What do we want for our children? A detailed answer to that question is of course extremely complex and there's no way I (nor most good parents) can answer it in one blog entry. Yet we do have a basic ideas that drive every decision we make as parents.
First what we want most of all is that our children have a saving knowledge of and relationship to Jesus Christ. The purpose for all of man kind is to know God thorough Jesus by His word the Bible and to make Him known. That is the core motivation in which we want our children to live their lives, regardless of what path they take. By living for Christ through the Holy Spirit God will continuously reveal His will and their calling for their lives. And by that they will also be sanctified to become more Christ like everyday.
That being said, we also want our children to know that they are indeed free to pursue the dreams God has put in their heart. Not in some distant future after they earned a diploma or when they reach some arbitrary age limit. We want them to know that they can reach for those dreams now! As a family we don't follow daily schedules. We do have routines, since that is part of basic human nature, but each day unfolds on it's own. Of course living in this world there are times when certain things have to be planned, such as play dates, doctor's appointments, business matter like festivals, etc. And we as a family have no problems fulfilling those obligations or making those appointments and then going about our lives. It's never a big deal. No schedule has to be rearranged and appointment books don't have to be reorganised. Those moments come and go and so do our days.
That doesn't mean that we don't have long term goals. We make sure that are children are well aware of the plans we have for our family and we consider their thoughts and opinions in much of the decision making. The final say is Nick's since he is the head of our family, but it always is a decision based on the input of all of us.
By living free from rigid schedules of any sort our children are able to pursue their loves and passions. They might need help from us to find the tools and supplies they require to complete whatever project they are working on. Sometimes we can answer their questions, but many times we can't so we seek the answers together. Often they don't require anything from us at all other than moral support and they can achieve their goals by themselves.
Interestingly enough "lazy" is not a word that has ever come to mind of when thinking of my kidskids. As a matter of fact when they work very hard when pursuing an interest. Rosie spends hours a day perfecting her anime art. Even when she's experienced frustrations, she pushes on and is getting better every day. Isabella pushed through her dance rehearsals, by choice of her own and not by our prompting at all, even though she came back very tired from the demanding routines every week after every practice, because her goal was to preform on stage. And she did! When Nicky is taking something apart or figuring out how something works he sits intently working on figuring things out and he doesn't give up until he's done. Ooh, and our Eva who so far has been our biggest risk taker. At 14 months there is no obstacle she has not mastered that she wanted to master! No chair is too tall, no stair is too high, no play ground too big. We constantly have to have an eye on her, even if she doesn't know it because her motto is "No Fear". Eva is the first and only child that we've ever had to take to the ER for stitches, and that was despite the fact that both Nick and I were in the same room right by her when she had her accident. She also loves to doodle and pretends to "read". Those are just a few recent examples. I can go on for pages and pages if I consider all that my children have achieved with out the need of us forcing them to or telling them what we think they should do at their ages. Lazy, nope, not our kids.
As for responsibility, my kids are amongst the most responsible people I know. Normal life has naturally provided them many opportunities to learn responsibility. First of all they see it modeled those those around them including, but certainly not limited, to us their parents. They've experienced the care of several children from pregnancy to birth and beyond by living with me their mother. They've seen their dad work almost every day of their lives, rain or shine, in sickness and in health. They see citizens of the world driving responsibly on the road, payng for merchandise they desire at the store, workers of all sorts doing theirs jobs dutifully, witnessed many acts of kindness by stranger to strangers, the list goes on indefinitely.
They see us, their parents, committed to each other in marriage through Christ for better or worse and our children have no fear, like sadly many other children do, that our marriage will fall apart because they've witnessed us go through tough times in our marriage, and yet not once did we ever chose to escape but instead we persevered through God's grace and our marriage has become stronger for it.
At home we all work together as a family to maintain a clean and safe place to live. No need for assigned chores or punishments and tears for undone work. The kids have been told by us time and time again that we are a family as as a family we must be united in keeping our home a joyful place to live and part of that includes chores. Sure, sometimes there are objections, but that is OK. I hate chores too! However they push though the unpleasant moment and the work gets done.
So what do we want for our children? We want them to know that when a life is lived for the Lord it can be lived free!
