|
Category Archives: Homeschooling
‘God gives us time.
But who has time for God?
This may not make any good sense.
A well-known pastor, he was was once asked what was his most profound regret in life?
“Being in a hurry.” That is what he said.
“Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.”
“But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.… Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.”
In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives.
Haste makes waste. The hurry makes us hurt.
Whatever the pace, time will keep it and there’s no outrunning it, only speeding it up and pounding the feet harder; the minutes pound faster too. Race for more and you’ll snag on time and leak empty. Hurry always empties a soul.
In a world with cows to buy and fields to see and work to do, in the beep and blink of the twenty-first century, with its “live in the moment” buzz phrase that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync?
I think of this often, words of another woman seeking: “On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”
Is this the secret that all the life experts know?
That in Christ, urgent means slow.
That in Christ, the most urgent necessitates a slow and steady reverence.
That in Christ, time is not running out. This day is not a sieve, losing time. In Christ, we fill – gaining time.
We stand on the brink of eternity.
So there is enough time.
Time to breathe deep and time to see real.
Time to laugh long, time to give God glory and rest deep and sing joy. And just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done.
There is time to grab the jacket off the hook and time to go out to all air and sky and green. And time to read and wonder and laugh with all of them in all this light.
All this time refracting in prism.
All this time that could refract in praise….”
::
~ excerpt of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
“…. all our busy rushing ends in nothing” (Psa. 39:6)
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God… (Psa. 46:10)
Resources:
The Lantern: “He has made everything beautiful in His time” Lantern
For more thoughts on how to use time wisely to live our one life well:
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Why be crazy enough to homeschool?
So a series of questions land in the inbox for a print article on homeschooling, asking how a Christian family makes educational choices for their family? {Why would anyone really be crazy enough to homeshool?}… And I smile and nod… and tentatively, prayerfully, attempt to meander through some of these queries…. but only with no small trembling, and this very tentative humble preface:
I don’t write specifically about homeschooling often, as I’m not an expert and I’m very concerned that the topic can sadly be divisive and too we are still deeply in process … by His grace, still growing, changing.
So to say from the outset, that I do not think in any way that homeschooling makes a family virtuous — and there are a myriad of very good educational choices.
Homeschooling is not a formula for perfection, nor is homeschooling a panacea for all the sin in this world.
We’re all messy and fallen and sin-scraped. We and our children are born sinners.
Homeschooling will not fix any of that. Only Jesus and His grace can.
It’s scary to share that we homeschool.
But it’s part of who we are and I am praying for your grace, in just taking us anyways. And we’re all big, gracious folks here. Learning from each other, knowing we are all called differently, but all for the singular purpose of His Glory.
May we all be gracious and supportive of educational choices? Mamas are all just really trying and need so much encouragement.
Three of my closest personal friends, all ardent Christ-followers, have each chosen the public school route; please know that I answer these questions only because of reader queries — so this is descriptive of our lives, not prescriptive for anyone else. I humbly and fully believe that Father Himself leads each family…With that preface, seven quick questions… with some not so quick thoughts…. ~warm smile~
1. When & why did you initially decide to home school?
I was a third year university student, taking a concurrent degree in Education and Child Psychology, when I began to consider the possibility of home education for our future family. Sitting in child development classes, studying how a child needs a close attachment with his or her parents, especially before the age of ten, if they are to emotionally thrive through adolescence, I began to question whether it was best to be separated from young children for the majority of their waking hours.
I came to agree with Dr. Neufeld who writes that the problem today is that ‘parenthood is no longer lasting as long as childhood‘ — that our children need parents to be intimately involved, moment-by-moment, not till they are only four years old and leave home for school and possible peer dependency, but they need us to be parents until they are fourteen years old and older…. “We need to hold on to our children and help them hold on to us. We need to hold on to them until our work is done,” writes Dr. Neufeld“We need to hold on, not to hold them back but so that they can venture forth.”
