Today I want to continue with the theme of the habits I try to use as the scaffolding for my life. The first habits I wrote about (rest, eating well, exercise, fresh air) are all focused on gaining and maintaining physical health.
Now I'm moving into some habits that are important because they help maintain healthy relationships. Healthy relationships are vital! Have you watched this Ted Talk? I was fascinated by it! In essence, relationships are even more important than exercise! I recently read The Blue Zone, a book that probably deserves a whole post of its own, and it reaches a similar conclusion on the importance of relationships.
So first I wrote about the habit of daily Bible reading and prayer, which cultivates the relationship with God. Today I want to write about fostering relationships with my children.
My own situation is that my children still live at home with me, so I (happily!) get to see them every day. It's important to me, as someone who spends so much time with my children, to make sure I'm not taking it too much for granted. I know that the years fly by quickly. So here are a few basic things I try to do each day:
*Give a kind greeting in the morning: snuggles, kisses, hugs, happy words. I want my children to begin every day knowing that I'm happy to see them! Fortunately my children sleep until about 7:30-8:00 each day, so I have ample time to get up, exercise, and drink a little coffee so I'm awake enough to be cheerful. But even on rarer occasions when I sleep in and someone crawls into bed with me I try to be sleepily kind and happy to see them!
*Read aloud each day. Reading aloud my be my parenting "love language," if such a thing exists. There are few things I love more than sitting together in a cozy place and sharing books with my children. This is one of those sticking points that seems to keep me away from traditional "schooling" at home: I want to be sure we have enough time to read together each day. My ideal is Bible at breakfast, something at lunch (today it was history and Aesop's fables), a novel in the afternoon (we just finished Charlotte's Web for the millionth time and are about to finish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the second time. If we spend too much time diagramming sentences, for instance, there's less time for reading aloud. And reading aloud means so much to me.
*Give them my undivided attention for a period of time each day. This is not easy in the course of a busy life, but it makes a world of difference from the child's perspective. "Look at this!" or "look at me!" or "see what I can do!".....these are things that matter to the child. I try to be mindful about pausing to make eye contact, genuinely listen to a story, answer questions thoughtfully, and so on. Annie craves someone to play with, and it means the world to her when I spend half an hour just playing with her! Finn wants someone to talk to, to listen to his ideas, and answer his crazy inquisitive questions, and it means so much to him when I do this. They both love for me to play soccer with them or act silly with them or do a craft with them. It's hard for me to pause my to-do list and do these things because I love to Get Things Done, but these "invisible" things are among the most important things of all.
*Bless them with a kind tuck-in at night. This is the hardest one of all for me. I am usually so very tired by the end of the day that I just want a quiet house and a warm bed! But it's important for my children to feel loved, secure, and happy as they fall asleep, so I take the time to pray over each of them, give kisses, and sometimes answer Deep Questions or discuss issues that have arisen during the day. Half the time I'm ready to bolt for a hot bath and a book but I do try to be patient and kind and make bedtime pleasant.
* * *
Finn turns 11 (!!!) this summer, and Annie just tuned 7. As my father likes to say "time nor tide waits for no man".....so it's important to spend the time wisely. My best friend has told me that she doesn't regret the years her daughter (now in her mid-twenties) was little because Allison genuinely tried to *be* with her daughter and take full advantage of those years. I love this and am inspired by it.
So those four acts are the basic daily things I try to do to make sure I'm fostering a loving relationship with my children. There are loads of other things we do, too, and homeschooling provides constant access to each other. It's just so easy to become too distracted! So for me a sweet wake-up, a read-aloud session (or three), some undivided attention, and a kind tuck-in at night are all habits that reorient me away from the distractions and back to investing in the hearts and minds of our children. They need that, and so do I.
My own situation is that my children still live at home with me, so I (happily!) get to see them every day. It's important to me, as someone who spends so much time with my children, to make sure I'm not taking it too much for granted. I know that the years fly by quickly. So here are a few basic things I try to do each day:
*Give a kind greeting in the morning: snuggles, kisses, hugs, happy words. I want my children to begin every day knowing that I'm happy to see them! Fortunately my children sleep until about 7:30-8:00 each day, so I have ample time to get up, exercise, and drink a little coffee so I'm awake enough to be cheerful. But even on rarer occasions when I sleep in and someone crawls into bed with me I try to be sleepily kind and happy to see them!
