Family

3 Ways We are Trying to Raise Timeless Kids

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Childhood is timeless, but not the way we do it.

In a society that defines childhood in some ultra-modern ways, parents (at least I do) live in constant fear of accidentally stealing the magic of childhood from our kids. Certainly other parents will tell you that’s what you’re doing. But ancient parents didn’t stick with the same childrearing principles for thousands of years just because they had no other ideas. Those principles stuck around with good reason and we shouldn’t toss them out willy nilly.

So, once again, timelessness is the center of our parenting discussions. Here’s what we have come up with so far:

  1. Toy Minimalism… sort of

Think about stories of people from other times — How many toys did kids have before the beginning of modern life? One? Two? Always at least an amount you can count on your hands.

And I’m sure those kids loved those toys and played so creatively with those toys (and often played with things that weren’t toys!) since necessity is the mother of invention. 

That’s the feeling we want for our kids’ childhood — not a long list of toys in their head, but the ability to play deeply with a few toys and pretend or reconfigure the ones they have when they need something new.

So, do we practice toy minalism? Not really. Does our toddler have more toys than we think she should? Really, yes. But, we try to be careful of the value of what toys come in and she is much more limited in number of toys than pretty much all of her friends. On top of that (because grandparents are going to do their thing), we rotate her toys in and out. 

  1. Time outside is precious

We love the work of Charlotte Mason, who says kids should be outside for at least 6 hours a day! We work hard and manage at least 20 minutes. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it does say a lot to our value of outside time that we set it aside so rigorously. 

Kids should be outside doing things that kids have been doing since the beginning of time — running, jumping, wrestling, looking around at nature, and building things with the resources they find. 

Our outside time for our kids is very precious and guarded when possible. 

  1. Work, work, work

Kids used to work a lot more than they often do now. Thinking of ancient examples, tiny kids have had to do everything from taking care of animals to putting away their own clothes to helping to cook. And those kids had energy and focus, creativity and attentiveness in ways modern childhood has to go entirely without. 

So we are trying to bring some of those principles into our kids’ lives. The toddler comes around and helps me with picking up, she helps Daddy build things, she cleans her own room…

(We hope) she is learning that hard work is good and that she has the ability to do more than she thinks. 

  1. Centering everything around God

Since the beginning of time, people have been pointing each other to the God who created us and rules over everything. We want to be people who walk around quoting large portions of Scripture in every day conversations, who talk about God, who do work for His glory, and who see the beauty in the world as a reflection of Him. We want everything we do in our day to be to point us and our children to His goodness and wisdom.

(And that’s so timeless, angels were doing it before time even began!)

 

How well do we do on these? Depends on the day. But the more days we have full of hard work, energetic outdoor romps, too much creativity to need toys, and reverential and beautiful worship for God, the better parents I think we’ll be. 

Family, Rhythms

Rhythms, Not Clocks

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Time is confusing. And always moving. And seemingly impossible to get under control.

Work, cleaning, kids, planning, school, cooking, projects… How do we fit it all in? And what does that tell us about our lives? 

In my Type A personality, I problem solve by writing exact schedules with specific times. But life never works on a schedule, and everyone gets stressed.

My husband tends to go with the flow — let’s just deal with what is happening now. But that leads to forgotten responsibilities and stress when necessities start to collide.

So let’s look at the timeless approach. What has always existed and always will exist as far as structuring our days? 

Well, the sun and the moon, for one. God put those in the sky “to rule the day” and “to rule the night” (Genesis 1). Even when clocks didn’t exist, people could look at the sun and estimate how far into the day it was and how much time was left. That remains true today and always will.

I would say rhythms, too, are pretty timeless. People everywhere have at least some feel for their day — what they do when they wake up, when they eat which meals, what they do to relax at the end of the day. 

Then structure as far as seasons, special days, etc. give structure to time even further, again across times and cultures.

Well, our family looked at our modern versions — our schedules with their feelings of overwhelm, inability to be present in moments, and the stress — even for our preschooler. That’s not really life as it would be recognized by people in most of the world even today, let alone throughout history.

Erin Loechner said:

“Life is immeasurable, with a path that winds in the most unfathomable, incredible way. Rather than setting a goal to encourage the arrival, consider setting a compass to encourage the journey. A compass guides graciously, rather than mandates mercilessly. It offers a gentle whisper that yes, you’re headed in the right direction.”

That’s the sense of life that is wrapped up in the world as it drums along in it’s days and seasons. The Earth doesn’t mind, for example, that the calendar says that it is spring but it has decided to send us some snow again today. It’s the big picture — the direction — the rhythm. 

Daily Rhythms 

Every day has a beginning, middle, and end — or so says the sun. And that’s about the level we try to plan out our days. We have a first, second, and third, but not a mad dash to finish getting a preschooler and baby dressed by a specified minute.

So, for example, a morning typically looks like this:

  1. Mr. L gets up and does some homework and some exercise
  2. Mrs. L and kids wake up — quiet play for preschooler, Bible for mom, feeding baby
  3. Everyone gets dressed
  4. Breakfast and morning Bible verse
  5. Go outside
  6. Morning chores
  7. Lunch

This is super flexible — sometimes my husband leaves for school or work at 6:30 AM and sometimes he leaves at 10:30, but we can still stick to this basic structure. Sometimes there are extra tantrums or someone is sick or we are just having so much fun playing, so things take longer. There are no set times to make us feel stressed or too far behind.

The only times that we have set specifically are nap is around 1:30 and family worship in the evenings (right before bedtime) starts by 7:30. That’s it!

We find we have time for cleaning, playing, cooking, homework, and jobs, and feel like we are experiencing a life rather than performing a schedule.

Weekly Patterns

This is one we are still working on, but especially with Mr. L out of the house so often, we wanted to make sure we were using time well as a family for each other and for God’s glory. There’s more to life than the daily cleaning that you’ll just have to do tomorrow or making calls for work that will just need done again next week.

So, we have tried to build in patterns for our week.

For instance, we spend Saturday planning the next week and preparing for Sunday. Sunday is just for church and rest. We have a day that we do something fun as a family and a day that we set aside to help someone else.

This is very much a work in progress, but it is amazing how much more relaxed it is than trying to keep up with a running to do list or trying to analyze if you have set aside enough time for something (although we shouldn’t get rid of that completely). And it sets such a security in knowing how we have decided to intentionally spend time and where we are in our week. 

But what about outside the home?

Sure, we can try to build our schedule to be more flexible, more human based, and more rhythmic, but like I commented as we were racing out the door with an unfed baby who had needed 2 diaper changes to try to get to his doctor appointment at the specified time — our society is not at all timeless. 

Church, class, work, and yes, doctors, all require specific times — even plans with friends! 

I guess our thought is that rhythms give you a better sense of what time even means for you — what it will look like to get out the door on time. Rhythms start to take a general pattern that you can count on and understand and tweak to fit your circumstance because you already know, “Oh, breakfast usually takes us about 30 minutes.”

We’ll let you know when ours has gotten down pat.

Any timeless advice for us? Do you find yourself living more rhythmically or more scheduled?