For us, forging a deep attachment to parents was a key factor in our decision, so that children had a strong foundation for their own sense of self, saw parents as more important than peers, and as we modeled the preeminence of God in our lives, our children could see too how to live out that faith model.
Was there a way to home educate that could nurture whole, innovative, creative, well-read, skilled young persons who were passionate Kingdom builders and people lovers? That was the environment we sought to foster. Where two or three are gathered, there He is also.
What I love most about the homeschooling lifestyle is that we are all together, in all our glorious mess, day in and day out. We are not time-torn or fragmented. We are gathered. There is no dichotomy between God and secular: we are making a one-piece life. This works for us.
We are real, transparent, and growing –sometimes painfully– with each other, season upon season, and God is in the center, bathing us sin-scraped ones with His Grace. That’s rich.
2. What does a typical school day look like for you?
Ah… we’re a bit of glorious mess here everyday!
While we generally don’t have schedules, per se, we prefer to do engage in a daily rhythm, an expected routine, an everyday liturgy that is fluid… Our quotidian harmony (that, now and then, definitely does shriek off tune!)
So times stated are general (in my attempt to tend to this flock instead of being driven by the clock), while the length of time for each string of notes is a valiant attempt at consistency:
5:30 am: 6 children rise and chore in the barn with the Farmer
8:30 am: Eat breakfast as a family
9:00 am: Collective Bible reading, hymns , memorization, prayer … then clean-up
9:30 — 12:30 am:
Two Middle children (11 and 13): do mental gymnastics: Latin , Math , Grammar, Spelling , history readings, Music practice — coming for helps as needed, using a Veritas Press curriculum
Two Youngest Children (6 and 9): We work together on Phonics, handwriting, Spelling , Math , Latin , Story Circle, Art .
Two Oldest Children (14 and 16): Independently and daily Math and Latin, then work on their classes with Veritas Press Scholars Academy — Omnibus (Theology, Literature, History), Rhetoric, Latin, Chemistry, Art, Omnibus Secondary, Economics, Business, and several electives from The Potter’s School – checking in with their real-time, live classes, interacting with their teachers and fellow classmates via computer microphones and doing their homework and readings
12:30 — 1:30 pm: Family Noon Meal — close again with Bible readings and prayer — try to clean up our messes
2:00 pm — 3:30 pm: Exploring Time with 4 youngest:
Tea and literature read aloudsincluding poetry, reading, and art appreciation. Then reading a wide spectrum of books that lead us deeper into Geography, Nature and Science, History, Theology — just simply reading a stack of books.
We explore intriguing side trails as we read, check out our Everyday Learning Links– Checking out Today in History, Today’s Word of the Day, The Last 24 Hours in Pictures around the World, The Bird of the Day…. sparking curiosity about the world right now and all around us! God is in it! And then googling what we’ve read to understand more, you-tubing for a relevant video to get an on-the-ground sense of something, grabbing another book off the shelf that fleshes something else out a bit more.
As a mama-teacher, I approach all the readings as a co-discoverer with an insatiable appetite to learn more. I’m exploring with the kids and I’m excited every day about we’re finding out together! It’s not perfect — but it is contagious!
3:30 pm — 4:00 pm: Piano practice, knitting , working in the shop, woodworking, baking, work on history timelines, sketching and drawing in nature journals , go for a walk, cook something in the kitchen, work on a family project — just us, living.
Learning just pervades all time, continuing throughout the evening — kids reading, composing music, working with Farmer Husband in the shed, exploring in the woods, playing games, making dinner in the kitchen.
We don’t have a television — or radio, or video games — so perhaps children engage their worlds more fully?
3. How do you ensure that your children get the same, if not better quality education as those in public school?
We once had a couple come visit us from Germany. Homeschooling is not an option in Germany, so they were intrigued by our choice of education for our children: the stacks and stacks of books, the daily reading of Shakespeare, children narrating poetry, singing hymns together at the table, the spontaneous creativity that was happening — and the noise levels and the happy spin to our days, the way life and learning and laundry just fold into each other.
