“…the manner in which the child chooses to spend his time will reflect his character and quality of his education. Check his free time choices and you check his character.” From Wisdom’s Way of Learning— the Science, Art, and Tools of Learning; pg 89. ~ Marilyn Howshall
My sons choose to listen to music, play video games, do facebook, and go skateboarding. They spend time hanging out with friends, playing basketball or watching movies. I’m trying to figure out what these activities say about their character and their education?
—Looking for Character
Look for Christlike Character
Character is the sum of our relational habits and practices. In order to look at the character involved in these choices, we’ll need to look at what is happening relationally. The most important relationships we have are with our immediate family, with God, and with our own growth process (which is our education and our discipleship).
A child’s free time is the time that he is not being required to do something else. When we require our children to do a certain activity, we’re governing them from the outside, telling them what to do, and as they obey, they are fulfilling assignments that came from the outside of themselves. It is good and right for our children to learn to obey, and we definitely need to instruct them in what is right to do, but maturity of character is measured in what children choose to do when they are NOT being governed from the outside. In other words, what motivates them to direct their “own” time and relational behaviors the way they do.
All believers including children are supposed to be learning how to love, being led by the Holy Spirit, and changing (growing) from glory to glory. The goal of the Christian life is to become like Christ, sacrificially giving in order to meet the needs of others, expecting nothing in return—this is Love. Likewise, the goal of the Christian life is lay aside and put to death all self-centeredness, independence, and self-indulgence.
Unfortunately, most homeschooling parents are unknowingly sowing toward a different goal. According to their actual behaviors, parents are trying to get their children to obey them when they’re told to complete academic assignments (this is considered education) and get them to like attending religious events like church and family devotions (this is considered to be discipleship). As for the rest of the child’s time, he can pretty much do anything as long as he doesn’t get into trouble.
A child who is actually becoming Christlike will progressively choose to spend his “own” time sacrificially loving and blessing others starting with his immediate family, directed from the inside out by the Holy Spirit, and diligently pursuing activities that cause him to grow. This growth will be in line with the unique bents and in-born traits that God put in him from the beginning. He will seek out instruction for how to move forward from the Holy Spirit and cooperate with God to become a unique blessing to people around him. These chosen activities will be the evidence of his true education and his discipleship.
So how do activities such as playing video games, doing facebook, watching movies and hanging out with friends reveal diligent and active pursuit of close, loving, serving, giving relationships with the immediate family—siblings and parents? They don’t. How do these activities reveal an active diligent pursuit of growing in unique skills and abilities, pressing forward toward individual life purpose? They don’t.
There’s nothing wrong or sinful about any of those activities when they’re approached with moderation and togetherness WITH the family, but when the child’s own chosen LIFE is wrapped up in these activities, he is likely serving himself and his own desires for leisure and indulgence. Even his activities that include friends are self-serving because of the approval and diversion he gets from his friends, making those activities the opposite of sacrificial giving. The time he could be building strong relationships with his family, God, and his own growth process (education) he is wasting in self-pleasing leisure.
You will be able to tell if the child is finding his life in these independent and peer-centered activities if you imagine how he would respond if he was not permitted to do them, and what would he do instead. If the answer is—he would be either upset/angry or bored, or both—then these activities are where his heart is.
What Does Christlike Character Look Like in a Teenager?
It’s been such a blessing in my family to witness Christlike character forming in my teenagers (I have four of them right now), and to be the instrument of the Holy Spirit to help bring it about. My children engage in progressive skill development in their areas of interest (pursuing their own education) whenever we as a family are not doing something else. When meals are over and chores are done, they can be found pursuing their purposeful interests and/or actively participating and helping with their sibling’s interests, as well as voluntarily helping and serving me and what I’m doing. This normal family activity extends to and includes the weekends and serving in our community. We enjoy working and learning together, and so when we relax and play, we do it together as a family.
Search for Christlike Character for yourself, and you’ll be better able to see it, or the lack of it in your children.
~Barbie Poling
Eye-opening. Thanks for taking time to post this Barbie. I’m internalizing now. 🙂
Oney
I love how you said:
“How do these activities reveal an active diligent pursuit of growing in unique skills and abilities, pressing forward toward individual life purpose? They don’t.”
and:
“The time he could be building strong relationships with his family, God, and his own growth process (education) he is wasting in self-pleasing leisure.”
