What Our Kids Need Before Leaving Home
This summer I'm holding tight to my children. Because this summer is the last before my oldest graduates from high school and stretches her wings beyond our home. I'm not quite at the end of the road of mothering through her childhood years, but I can see it just around the curve up ahead. When my daughter was small, I thought I had all the time in the world before this season would arrive. But these days, I'm pondering all we have poured into her heart, the ways we have invested in her life and what she (and all my children) truly need before they leave home.
Whether your children are still tiny or you are rounding the corner toward a new season like me, these are gifts we can give our children today that will greatly benefit their future.
Give Them A Heart For A Relationship With God
Let your children see your relationship with Jesus on full display- in seasons when you struggle, and in times of great joy- let them watch your dependence on him. Pray with them, read scripture with them, and share what God is teaching you. Weave your relationship with God into the way you tell your family story and in all areas of your life. When our children watch us walk with God, they learn how to walk with him too.
Give Them Heros
Introduce your children to great minds, ideas, stories and new worlds. Select books that help them to dream and that feature people that have changed history, who love virtue and fought great battles. A moral imagination is one that they will carry into every place they may go and inspire their own purpose for how they hops to brighten the world with the light of Christ.
Give Them A Heart For Others
Whether it's through training them to see the needs of others around them and find ways to serve, initiate and invest in friendships, grow in responsibility, communication or manners, helping our children learn how to live for the benefit of others will serve them for their whole lives.
As we walk with our children, sacrifice for them, invest in their friendship, read with them, and even as we teach them how to unload the dishwasher, the gifts we intentionally give each day matter. Their lives are shaped by every small moment stretched out into year after year that develops a firm foundation to launch them from. Whatever season you are in today, know that you are adding to the scaffolding to build something great into the lives of your kids!
Blessings,
Kristen
If you'd like to dig deeper into Ten Gifts of Heart- What Your Child Needs to Take to Heart Before Leaving Home, I would love to invite you to join Sally Clarkson and I on the At Home With Sally and Friends Podcast this summer where we will dive deep into these topics together and with several special guests! Find us at www.itunes.com/athomewithsally
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