And at the end of the week, they wanted to know: How else could children learn like this, with all these books?
In a home we have the advantage of getting the best books out of the library. Of low-teacher to child ratios, of google and research at the fingertips of every child, if need be. We can pile close on the couch together to read those books, to check out that youtube video on the Rock of Gibraltar. In a classroom with 25 students, the logistics of great books, and easy internet access for each student get trickier. I really believe that a curious mother and a library card can offer a stellar education.
Ultimately, for us, a quality education focuses on commitment, of both the learner and the teacher. A commitment by both parties to authenticity, joy, curiosity, and consistency. These elements of an education then translate into necessary, future life-skills
For us that means living:
Authentically.
Live your life. Invite your children to join you! Read together. Pray together. Sing together. Work, bake, garden, chore, clean, sew, fix, build together. Don’t fabricate artificial demarcation lines between schooling and living. Live a one-piece life. Live holistically.
Joyfully.
Explore! Be awed by His World! Restore Wonder! Be a creative, thinking, exuberant person who spills with the joy of learning. Your zest for learning and life will be contagious–the children will catch it!
Curiously.
Read, read, read. Fill the house with library books. Play classical music. Post the art of the masters about the house. Go for walks in the woods. Learn a new language, a new culture, a new poem. Everyday set out to discover again, and again, and again. The whole earth is full of His glory! Go seek His face…
Consistently.
Consistently pray. Consistently read. Consistently keep the routine. Consistently live an everyday liturgy.
Children thrive in routine. So do households. Have hardstops: times that you fully stop to pray, to read, to write. Regardless of what isn’t done, what isn’t finished. Make a full stop, do the needful thing, then return to meals, laundry, household management.
Consistently be consistent.
That’s all. The curriculum doesn’t really matter, so much. Use what works for you, how He leads you.
Just make it part of your real life, make it a joy, make it a discovery, and prayerfully make it consistent.
4. What are some downfalls of home schooling, in your opinion, and what are some ways of making up for them?
So true: whichever choice we make, there are advantages and disadvantages.
Whichever educational choice we make, we choose a whole lifestyle.
No doubt, homeschooling comes with pitfalls, ones we’ve intimately wrestled with….
There needs to be consistency, consistency, consistency.
We are responsible for creating the scaffolding for children to climb. That takes daily intentionality and prayerful self-discipline.
Our commitment needs to be intrinsic and for some, that can be a challenge — but a mama who is struggling in that area can set up accountability with her husband, a friend, another teaching-mama. Homeschooled children need to learn about deadlines and goals and time management — and that too can be a challenge when educating at home. We’re daily working on these things, failing and falling into grace, and beginning again. And again, formulating together some agreed upon standards with built-in accountability is paramount.
But much more critically, I believe, a very real concern for of the potential for home-educating families to create hothouses of weak plants that can’t withstand the winds of this world.
When our home environment is Christian and our social circles are primarily (or exclusively) Christian, what makes our children vigilant in their faith? What makes them put down deep, deep roots?
We personally don’t believe that children are called to be kingdom warriors in the public school system because, in our humble, and very possibly misguided opinion, that doesn’t seem a level playing field. There are agendas operating there that may leave a child at a disadvantage. But do we need to walk with our children in the world with a vibrant, fearless faith that has full confidence in an all-powerful God? Yes!
If we are going to home-educate, we are going to need to be proactive in engaging the world. As homeschoolers, we can’t create our own self-protective ghettos so our safe Christian children may just meet and marry another safe and good Christian to have their own safe and good Christian family. God didn’t call us to that! He called us to love a lost and hurting world.
We may be homeschoolers, but we can’t stay at home! If we’re going to home-educate, we need to find ways to be in the world, to serve the world, to live a BIG RADICAL FAITH in this world… But not be of the world. Daily we need to be intentionally asking and living: How can we reach out to our neighbors, the hurting kid around the corner, our non-believing uncle, our community at large?
