Parents Making Time with Anthony & Jennifer Craiker | Intentional Parenting for Busy Parents
Parents! Feel like you’re missing out on your kids’ lives while also never having enough time for yourself? Want to embrace intentional parenting but don't quite know how? Career pressures, shuttling kids around, volunteer commitments, and the endless tasks of caring for your home all place enormous demands on your time and energy, leading to mom guilt, dad guilt, stress, and ultimately regret. And while you’re trying to tend to your own self-care while also being a present parent who prioritizes family connection, your kids are growing up way too fast.
Sound familiar? If so—help is here! Unlike other parenting podcasts that just give you techniques for raising children or tips on childhood development, Parents Making Time focuses on helping YOU, the parent, prioritize YOUR life so that your parenting aligns with your values. Motherhood, fatherhood, marriage, and family are what we are all about. In 15-minutes or less, this weekly podcast helps busy parents like you learn to prioritize their relationships, be more present and intentional with family time, and build a lasting legacy of love—without neglecting their own well-being or feeling regret later in life. It's not just about learning to prioritize tasks or mastering time management, it's about becoming the parent you want to be so that you can stop feeling overwhelmed, learn how to have more time, and create lasting family memories.
Leveraging their 20+ years of parenting experience raising three thriving kids and leading and mentoring hundreds of children, youth, and families in volunteer church positions, hosts Anthony and Jennifer Craiker teach parents on a tight schedule how to balance work and family, create unbreakable family bonds, prevent parent burnout, and find JOY in parenting. In other words, we help you stop being busy and start actually applying the concept of intentional living.
If you’re ready to prioritize family time each day without feeling overwhelmed, you can count on this show to teach you how to be fully present with your kids, build lasting memories, prioritize your spouse, make dinner time count, connect with your kids after work, stop missing precious moments, savor family time, discover intentional parenting ideas, and so much more—all while learning how to implement quick self-care tips, create an intentional family legacy, and parent with no regret. So, hit PLAY, and let’s get started!
Popular Topics Include:
Intentional parenting
Present parenting
Self-care for parents
How to have meaningful connections with your kids
Work life balance
Mom guilt and Dad guilt
Building family bonds
Parenting anxiety
Time management
Motherhood
Fatherhood
Family life and routines
Tips for busy parents
Parenting in a digital world
Leaving a legacy
Episodes
74 episodes
Motherhood | An Interview with Jennifer Craiker
Have you ever wondered how motherhood changes you over time?Not just through the sleepless nights, busy schedules, teenage struggles, and constant responsibilities, but deep down, in the person you become along the way?In t...
The Importance of Parenting with High Love & High Expectations
What if the very thing you think is “loving” your kids… is actually holding them back?As busy parents, it’s easy to fall into the trap of making life easier for our kids. We may step in when things get hard, lower expectations to ...
How to Overcome Marital Dissatisfaction While Raising Kids
Is your marriage getting lost in the rhythm of everyday life?In the middle of busy parenting, managing schedules, responsibilities, and constant demands, it’s easy for your marriage to slowly shift into the background.Not b...
The 60 Seconds that Shape Your Relationship with Your Kids
When everything goes wrong in a parenting moment, what matters more—the mistake or your response to it?As busy parents, it’s easy to react in the heat of the moment, especially when our kids make mistakes that cost time, money, or...
5 Keys to Connecting with Your Kids in the Car
Have you ever noticed that some of the most meaningful conversations with your kids happen when you least expect them, like during a car ride? For many busy parents, the car is simply a place to manage logistics. You're getting kids...
Why Parent Burnout Doesn't Mean You're Failing
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you’re technically “showing up" but you don’t feel like yourself?For busy parents, burnout doesn’t usually explode into your life. It builds quietly. You start forgetting small things. Your pati...
5 Steps for Solving Any Parenting Problem
Have you ever been so desperate to solve a problem with your child that the harder you tried, the worse everything seemed to get?As busy parents, we feel a deep responsibility to protect, guide, and help our children. Whether it’s anxiet...