*Read aloud each day. Reading aloud my be my parenting "love language," if such a thing exists. There are few things I love more than sitting together in a cozy place and sharing books with my children. This is one of those sticking points that seems to keep me away from traditional "schooling" at home: I want to be sure we have enough time to read together each day. My ideal is Bible at breakfast, something at lunch (today it was history and Aesop's fables), a novel in the afternoon (we just finished Charlotte's Web for the millionth time and are about to finish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the second time. If we spend too much time diagramming sentences, for instance, there's less time for reading aloud. And reading aloud means so much to me.
*Give them my undivided attention for a period of time each day. This is not easy in the course of a busy life, but it makes a world of difference from the child's perspective. "Look at this!" or "look at me!" or "see what I can do!".....these are things that matter to the child. I try to be mindful about pausing to make eye contact, genuinely listen to a story, answer questions thoughtfully, and so on. Annie craves someone to play with, and it means the world to her when I spend half an hour just playing with her! Finn wants someone to talk to, to listen to his ideas, and answer his crazy inquisitive questions, and it means so much to him when I do this. They both love for me to play soccer with them or act silly with them or do a craft with them. It's hard for me to pause my to-do list and do these things because I love to Get Things Done, but these "invisible" things are among the most important things of all.
*Bless them with a kind tuck-in at night. This is the hardest one of all for me. I am usually so very tired by the end of the day that I just want a quiet house and a warm bed! But it's important for my children to feel loved, secure, and happy as they fall asleep, so I take the time to pray over each of them, give kisses, and sometimes answer Deep Questions or discuss issues that have arisen during the day. Half the time I'm ready to bolt for a hot bath and a book but I do try to be patient and kind and make bedtime pleasant.
* * *
Finn turns 11 (!!!) this summer, and Annie just tuned 7. As my father likes to say "time nor tide waits for no man".....so it's important to spend the time wisely. My best friend has told me that she doesn't regret the years her daughter (now in her mid-twenties) was little because Allison genuinely tried to *be* with her daughter and take full advantage of those years. I love this and am inspired by it.
So those four acts are the basic daily things I try to do to make sure I'm fostering a loving relationship with my children. There are loads of other things we do, too, and homeschooling provides constant access to each other. It's just so easy to become too distracted! So for me a sweet wake-up, a read-aloud session (or three), some undivided attention, and a kind tuck-in at night are all habits that reorient me away from the distractions and back to investing in the hearts and minds of our children. They need that, and so do I.
I loved reading about how you mother. The read aloud is a wonderful tradition, and I'm sure your children will treasure the memories of it forever. I don't do read alouds anymore with my almost 13 year old, but I remember the last few -- we read through Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge the summer before I had my littler boy. My older boy was 10 then, and loved hearing the antics of the Fudge. Now I'm reading aloud with the toddler, and it's like deja vu!!
ReplyDeleteThe relationship aspect with my older boy is changing so much so quickly. No more snuggles or playing, and I had hard a time figuring out what to do. Right now, just being in the same room with him (even if we're doing different things) seems to be "close" enough for us, and our trips back and forth to school are a good time for conversation, and my showing interest in the really crazy things he finds on the internet and his gaming makes him happy.
They really do grow up so quickly. I used to fear their getting older, but now that I'm seeing my older boy go from boy to young man, I'm excited.
I think a parent's interest is invaluable! I was stuck in traffic recently and witnessed the greatest little mother-son interaction in the car behind me. I had no idea what they were saying, of course, but you could tell they were comfortable with each other, joking, laughing, then talking seriously.....and it made me look forward to having a teenager!
DeleteBUT NOT YET!! Time, slow down for me.....;)
What a sweet thing to see! Those moments are great.... and yes, time slow down is a mantra of mine, too.
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