(Related: Reb Bradley speaks profoundly to the pitfalls of homeschooling and how to advert them
Wise Katherine @ Raising Five who once homeschooled and now doesn’t wrote a deeply thoughtful post that I return to often: Sheltering is not a Place but a Relationship )
5. What are some downfalls of the public school system?
While I think the public school has some very real advantages over home education — discipline, deadlines, sports programs, some technical and highly skilled programs — and it works tremendously well for some families, for us, the downfalls are simply inherent to what public school is: perhaps an artificial fragmentation of life?
Separating children from siblings, from family, their natural community, homes, faith and environment to instead be grouped in a rather institutionalized space with possible agendas that may be disconnected from community and family values, that marks time with bells… perhaps this could potentially disconnect young people from the real world and real family relationships?
And possibly, in some instance, may not be most conducive to fostering a whole-hearted person whose faith, family, work, and service is all woven into a cloth of one-piece.
For us, an integrated life before God, is perhaps experienced and cultivated and expressed in the crazy wonder of educating at home?
6. What are your dreams for your children, scholastically?
Scholastically, our aim for our children asks the same question that esteemed educator A Charlotte Mason asked: “The question is not, ‘how much does the youth know?’ when he has finished his education––but how much does he care?
And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set?”
We believe that whatever we do, we need to do it wholeheartedly as unto the Lord. Right now, learning about God and His world is our children’s full-time work. That means: education is a priority and it will be engaging work that requires real effort.
But that doesn’t necessarily translate into them aiming towards traditional careers. It means we simply pursue the beginning of knowledge which is the fear of the Lord.
Do they care about God?
Do they love people?
Are their feet set in the large, large world as salt and light?
It means that we pursue not a cultural definition of success but of true greatness for our kids: “having an unquenchable passion for God that manifests itself in an unwavering love and concern for others” (Tim Kimmel, Raising Kids for True Greatness)
7. How long do you plan to home school them for, and why?
In fear and trembling, we plan to homeschool, Lord willing, throughout highschool…. Yet we do that in a supportive, large homeschooling community that offers a myriad of resources that makes it possible to have top-notch online teachers in classes with students all over the globe.
And why would we continue?
Because homeschooling is this magnificent crucible, to reveal impurities and sinfulness and brokenness.
It keeps us on our knees. Homeschooling often hurts and disappoints.
You cry and wonder if you are insane to try to educate these children, to disciple these little hearts, while laundering, cooking, cleaning, managing a household, and still being a wife, a sister, a daughter, a missionary in your community, a servant to Christ and in your faith community. And He smiles and say that He walks with you, has grand and glorious purposes, and He understands radical and crazy!
Homeschooling is about going higher up and deeper in, for you learn to sacrificially love in ways you have never loved before. You come to know your own heart in ways you never imagined, the souls of your children in intimate, very real ways.
For you will be together, making memories together, laughing together, crying together, praying together, and asking forgiveness together. Throughout your day, you worship God, together. And you learn to die-to-self together. It’s about doing hard things… together. And there will be no fragmentation of learning, home-life, friends, work, God.
We keep homeschooling to weave a one-piece life – hallowed threads of parenting, love, pain, education, growing, stumbling, creativity, forgiveness, wonder, sacrifice, and God all woven together.
We wear it, and it’s not perfect and it’s messy — but oh, it’s a good fit for us!
Grace, Joy, Gratitude.
Related Links:
More Glimpses into our Homeschool Room: How to make a Learning Space
Seven Things We do Everyday to Holistically Homeschool
If you are considering homeschooling– perhaps read this post?
