Raising world changers means that we are raising children to be pioneers as well as to be prepared to meet the challenges they will face throughout life. To be both proactive and to also be able to deal with any issue they stumble across. These issues may be big or small. There is no way that we can train a child to be prepared to face every issue. A far greater impact can be had by helping them to learn how to go about solving problems and where to source help.
Part of our children’s training involves getting them to help around the home and to brainstorm how to solve common household dilemmas. Matey (7) is excellent at helping and loves fixing things. We allow him to have a go first at trying to fix the common household problems so that he can learn how to do it. Matey loves using the screwdrivers and I encourage him to have first go at fixing things where appropriate. Princess can tend to leave the fixing stuff for Matey, but I believe that gender shouldn’t matter. They both need to be competent in able to manage a household. I want my future son-in-law and daughter-in-law to be thrilled with how competent their partner is in managing the household.
Internet Safety
Princess (10) created an email address and a Facebook page for the ‘Books 4 Cambodia project’. I love being proactive when I can, so we have tried to address the whole issue of internet safety lately. We have chatted about what she is allowed to do and not do. We also have full access to her email account and the facebook page that she created for her book project. The computer that she is allowed to use is set up in the kitchen/dining area so that we can see what she is doing on the computer. She is also not allowed to send an email to her friends without running it past me first. It may seem a bit rigid, but I would prefer to be safe than sorry. Last year Princess’ friend sent an email to me to give to Princess. In the email, she was requesting to come and stay the night at our home. When chatting with her mother later that day, the mother had no idea what her daughter was sending. At ten years old, they believe they are more mature than what they really are. We have also chatted at length about cyber bullying and who you allow to be your internet friend and your privacy settings. Also, we have discussed what is sensible to post and what is not, security wise and also future wise in relation to information about yourself.
It also raised an ethical dilemma with Princess creating the Facebook page because you are meant to be 13 years old to have a Facebook page. I was prepared for Princess to create it for the experience, instead of me having to create it, but as soon as this project is complete, we will delete it. Also, it is only to be used for the Books 4 Cambodia Project. I give permission to all my friends to let me know if they are aware of her doing stuff on facebook that she is not allowed to do.
Books 4 Cambodia
Princess sent 38 letters to Private Schools last week and in return we received several thousand books. We have now sorted and packed 3,000 books with another 1,000 books still in the carport for sorting and packing. It takes a lot of time. One of the challenges for me is to make sure that I don’t spend too much time sorting books with the kids and let that take over our lives.
Ministry time
The Church we are involved in had a special healing conference last weekend. Our whole family is on the Healings Room Team. I believe that, where suitable, it is great to have the kids with us as more seems to be caught than taught. We were all involved in the Team Dinner Friday night and then attended the Conference all day Saturday. By Saturday night we were all extremely tired. One of the issues we struggle with sometimes is pacing ourselves. Sunday afternoon we had a low key afternoon and early night Sunday night.
Character
When I am tired, I can get quite impatient with the kids. This last week, I realised yet again that I set the tone in our house. If I get up grumpy in the morning, then the kids are likely to follow suit. If I get distracted on the computer of a morning instead of commencing schoolwork, then the kids get easily distracted too and grumpy. I realised this last week that my children’s behaviour and attitude is a reflection of what I have modelled.
I was also reminded this week that the words we say can have a powerful effect, both good and bad. A ‘throw away line’ about a child can impact them greatly and we need to be so careful in not only what we say but how we say things.
Board games
School recommenced this last week and the kids have a renewed passion for board games. To be honest, they would play them all the time – I get a little sick of the same game over and over. ‘Mastermind’ and ‘Sorry’ were the winners this week with us playing them over and over. ‘Sorry’ is great for teaching patience and not getting upset about another person winning. ‘Mastermind’ is great at teaching them to think laterally and to be observerant and careful.