Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men

This is the idea I like to put forward when I am encouraging my children to work. Unfortunately, I don’t always remember it myself.

My husband and I come from a long line of farmers/ranchers and entrepreneurs, this means lots of independent hardworking people. This brings a lot of characteristics that we also want to instill into our children.

Some people believe children should be children, there is plenty of time for chores and learning to work later in life.

Others believe that you should be teaching them to do chores from the very beginning. This tends to be where we fall in. Because we are entrepreneurs and self-employed our children are not only learning how to wash dishes and laundry and mow the yard, but they are also learning how to build, how to edit websites, how to work with electricity and plumbing.

Let them work when they want to…

When they are little, they are begging to go to work with daddy. They love getting out of the house and learning how to use power tools. As momma, this can make me nervous, but I trust their daddy.

As they reach their teens, they decide that the work isn’t so fun. It’s too much like work. We haven’t found the trick to making sure they don’t get sick of “constantly working”, if any of you have found the secret, please share

They have learned a work ethic

However, as our older boys have gone out and experienced working with others they have received high praise for their work ethic. We’ve discovered they would much rather work for someone other than mom and dad.

Our oldest started working at a local Dickey’s at the age of 16. The managers constantly praised his hard work and initiative. He is now in the Air Force and has actually thanked us for making him learn things. Most of the guys would come to him to iron, because he knew how. He was pursued for a special job because of the electrical knowledge he received working with dad.

Are you modeling a good work ethic?

One of the hardest parts of teaching our children is making sure our actions are teaching them the same thing as our words. That phrase “easier said than done” is all too true sometimes.

Even as adults, especially when we don’t like our boss or the work in front of us, it is so easy to forget who we are representing! If we allow others to know we are Christians (as we should be) but don’t act in a way that glorifies Him, we are doing our Lord an injustice. 

You may not agree with the way we have chosen to raise our children. The only way to instill a good work ethic may not be to start your kids working (with age appropriate tasks) from the time they are walking.

Our second reason for being entrepreneurs and bringing our children along with us is to spend time with them. Being our own bosses means that, to an extent, we can create our schedules. We can bring our kids to work when it works for us. And sometimes when it doesn’t.

We have chosen to spend Saturdays helping dad finish a job so that we can be together as a family. So that it takes a few hours rather than all day. Then we can go play in the afternoon.

Recently we helped dad finish a job so that we could all go to a birthday party in the afternoon. Dad would have missed out on all the fun had he not had help.

How helpful were the 5-year-old and the 3-year-old at shoveling stone, not very. However, they had fun. They got to use shovels and were shown that when you work together the work gets done faster. They are learning about safety and to be aware of their surroundings. They are learning to help out when only one job is left, we all work as a team. We had a goal, and we met that goal.

I am one blessed momma!

What path have you chosen? Do your kids have chores? Are you teaching them a trade? Why or why not? Please be respectful of all, even if they have a different opinion than you. This space is for encouraging and uplifting.

There is a bad stigma around middle children – always ignored, never get any one:one time, everyone else is spoiled because they were the first or the baby etc. Being a middle child myself, I try to make sure mine doesn’t have any of those complaints. I may go too far at times.

We are a blended family with what some call two sets of kids.

I have my older kids – 19, 16, and 15.  My younger kids are 7, 5, and 3. The 3-yr-old is the only girl I carried in my belly and who lives at our home full time. Which probably means she is spoiled rotten. The 7-yr-old is the first child my husband and I had together, the only one I spent months begging God to give me a baby. He can act like the baby of the family or he quickly steps up to play the “oldest” role when his 3 older siblings aren’t around.

The 5-yr-old is a middle child through and through. He is perfectly happy playing by himself and that is where you will find him most of the time. Building something, working out the design all on his own and don’t you dare try to help him build or try to stop him before he’s ready.

He’s the quietest of them all, but when you get him all by himself and there’s no building happening he talks and talks and talks. He will tell you all about the latest Wild Kratt’s episode he watched, or his dream, or tell you a grand story.

One of my favorite times with him was just recently when he was up sick in the middle of the night. He had to tell me all about whales. This was while he was sitting on the bathroom floor feeling sick.

It was 2:30 in the morning. The middle of the night. All I wanted to do was sleep, but he wanted to talk, about whales. Mom did you know…. and he would spout off another fact.

It was tempting to tell him to hush it was time for sleep, especially as we moved to the couch. I thank God I had the patience to listen and just let him talk. It’s when I have that patience to sit and listen that I get a glimpse of who my children really are.

One of my favorite quotes is “Children are not a distraction from the more important work. They are the most important work.” Dr. John Trainer

In Mark 10:14, a much wiser man, Jesus, takes time to spend with the children. He even chastises his disciples for trying to keep them away. Spending time with our children is beneficial to them, but I think sometimes we forget how beneficial it is to us as well. In verse 14 Jesus tells them that we must receive the Kingdom of God like a child. Spending time with our children reminds us just what that means.

How do you make sure you spend one on one time with your child(ren)?