Resource: The Lord Is My Strength – Vinyl Wall Art
edited text from the archives to make current
The Photo Glimpses into our recent discovery days:
Hope wrapped up under a tree studying history:Veritas Press History Cards: Explorers to 1815::Levi working on history timelines {We chart the events from the free 100 Pivotal Events in History and our Veritas Press History events on this timeline, that includes the Biblical Genesis: The Wallchart of World History: From Earliest Times to the Present  } :: nature study :: Levi’s boat carving :: Read Aloud from 1955 Newberry Medal Winner: The Wheel on the School :: Joshua’s painting of a Roman Soldier :: dogwoods in the wood with Shalom :: more timeline work :: Malakai’s (8 yrs old) self-portrait :: Hope reading outside to Shalom :: creek fun :: dinner time in the evening, everyone boisterous around the table
That is what came at the end.
At the end of the day, after the pots soaked in the sink and the books  and the remnants of the day stacked high in baskets.
After she washed the eggs and threaded that needle for her mama doing up mending.
After the raucous and rowdy finally stilled and the pansies drowsed heavy out under that Big Dipper swinging high.
That is what came to her sitting there on the far edge of grace.
That when she needed His hand, she only had to reach out with a hymn.
::
::::
::::
Related Post: Best Advice for Hard Times
Posted in Beauty, Daily Art, Faith, Family, fear, Homemaking, Homeschooling, Joy Habit, Peace, Psalms, Quiet, Seeing God, Slow, The Year of Koinonia
How long do I really have to figure it out?
How long do I have to figure out how to live full of joy?
So my husband might find himself married to a woman he loves being with.
A woman who knows how to laugh at the days to come?
So our children have these memories of a mama who smiles easy, listens long, makes jokes and praise and all these good days out of crazy messes.
So the Christ in me, Joy Himself, “the gigantic secret of the Christians,” is apparent to the world around me, Joy to the world, rescuing the world.
How long do I really have?
On Saturday, I dig out the manual for my watch.
I read the fine print, a couple dozen times because I’m technical Neanderthal, and I finally stumble into how to reset the timer. I still don’t know how long I have.
All the minutes, they will have enough troubles of their own, but the days with this man, these kids, have enough joy, these days have more than enough Jesus – if I can see.
Perspective can always adopt gratitude — and gratitude always parents joy.
We work on seeing together.
Each day when they come to the table for lunch, Shalom passes around the the pad of sticky notes shaped like tulips blooming.
Levi writes down: “I am thankful for my Dad. For rain today making the wheat grow. For hot soup and good bread.”
Hope sticks her sticky note ‘flower’ to the window too. Everyday we count blessings, grow blooms, right there on window panes, right there in places inside of us that let us see everything more clearly.
It’s not strange what is happening to us:
“Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.”
A friend tells me her high school students too are filling a whole window with sticky notes of thanks — and the results? Her sophomore English students “have better attitudes and more energy.”
Together, we write out daily 7 Gifts. Malakai starts his own 1000 Gifts in handwriting big and sure, graphite pressing into the paper.We write thank you notes, a basket of empty cards at the end of the table, waiting for us to express gratitude.
Steven Toepfer of Kent State University, Salem, had students in six courses write letters of gratitude to people who had positively influenced their lives. Over a six-week period, the students wrote one letter every two weeks. After each letter, the students completed a survey to gauge their moods, satisfaction with life and feelings of gratitude and happiness.
The result, Toepfer said, was dramatic:
“The more thank-you letters they wrote, the better they felt.”
Hope licks stamps. Shalom runs out to the red mailbox. I stand at the window, seeing straight through: When we give thanks, we gain joy. All of us.
Because what will the math really matter if they are bitter?
If the house is immaculate — but my attitude a mess?
If they can count — but they don’t know how to count all things as joy?
If we get the lists done, but have lost happiness in Him?
How can any grammar skill outweigh the fact they don’t know the language of grace and thanks? What good will it be if they can recite all the major British battles — but they don’t know to see beauty? What am I teaching our children if I’m not living simply, quietly this:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Phil. 4:8).
Focusing on what is beautiful, good, true –isn’t this the truest education?
