Girls To Grow

This edition of Teaching Tuesday is about letters. I would encourage you to introduce letters to your child at an early age, but NOT in a formal sense. There are many ways to incorporate the ABC’s into your day and have them become part of your play. Here are a few ideas that I used with our girls when they were very young.

When it comes to being a Mom, it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the daily struggles and forget to focus on the big picture. God has given us the precious gift of children and we have only a certain amount of time to prepare them for life.

I was recently reminded by a post at Life as Mom how important it is to set goals for myself as a Mom and then find practical ways to work toward reaching those goals. Here are my initial thoughts as I considered the kind of Mom I want to be.

I want to be a Godly mom who is supportive of her daughters through

• prayer;
• time spent together doing fun and serious activities, realizing how quickly time goes by;
• providing every opportunity for them to reach their God-given potential; and
• open, positive communication about what’s going on in their lives.

I started with prayer because I have come to realize (what I have known all along) that only God can work in a person’s heart and spirit and help them to become all that He would have them to be. There are so many areas in which I can pray for my girls: health, friendships, right attitudes, finding God’s will for their lives, future spouse. I also need to pray for myself that I will continually give them over to God and allow Him to work and lead in their lives.

As for time spent together, I believe that takes planning and preparation. I want to find activities that we can do together as a family. For example, I have scheduled us to attend a free kids’ cooking class next month. A few weeks ago, we attended a Charlotte’s Web play, then went out for dessert afterwards. However, not everything has to be a “big event.” It could be something as simple as a family game night or a picnic in the backyard.

Another area I am exploring now that the girls are a little bit older is finding a volunteer opportunity that we can all participate in – a way to help others by working together. I want to keep in mind that they won’t be this age for long and I want to make the most of it.

With each girl, I am trying to keep my eyes open to potential gifts and talents they may have. One of them is currently going through a writing phase – “journaling” and writing little stories. Whether it’s musical or athletic ability, drama or art, I want to allow them to explore areas of interest to them and support them in it, even if it’s not something in which I’m particularly interested. The goal is to help them develop talents that can be used to serve the Lord and others throughout their lives.

Finally, I strongly desire to keep the lines of communication open. I think a large part of this is just being available – in the car, at meals, at bedtime. I’m hoping that being able to listen now to whatever they have to say and being interested in what’s going on in their lives will bode well for those coming teenage years.

As the weeks go by, I hope to keep these thoughts in the forefront of my mind that I might seek to meet the goals I have set and accomplish the purpose God has for me as a mother.

I’ll be up front with you here….I promise not to have a theme for every day of the week. I’m a relatively scheduled, organized person, but that makes even me a little crazy. However, with my background in education, Teaching Tuesday was just too good to pass up. So, every Tuesday I’ll do a post on a teaching idea or tip that I’ve used or heard about.

Since I’m just beginning my blog, I have to start with the most basic concept of all. Read to your child. Start as early as possible and don’t stop. This one came naturally for me because I love to read. I know my Mom read stacks and stacks of books to us as children. I read to both of my girls while they were in the womb.

Once they were born, we established a habit of reading two books (or stories) before naptime each day and another book, along with a story from a Bible storybook, at bedtime. Many days we read more than that, but at least I knew we had those times scheduled for reading even if the rest of our day was too hectic to fit it in.

We’ve moved past naptime now (except for me some days!), but we continue our bedtime reading every night. The neat thing is that I’m getting to re-read some of my childhood favorites. What a joy to see my girls as enthralled with them as I was!

In later posts, I’ll talk about some of our favorite books at different age levels and give you a glimpse into what we’re reading now. Do you have a special reading time with your child/ren? If so, please share in the comments section below.