Wow. This answered many questions I had. Not to mention–sorely convicting. Thank you.
I too found this to be eye opening. I just wish I knew what to do to “fix” things now. Although they are only allowed to be played on weekends, my husband and I regret ever having allowed video games into our house (and facebook for our eldest daughter). At times I don’t mind them – when my children are all playing together (from the 19yo down to the 6yo) and they’re laughing, playing together and having fun; but at other times, I honestly hate how addictive they seem to be and how much time the kids can spend on games if allowed. So… how does one go about fixing something like this?
Dear Patrice,
There is nothing sinful or wrong in general with facebook or video games. They’re both forms of recreation. Our children need to be taught how to approach recreation with moderation, and keep their family relationships central. Children in their later teens who are being trained in Christlike character need only to have a conversation about moderation. When my son wants to play the little computer game that came with our computer in the evenings, I ask him, “How much do you think would be moderate?” He usually chooses what is moderate himself, “half an hour”. “That sound good. Would you like to set a timer for yourself so that you don’t get carried away?” When the kids have the wisdom to set their own moderate limits on what they will do, they govern themselves to stick to that limit. If they are not wise enough to do so, you may consider why they have the privilege of doing it at all.
So if they do not have the wisdom yet to moderate themselves; we should set it for them by not allowing use of that activity?
I”ve recently had to do that for myself by stepping away from blogging. I realized it was consuming me and not letting me be available as much as I should. Do I need to show this by example for a while first?
Dear Catherine,
You’ll need to be led by the Holy Spirit for the specifics of what you need to do. When you are establishing family relationships because they’ve been dysfunctional, it is really good for your children to have a season of minimal peer influence such as what facebook provides (as well as many other peer activities). If you’re in a season of helping your children overcome boredom, then it would be really good to have a season of minimal self-indulgence such as what video games and movies provide. Your children need to know what you’re doing and why. They need to know what you’re working toward in their character. It is always true that if your children are not mature enough to govern themselves, they need to be governed by you, but the goal is that they govern themselves through maturing character. You’ll need to work at providing a replacement for peers in rich loving family relationships, and replace passive self-entertainment with valuable projects and creativity together.
Thank you for the response – gives me even more to think about. I have some children who seem to be able to play with moderation. They’ll play for a while and then head outside and play ball or catch frogs/snakes… or some other activity. But then I have a couple of others – a 6yo girl and a 14yo boy in particular – who would play for 6 hours straight if I didn’t boot them off. Now that I think about it, it’s when they’re playing by themselves that it seems to be more of a problem. The ones who play with each other seem to change their activity more often. I think I like the timer idea – I could use that myself at times!
Thanks Barbie, this helps. I continue to seek Him on how to go about it. I think in large part, I didn’t fully understand the why behind what I felt was needed. I am understanding that more clearly.
Great post. My 4yo has been consumed with his leapster or the wii in the past. We have had to keep him in check with this by explaining that he made it into an idol. Then he would not be permitted to play it at all for a day, a week, or how ever long was necessary. (We ended the time apart from his video games when he would go for a day or two asking to play them once versus constantly.) He probably doesn’t understand everything about an idol, but just with anything they learn we simplify it and they still get something out of it. Now after doing this for a few months he stopped asking constantly (although it’s not been perfect), and has even said that he “doesn’t want to have an idol.”
I’m sure we have a long way to go with our kids. I’m going to talk to them more about moderation. I’m going to ask the boys what they think is a moderate time, and set the timer. Great idea!
Kelly,
When someone spends a great deal of time on entertaining themselves, it is not the thing that is the idol, it is self-pleasure. The idolatry comes in pleasing self and indulging the appetites of the flesh. Many children will have very valid God-given interests in which they spend a great deal of time. Be careful not to teach your son that if he spends a lot of time at something, that thing is an idol. Moderating our fleshly appetites is something all believers need to learn to do. It’s a valuable life lesson. Idolatry of self is seen in every form of unloving self-seeking relational behavior, attitude, intention, and motivation. Teach him how to be self-sacrificial in loving others at the heart level, and he won’t have a problem with idolatry. ~ Barbie