Maridel Willer

Are your children bored this summer?  Are they tempted to waste time with TV and video games?  Here are some ideas to foster the character traits of creativity and productiveness in your children.

We avoid summertime boredom by keeping our same homeschooling routine all year - chores and and a little bit of writing and math in the morning with productive free time all afternoon. 

If  TV and computer games are simply not one of the choices for things for them to do, it is amazing how creative children can be!

It is so hot in the summer in Florida that we actually spend less time outdoors than the rest of the year.  To help my children keep busy during the hottest months (August and September), I have come up with the following creativity “igniters”:

Stocking up on new art and craft supplies such as blank sketchbooks, drawing pencils, paints, glitter glue

Checking out art, craft, science project and other “how to” books from the library for the children to browse through and choose activities. (more…)

I received an email today from a friend asking for book suggestions to help build character in children, in particular how to help a child who is hurt and offended when they are ignored by a friend who is playing with someone else. 

You can approach this issue by teaching your children how to treat others with respect, how to forgive others who do not treat you with respect, and how to choose a good friend (how to identify character in others).  Here are some resources for you, all of which can be used for family devotions.  

“A Child’s Book of Character Building” (Books 1 and 2):  Each book has 12 character traits with a scripture and 4 short stories illustrating the trait in the bible, at school, at home and at play.  Book 2 includes a section on  forgiveness.  These are good to read aloud and discuss with ages 4 to 10.  My children enjoyed these stories and my 8 year old daughter reads them herself for fun. 

There are 2 fun books by Joshua Harris:  “Rules for Young Friends” and “Uncommon Courtesy for Kids” that have a list of rules with coloring pages for each and a list of scriptures. 

A more in depth bible study for families is “Character Building for Families”, volumes 1 and 2.  You spend a week to a month on a character trait doing daily bible studies that involve looking up scripture and answering questions together.  I am planning to use this in the fall as part of our homeschooling curriculum.

In addition to devotions, using wonderful literature from years past is a very good way to build character.  Today’s children have a shallow understanding of real suffering.  Their empathy can increase by reading stories that depict real life suffering.  Older literature does this in a way to build character and teach morals.  Today’s books for children no longer do that and often teach bad morals. 

A really great book to read aloud or listen to on tape (because it is long!) is “Elsie Dinsmore” by Martha Finley.   It was written in 1868 and is about an 8 yr old girl who is unfairly treated by others due to her unfortunate circumstances.  The little girl’s love for Jesus and how she turns to him for comfort is very powerful.   

Other wonderful, heart warming 18^th and 19^th century literature that builds character in your children can be found at www.graceandtruthbooks.com  (in paperbacks – reasonable prices) and www.lamplighterpublishing.com (heirloom quality hardback books).

Have you ever considered that the calling of motherhood requires 2 quite different things from us?

On one hand, I need to be a nurturer, on the other hand, I must attend to the daily tasks of being a keeper at home.  Some women find one of the 2 roles to be a bit easier than the other, but both of them are challenging to most moms that I know.

How can I become really good at 2 such different things?  I must remember that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. God is both relational and practical, and I am created in His image.  In His relational role, He loves us and calls us into relationship with Him.  In His practical role, He set the world in motion with concrete laws over which He rules and reigns in righteousness.

Here are some ideas to help you grow in both aspects of God’s Character.

Relational

1. Nurture your family relationships by purposing to spend a lot of time with them doing things that you all enjoy.  Your children are only with you for a short season.  Make the most of it by purposing to make family time a high priority.

2. Help your children learn about God and understand who they are in Christ.

3. Cultivate the God given talents and abilities in your children and help them find productive ways to express them and serve others with them.

4. Grow in character yourself through bible study and prayer.  Pray for your family to be an example of God’s love to a lost world.

Practical

1. Get your home in order to help you live a peaceful, productive and purposeful life.

2. Become a good steward of your time, property and finances.

3. Create a daily and weekly routine for your family that helps you accomplish all that God has planned for you.

Be encouraged by this poem by Wendy C. Brewer

Today, I didn’t say the right things

I didn’t give enough hugs

I didn’t listen to all of their imaginary stories.

Today I hurried them through what could have been

Very special moments, to achieve my binding agenda.

Today my prayers were too short and my lectures too long.

My smiles, I’m sure, didn’t hide my fatigue (more…)

We were helping some good friends load a large shipping container to move their worldly possessions to Hawai, when I heard loud screaming and crying and then saw my husband walk into the house carrying my 8 year old daughter with blood all over her face and his shirt.

She had run into an immovable object. 

While playing tag at full speed in the dark, she ducked under the shipping container and her forehead had made direct contact with the trailer hitch hanging below it.   As I began praying and simultaneously wiped the blood off her forehead, I realized it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but it was definitely going to require stitches, so off we went for our first trip to the emergency room.

I breathed a prayer of thanks that my husband was with us as he sped down the road and I attempted to comfort the injured child and her now crying little brother.  My daughter was screaming at the top of her lungs “I’m NOT going… I’m NOT going… I AM NOT GOING!

I launched into maximum mom mode with comforting tone yet firm in my counsel, explaining how it was important that we have the cut checked to make sure she was going to be fine and that they would probably only put some liquid bandage on the cut to protect it and we would be right there with her and I didn’t think it would hurt at all.  All the while I was thinking, “Lord, I really don’t want to walk into the hospital carrying a hysterical child.” (more…)

Children love to pretend to do the things they see their parents doing.  Every day we are modelling how to be a grownup to them.  What values are you modelling to your children?

A couple of weeks ago, my children were deeply involved in a business that they had set up in my 6 year old son’s bedroom.  When I took at peek at what they were up to, I found that they had turned large plastic containers on their sides to make computer monitors and had taped drawings of keyboards to the table.  They had mades piles of books around the room and were busy with their work.

Then I saw what they had taped to the screen of their pretend monitors.  My 8 year old daughter had made an accurate reproduction of an ebay screen, complete with book listings.  They were busy taking photos and pretending to write their auction descriptions.

Now, while I am thrilled that they have caught my love of great books, I realized that perhaps I had spent a little too much time searching for book treasures lately!  Maybe they thought that they could capture more of my attention by entering into one of my passion areas? 

I responded by grabbing a book off the shelf to read to them as they played, and I turned off the computer for the rest of the day.  The book hunting could wait until they were asleep.    

Ten years ago, I thought my life was complete.   My dear husband and I had interesting jobs, a nice home near the beach, and lots of time to travel and enjoy life.  I had spent the last 20 years getting an engineering degree and building a career in project management and I thought that having children would interfere with my plans and freedom.

God had a better plan.  He took away the satisfaction I had in my accomplishments and he gave me a desire to be a mother.  He eliminated all of the excuses I had and erased my fears of being responsible for someone other than myself.  He knew that I needed to learn how to nuture young lives, to put someone else’s needs before my own and to delight in the accomplishments of another.

Motherhood is God’s perfect discipleship program.  I am so glad I didn’t miss it!