Let’s help our homeschool kids spend their time wisely, so they have meaningful childhood memories and they learn to live their lives on purpose.
Parenting is short-lived. That’s a statement that doesn’t always feel true. Yet it is.
So how do we help our kids live their lives on purpose?
Time moves quickly after having a few children.
Not so in the first year after my first child’s birth.
She was gorgeous.
I was never more excited to wake up each morning except in those days. Except that I was too tired to wake up each of those mornings.
She was adorable for a reason: because if she weren’t, the effort would have been too much.
My first daughter didn’t want to sleep but was desperate for it. She didn’t want to be put down but wasn’t soothed by being carried all day.
It was a bracing introduction to parenting. A. Lot. Of. Work.
But she was a beautiful baby. Despite not having a digital camera to capture all the moments (there were no digital options when she was born), I took an incredible number of photos (that I also developed at the Walmart camera department).
Kodakifying each moment seemed realistic.
I even scrapbooked every last photo for my first daughter.
Everything about that first year was magical.
But it also felt like one long night.Â
Time can slow to a snail’s pace when you’re not sleeping.
Then magically, she’s all grown up, backpack slung on her back and zooming out the door to drive to the airport where she’s spending five months traveling around Mexico.
In a blink of an eye.
How do we help our kids live their lives on purpose? We need to invest our kids’ time, not just spend it.
What do we want them to remember?
What do we want them to learn?
Their childhood doesn’t have to be reflected in our culture’s attachment to online gaming, social media, or time spent at the mall. It doesn’t have to be consumed by reading semi-useful info tidbits, then regurgitating those tidbits for standardized tests. Or it could include some of these activities.
We can teach our children to live life on purpose, explore their interests, and find meaningful work now.
“Your child is a runner. You’re helping them to find their lane.”
There are a bazillion kids out there, and we assume they all need to know the same things to become effective, functional contributors to their families, communities, and society.
Maybe they aren’t cookie-cutter replacements for the last grade of school kids. Maybe they were put on this earth to do their thing, in their own way.
So though there are days when we need to plant them in front of the television so we can zone out with Pinterest, a good book, or cuddle with a cappuccino, their time is short. Let’s make meaningful, intentional memories with them.
Let’s help them to spend their time wisely, so they have childhood memories, and teach them how to live life on purpose.
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“We assume they all need to know the same things to become effective, functional contributors to their families, communities and society.” I like this statement, it’s something that has come to mind lately in my own life as I move from stay-at-home homeschooling mom to having to be bread-winner for my children and I. As I look for jobs that pay enough to support us, I also take into consideration what I can feel proud of saying is my job title. I’ve been contemplating a vein of thought liken to your own in reference to my own self-value as I look for work and consider different avenues; and where I hope my children end up. Can I possibly say that it would be ok if they just entered the work-force, or are they required to get a college education? Does a college education make them functional contributors to their families, communities and society? This is a tough one to get over if you ever attended public high school where you are taught that college and your work is all that there is in life. I think that this which you state is left out of education entirely actually, as funny as that sounds. I don’t think that education in public schools, or even 4-year colleges, aims to make children grow into functional contributors of anything, but to merely get out with a degree – that’s all, and leave the proper marks behind so that the test-makers can feel proud of themselves. But, luckily, life IS more than what your job is. I think you are right on: investing in your kids’ time rather than just spending it will reach this goal: to achieve being effective and functional contributors to LIFE; it will help them find self-worth in more than just a job title, but in who they are, what their interests and hobbies are, and how their failures pan out into being something they can learn from (aka: victories). Thanks for the thought-provoking post. I’ve been enjoying many of your posts lately! 🙂
Absolutely with you! I have a couple certificates and a nursing degree too. My husband a medical doctor originally educated as a pharmacist. We’re trained in the system. We’re now gearing our kids towards college entry (Ill explain why sometime–there was also a time I was radically unschooling). But I don’t think a post secondary education is a requirement for a functional contributor to life. ‘Who they are, their interests and how they learn from failures’…both their biggest education and their biggest contribution! And thanks for the encouragement;)
PS You have very big shoes to fill homeschooling and breadwinning! You go girl! Warrior woman here you roar!!
Muchas gracias! Thanks!
Though I try to be open to the ideas of whatever my children may choose to do after their school years, I have to admit that a college education is something that I do hope for as well. My daughter is very smart, and lately has been coming up with ideas of what she wants to be when she grows up. I feel like my job is guidance counselor – since I feel that mine pretty much let me down – in helping her have insight into the actual steps to get into whatever career she chooses – because just going to college doesn’t cut it anymore! Right now, she is 5, and her current career choice is to be a biologist of some kind, which is totally cool with me, because that’s what I went to college for! I know that this will change again and again and again. My goal as parent is to allow them the liberty to dabble in and explore whatever career path they want and have a realistic idea of how to get from steps A to B, but also to feel that they will have value if they choose some other path that does not require a college education but fits their personality. I want them to feel value in who they are for who they are just because they are them. Thus, it is so important to” invest in their time,” to let them know that their interests are important, their growth is important to us as parents, that we are their cheerleaders in whatever they are drawn to. This is validating parenting at it’s greatest. 🙂
Oh, I will be interested in hearing more abut your journey – the homeschooling and bread winning – maybe keep in touch so we can share some resources?. I had been juggling and struggling with that from the get go – having to do both- and yet to discover / create a good system for us that I would find satisfying. The school in my eyes does not only NOT teach about contributing to society, but quite the opposite, it quite deeply and sometimes maybe subconsciously ingrains in the young adults the attitude of ‘uncontribute’ – cheat the system, cheat on exams just to pass, ‘work’ the job to get the paycheck, cheat to get to the top, etc. etc.
Yes, I think the current education system does exactly that: teaches how to ‘uncontribute’ – college included actually, because I was told a lot that it’s a lot about who you know… Which is totally uninteresting to me! I want my personal interests and passions to be the reason I move forward! Thank you for your kind words. If you would like to email me, jet me an email at irini11ATyahoo.com or aplaceforlittlesproutstogrowATgmail.com. You say that you have been struggling with working and homeschooling, do you work full-time as well? As I stare at having to go back to work full-time, I am so torn about what to do because it seems like it will be impossible to homeschool, but I so, so, so want to, for the reasons in this post and those which I put in my reply. Good luck to you!
I will reply in an email. 🙂
I agree with this great post and the comments. Right now I’m reading a wickedly sarcastic book called “10 Ways to destroy your child’s imagination” which is an excellent cultural criticism of our society’s tendency to occupy every second of our children’s childhood with busywork, classes, scheduled events, and other “productive” activities, leaving them so little time to play, wander outside, explore the universe and themselves, to find out who they really are…so much more than a cookie cutter consumer! I highly recommend it…both inspiring and funny!
http://www.amazon.com/Ways-Destroy-Imagination-Your-Child/dp/1610170792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443700092&sr=8-1&keywords=10+ways+to+destroy+the+imagination+of+your+child
Thank you!
Wonderful inspiration as always!
I nominated you for the Liebster Blog Award. If you wish to play along you can check out what that is here, http://unschoolingmommaandpoppy.com/2015/10/12/unschooling-momma-and-poppy-have-received-the-liebster-award/
Why thank you! I was nominated twice in the last few months!
Well congratulations. I have been nominated twice as well and it is my first year blogging.
Well done!