December 12, 2012 ~ Issue 35 ~
Merry Christmas Friends!
As this letter goes out, most of you are well underway with your Christmas preparations, while Jim and I and our daughter, Jennifer are on our way to our new home in Bonney Lake. Thoughts and preparations for Christmas are happening much later for us this year. We haven’t put up a tree or decorated, and we haven’t really had a chance to even think about Christmas yet. But we are so looking forward to having our family together at our new home for Christmas Day, and Jennifer will be decorating a tree just in time!
I’ve been thinking about how from a young age children grow to expect certain things as the Christmas season comes around each year, because they’ve been “taught”, not so much through words, but by absorbing the sights, sounds, smells and ideals of the season—Christmas trees and decorations, twinkle lights and candles, bells and music, special foods and activities, and hearing the greatest story ever told—The Nativity. Children hide away in their rooms making meaningful gifts and cards for family, and they grow in loving and becoming self-less givers. If your family celebrates Christ’s birth then your home atmosphere becomes saturated with the sights, sounds, smells, and the spirit of this most Holy Season. More importantly, your children absorb this atmosphere and the “feelings” it creates of hope, love, joy and peace, while making many fond memories throughout the years.
Creating an atmosphere for your family’s lifestyle of learning is much like that too. I was talking with Michelle Gephart awhile back about this idea. You may remember Michelle. I’ve interviewed her a number of times following her Lifestyle of Learning™ Beginnings over the past year. As she worked her manicure magic, making my nails beautiful, she expressed how she was feeling like she was missing something about how to get knowledge into her kids, lots of knowledge that she wanted them to have, but that they weren’t necessarily interested in reading about yet. Her mind was beginning to go back to the hard work of learning the subjects textbook-style, but she already knew that wasn’t the answer. She just hasn’t been sure how to move her kids beyond their current interests or how to help them reach for more knowledge.
Michelle had many of the pieces in place for a whole-life education. She’d been experiencing for over a year the good fruit of focusing on healing their family relationships to lay the foundation for real learning to take off. Her family’s whole lifestyle has been undergoing a radical transformation, but she still wasn’t aware of how much more she could be doing in changing her family’s learning activities. I spoke to her about helping her kids to absorb what she wanted them to know by saturating her home atmosphere with easier forms of learning that her children could simply absorb. I want to share this idea with you too.
Early on in my homeschooling I learned an important lesson about the difference between information and knowledge, and well-formed relational character and well-developed skills. Information and knowledge can be learned effortlessly without laboring to provide like schools do, while relational character and well-developed skills require the parent’s labor, self-discipline, and personal interest in her children’s souls. I decided to expend personal consistent effort on my children’s character and skills, and find easier ways to help them to effortlessly absorb lots of information and knowledge.
We absolutely don’t need to make the acquisition of knowledge hard to do. Kids can absorb so much if repeatedly exposed as a part of their daily lifestyle routine, and they’ll remember it too! Just like they do at Christmas. Here are some of the things I used to do to help my kids absorb a lot of knowledge and information with little effort.
We had three different sets of audios that we played for our kids the first hour after we put them to bed. We rotated for short periods between the dramatized New Testament, dramatized America’s Christian History (“little bear”), and the Story Hour. Our children always wanted to talk about what they were learning from these, and they not only absorbed the stories, but internalized their truths. These became my kids’ favorites for many years, and when Jennifer came to live with us, Kathryn and John wanted to give her some of their happy memories and so they shared their favorite childhood activities, including listening to these tapes.
Pilgrim’s Progress is one of my personal favorites. We listened to these together when we worked in the kitchen, baking or processing food. Discussing the allegory during our reading of several different versions of the story made it easy to just listen to the dramatized version as we worked. We all loved these times together, along with our daily reading time during lunch.
My husband loved to bring our children into nature and science and creation science programming with him, along with any and all educational TV, how things are made, and the history channel. As the kids matured, Jim graduated from these early beginnings to listening to audios with them about finances, investing and business. They watched FOX news, the NASA Channel, and political debates. No matter the subject content, it had their complete attention.
During our family dinner meals we talked about everything! We made connections between knowledge and personal values, political ideas and reality, biblical truths and relational applications. We never talked about what we don’t do as a family. We never talked about our fears or other people. We never talked about what we can’t do, but only spoke with love, and vision toward purpose, with a “can do” spirit.
I liked to play spiritual music in the car for us to listen to while going on errands. We prayed and sang together, worshipping the Lord and speaking to heart-level needs. We reached out to people, helping our kids to be interested in more than their own interests, to selflessly give and to have compassion.
All of these things they absorbed effortlessly through our environment which was saturated with things I wanted them to learn.
Their spiritual character is where my primary efforts went, along with the development of strong learning skills. We addressed all misunderstandings, aiming for loving understanding. My children loved the Lord and continued to follow His will for their lives as they matured into adulthood. They grew up with the strong relational foundation that facilitated and sustained a vital love of learning. Their rich lifestyle of learning has served them well in every practical way, and because of my efforts toward developing their character, they know how to think right about life!
What can you do differently in your home atmosphere to help your children absorb more knowledge and remember it better and longer so your efforts can be free to go toward what is truly important in life?
I pray you are inspired toward God’s increasing love in your family during this holy season. Remember how much Jesus loves you and is with you. May His peace be yours.
LOLACHE members, we would love to hear about your ideas in the Moms forum! You may find even more ideas in the LOLACHE resource section.
If you’re not yet a LOLACHE member, you can tour the members only website by signing up at the top of the page here. We’d love to have you join us!
Grateful to be in the Lord’s service,
Marilyn Howshall for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries
[Lifestyle of Learning™/LOLACHE eNewsletter ~ December 12, 2012, Issue 35]