3 Parenting Shifts to Make as Your Kids Grow Up
What happens when your child no longer needs you—but still needs you?For years, you’ve guided, protected, corrected, and directed. You’ve worked hard to practice to intentionally parent your infant, toddler, teenager. But when your child...
A Simple Way to Create a Lasting Legacy
What will your kids still have from you when you’re no longer there to guide them?So many of us spend years chasing accomplishments, careers, and milestones. We think we know what success looks like. But when you slow down and real...
The 3 Most Important Phrases You Can Say As a Parent
Have you ever assumed your kids just know you love them even if you don’t always say it out loud?As busy parents, it’s easy to focus on schedules, discipline, homework, and getting through the day only to miss the small, intenti...
Should You Monitor Your Kid's Phone?
When you hand your child their first phone, are you trusting them or protecting them?For many busy parents, giving kids a smartphone feels like a parenting milestone you’re never fully ready for. You want to build trust. You want to resp...
3 Easy Ways to Create Core Memories with Your Kids
Are you a busy parent who feels pressure to create “perfect” family moments—but still worries you’re missing what really matters in parenting?In the middle of full schedules, work demands, and daily responsibilities, many busy par...
1 Habit to Quickly Improve Your Marriage and Parenting
What if the tension you’re feeling at home isn’t just about your kids, but about the connection you’ve lost with your spouse?As parents, we spend so much time pouring into our children that our marriage often gets whatever is left over—i...
Debunking the Myth of "Balance" in Parenting
What if the reason parenting feels so overwhelming isn’t because you’re doing it wrong, but because you’re chasing a version of “balance” that was never realistic to begin with?So many busy parents feel like they’re failing because life ...
Merry Christmas!
No new episode of Parents Making Time this week. Merry Christmas to you and your family! Make time to become the parent you want to be!
How to Easily Prevent Parental Burnout
What if the parenting stress you feel isn’t from parenting itself, but from being the only one holding everything together?So many busy parents fall into the quiet habit of carrying the entire load—the dishes, the laundry, the dog, the c...
How to Manage the Unnecessary Anxiety of Parenting
Parents, have you ever felt torn between expert parenting advice and your own motherly or fatherly instincts?Recommendations that once felt like hard rules can completely reverse over the years. When advice changes, parenting can feel co...
Simple Ways to Improve Family Connection
What if the strongest memories your kids carry into adulthood come not from vacations, but from small everyday traditions at home?We often think family traditions are reserved for holidays—Christmas, birthdays, vacations—but research sho...
Quick Announcement for Listeners
No new episode this week due to Thanksgiving. Next episode will be released on Friday, December 5, 2025. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving with your families! We are grateful for you, our listeners!! Happy parenting!
How We Deepened Our Bond with Our Son in One Evening
What would happen if your family put the phones away—just for one evening a week? Could you strengthen your parent-child connection?Maybe you’ve felt that tug lately—the sense that your teen is drifting into their screen while real conve...
How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Parents
Do you ever catch yourself comparing your parenting to other families—wondering if you’re not doing enough or feeling guilty because someone else seems to have it all together?Comparison is one of the biggest hidden causes of mom guilt, ...
3 Simple Ways to Get Kids Talking at Dinner Tonight
Have you ever sat down for family dinner hoping for connection—only to be met with silence, clinking forks, and kids glued to their phones?Even though dinner is one of the best chances to connect with your kids, conversation doesn’t alwa...
Why You and Your Spouse Disagree About Parenting
Have you ever felt like you and your spouse weren’t on the same page? You both love your kids deeply — but sometimes, it feels like you’re speaking two different languages when it comes to rules, routines, or how to handle a situation.It...
5 Ways to Connect with Your Kids in 30 Seconds or Less
Are you struggling to find meaningful moments of connection with your kids? You’re not alone. Between school drop-offs, work deadlines, and never-ending to-do lists, it can feel impossible to carve out quality time — especially when your kids a...