We work on seeing lessons, me the most in need of remedial help…
6 Reasons Why to Teach Kids to Be Grateful
The research can only support Scriptural Truth:
1. Better Attitudes:
Children who practice grateful thinking have more positive attitudes toward school and their families (Froh, Sefick, Emmons, 2008).
2. Better Achieve Personal Goals:
Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.
3. Closer Relationships, Greater Happiness:
Professor Froh infused middle–school classes with a small dose of gratitude—and found that it made students feel more connected to their friends, family, and their school:
“By the follow–up three weeks later, students who had been instructed to count their blessings showed more gratitude toward people who had helped them, which led to more gratitude in general. Expressing gratitude was not only associated with appreciating close relationships; it was also related to feeling better about life and school. Indeed, compared with students in the hassles and control groups, students who counted blessings reported greater satisfaction with school both immediately after the two–week exercise and at the three–week follow–up.”
4. Better Grades:
Gratitude in children: 6-7th graders who kept a gratitude journal for only three weeks, had an increased grade point average over the course of a year.
5. Greater Energy, Attentiveness, Enthusiasm:
A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others).
6. Greater Sensitivity:
Children who kept gratitude journals were more sensitive to situations where they themselves can be helpful, altruistic, generous, compassionate, and less destructive, more positive social behaviors, and less destructive, negative social behaviors…
“Gratitude is good for the giver, and good for the receiver,” Professor Emmons said. “This has been documented in friendships, romantic partners and spouses. One study showed that the mere expression of thanks more than doubled the likelihood that helpers would provide assistance again.”
And if We Don’t Practice Gratitude?
On the other hand, research shows that youth who are ungrateful are “less satisfied with their lives and are more apt to be aggressive and engage in risk-taking behaviors, such as early or frequent promiscuous activities, substance use, poor eating habits, physical inactivity, and poor academic performance.”
Research from: Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier
Why does gratitude do all of this — how can it, really? Because we were made to live in gratitude to God, giving glory to God.
We were made to live in a posture of grateful worship, and when we live in praise, we live our purpose, and all the pieces fall in place, us all falling down in thanks.
A child who is apathetic, the dark hopelessness of this world threatening to consume?
We hand our children a torch when we hand them a pen, a JoyDare to hunt for Him. Sparks fall and the world catches and they see light everywhere, God-glory igniting everything. Hand them a pen. Hand them a pen. The way to counter apathy is to count the ways of God….
A child who is afraid? Count blessing so Who can be counted on…
A child who is angry? Anger is always just this: the bleeding of a deep wound. Wrap up wounds intentionally with the gentle bandage of God’s unending love, His daily, tender graces.
A child who needs to learn pray? “The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with thankful lips. Prayer, to be prayer, to have any power to change anything, must first speak thanks: “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6 NIV, emphasis added).” ~One Thousand Gifts
So we try this:
15 Happy Ways to Grateful, Joyfilled Kids
1. Write sticky note on the mirror: What are you grateful for right now?
2. Make Space for Thanks: As a family fill a whole window or wall with sticky notes of thanks to Him. Hang a craft paper banner at the back door and invite the whole family to fill it in a month with their gratitude, just grabbing the pen and writing down one or two gifts every time they come in or out the door.
Paint a verse or a Grateful Tree right on a wall and encourage kids and visitors to write their thanks right on the wall, or in painted leaves, a visual testimony of your thankfulness to all who come or go. Be intentional about taking Joy!
3. Leave out a basket of thank-you notes, an invitation to always give thanks to someone
4. Have everyone make their own gratitude journal {click here for free printables for your own gratitude journal}
6. Sing the “Count Your Blessings, name them one-by-one” around the table after one meal every day — and after the chorus, call out the name of a family member, who then gives thanks for a blessing or two… then sing the refrain and call out someone else’s name.
