach our kids enough. So my son football was his thing last year. He wanted to play football. He loved football. Came to football registration this year. Mom, I don’t want to play football. And we had that conversation of like, well, that’s okay.

Cara Harvey 00:17:45 That was something that was important to you for that season. That was something that you really wanted to do. It is okay to change your mind. And I think that’s not a lesson we’re teaching our kids enough of it. So have them updated. And then every week when you’re planning your week, you can ask them, hey, are you doing anything this week that’s going to help with your vision board? Help encourage them to make their goals living. All right. So what I want you to do with your kids is spend some time this week, reflect, ask them the questions again. Head to the show notes. Get this copy of the questions I have ready to go for you to click that button. You can download it for free. Go through, ask them, go through some themes, collect those materials and create them. Your kids are going to love seeing their dreams come to life, and they’re going to also love seeing that their goals and their dreams matter to you as a parent.

Cara Harvey 00:18:30 They’re not just this thing that they think they’re this thing that everyone cares about. Vision boards, they’re fun. And normally they’re like, maybe teenagers do them or grown ups, but kids of all age can do them, and they’re a great way to connect as a family. If you make a vision board with your family this week or your kids, do one please! I would love to see them. Tag me on Instagram at a Purpose Driven Mom and then head to the show notes again. Go grab those questions. Even if you don’t make a vision board with your family. Use these questions to at least start to help them reflect and get excited about the upcoming school year. And if school’s already started, that’s okay. They can still make them now. It’s never too late. Show notes are at a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast 474. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom Show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating.

Cara Harvey 00:19:26 That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.