7. Leave a Family Gratitude Journal permanently open on the counter: Encourage the whole family to write out a few more of the 1000 Gifts in your 1000 gifts Gratitude Journal
8. Tuck a copy of of the one-sheet free download booklet 7 Gifts: Good and Perfect into a lunchbox or a coat pocket for kids to fill out at school and keep their focus on what’s pure and lovely. Share their finds every night at dinner? Somehow, in your own unique way: Establish a daily ritual of sharing thanksgivings!
9. Take the Daily Joy Dare: Print out each month’s Joy Dare and put it on the fridge. In the morning, share that day’s dare of 3 gifts to look for and dare the kids to go on a God Hunt that day and keep their eyes open to find those three gifts. Make it part of your evening routine to share where you found those 3 gifts that day.
10. No Complaining Day: Dare to go all day (week? month) with no complaining. Slip a rubber band, bracelet, on your wrist (or use your watch) and every time you complain, move it to the other wrist. Dare everyone in the whole family to go the whole day without moving your wrist reminder. Celebrate with a special treat when the whole family can go the whole day with no complaining!
11. Play the “What’s Good & Lovely” High-Way Game: Make it the game you play in the car. One person calls out a person’s name, anything seen out the window, anything at all: and each person has to take the High Way and think of one ‘good & lovely” thing about what was called. (Ideas of what to call out: Bill! Our country! Our family! Your body! Mondays! Sisters! Moms!)
13. Make Great-Full Jars for each member of your family: Your Go-to Pick-Me-Up:
Easy for children to make — Great-full jars: grab a pretty jar, box, container and some lovely paper. Cut the paper into slips. Write down things you are grateful about the recipient. Example: 5 funny memories with Dad. 4 Things I love about Mom. 7 Reasons Why I love having you as my sister. Write down each memory, reason, gift, on individual slips of paper. Fill the jar with the great notes of memories and joys and love, noting why you are so grateful for that person. Give the jar with a note to the recipient, letting them know that this is the gift that keeps on giving: over and over again they can come to their Great-Full jar and remember why they are loved as a great gift to their family.
14. Make Family Thanksgiving into Thanks-Living: Each Week choose a Family Thanks-Living Project. When we live lifestyle thanksgiving — our very lives become thanks-living. Our lives overflowing with gratitude for the blessings, that we ourselves become the blessing, make our life a gift of joy to someone else.
Every week choose a Family Thanks-Living Project: Volunteer to help a shut-in? Make a meal or a sweet treat for a family? Offer time at local charity? Write it down on the fridge, what the Family Thanks-Living Project is for the week — a way to live out our joy. Because it is even Better to Give the Blessings than Receive the Blessings!
15. Model Gratitude Yourself: More is caught than taught. Intentionally purpose to live wholesale gratitude & personally take the Dare to write 1000 gifts! Have them see you filling in the the free Year of Graces calendar, or using the free gratitude app, (teens might download it for their own mobiles?), have them catch you taking photos of the little graces, invite them to take pictures too of the small miracles of grace. Let them see your joy!
My watch is ticking quiet today.
I don’t know how long I have to live full of His joy.
I know do have right now.
And if perspective can always adopt gratitude and gratitude always parents joy, I pick up a pen and bow the head and pray to be that kind of parent.
The one laughing at all the crazy days to come…
Kids grateful and all the ticking moments great full….
:
:
:
:
#3314 – #3325 of my own One Thousand Gifts … of endless grateful love…
More Ideas to Raise Grateful Kids : a helpful video
buds and robins in the orchard in March
cooking with the Farmer in the kitchen… and washing dishes together afterwards
kissing five little nieces on Sunday mornings
a new week! fresh grace!
cleaning out closets!
a long conversation with my Dad
#10 on NYTimes, God urging His children to joy in Him …
no fear because His perfect love is here
Phil 4:8ing every thought
seeing lessons and all is glass to God
button code here
Today, if you’d like to share your own marking towards 1000 Gifts of thanks, all the ways He daily provides and you give praise — (please, jump in!) — just add the direct URL to your specific 1000 gift list post… and if you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other by sharing the community’s graphic within your post.
« Older posts
Newer posts »
|
