Thirty years ago when my husband and I began homeschooling my younger sister and we had a little one-year-old toddler, all the homeschooling buzz was teaching our children the Bible and protecting them from bad teaching at school in terms of humanism. Humanism was a buzzword at that time, and those of us who were seeking homeschooling were going to keep our children from being indoctrinated by it. Here we are thirty years later, and there are many other dangerous teachings in government schools besides just the original homeschool enemy of humanism.

None of us like to think that if our children go to school they are being taught bad things. But if we look at many teachings in schools, we have to admit that much of it is not what we would be teaching our children if they were at home with us—because we wouldn’t want to teach them things that are opposite of the Bible. Sex education has taken on a whole new meaning as now curriculum is provided for schools to teach about gay marriage and to push many non-traditional (i.e. non-Biblical) family arrangements.

When we take our children to museums, I always think about all of the things that we tell them as we walk through the exhibits. How the billions of years are not true. How we do have an intelligent designer. How the creation story in the Bible is really the truth. And on and on and on. Then I think how difficult it would be if my children were in school. We would not just be looking at how to undo one day at the museum with creation materials and biblical teaching. Every year in science and even many times in history, our children would be learning that evolution is true, that the big bang is what really happened, that there is no creator. I often feel overwhelmed just trying to undo one day at the zoo or one day at a history or science museum. I can’t imagine how a parent could have the time, energy, and resources to undo ongoing teaching that contradicts the Bible that is taught in science classes year after year.

This is not a guilt trip for those who have to send their children to school by any means. It is not even a guilt trip for those who choose to send their children to school. But I would be remiss if I did not say that a major benefit of keeping our children at home with us is being able to teach them the Bible every single day.

It is not just creation, biblical marriage, life at conception, and other “science” teachings, but it is way bigger than those. Through homeschooling we have been able to, day in and day out for at least twenty-five years, teach our children the one another’s of Scripture, how to live like Jesus would live in our treatment of others, what the Bible says about character and living above reproach, how to have strong relationships by interacting in a way that is pleasing to God, how to make wise decisions, how to become an outstanding worker through applying biblical concepts, how to guard our hearts from evil and those who would lead us astray, how to live a moral life, and so much more.

If teaching our children science as it applies to the Bible were all we were able to do, that would be enough to say that this homeschool benefit is valid. But I was able to spend every day for twenty-five years reading aloud to my children from godly poetry, hymns, character training books, nature books that are biblically-based, creation science materials, the Bible, discipleship books that point us to living for Christ, and much more. My husband and I have also been able to teach our children from the Bible as we “walk in the way,” “sit in our house,” “rise up,” and “lie down to sleep.”

Being able to teach our children from our own religious beliefs is truly a major benefit of homeschooling – – let’s not let this opportunity slip by and become complacent in teaching the Bible and God’s principles every day in our home schools.

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At the end of a recent post “Time in a Bottle”, I promised a Timely Tip article, so here it is!

After thirty-two years of parenting (and thirty years of homeschooling, beginning with homeschooling my younger sister), we have learned a ton abut time management. Some of it we use every day. Other tips were used during certain seasons. And still others we use just occasionally. Here are “Five Timely Tips“ (in no certain order) that I hope will help parents find more time to train their children, love their children, play with their children, and just be WITH their children.

1. Attach things to things already in your schedule

Twenty-five years ago we were blessed to learn from an amazing family teacher, Gregg Harris. One of the things that he taught us that we began implementing immediately–and continue to use to this day–is the concept of attaching important things to things already in your schedule.

Mr. Harris said that our children (and we!) already eat three times a day; they already get up in the morning and go to bed at night. If we want to make something stick in our routines with them, attach that important activity (reading to them, devotions, talking together, etc.) to one of these “already-in-the-schedule-no-matter-what” activities).

We came home and started attaching things to our meals, rising times, and bed times–and before we knew it, we were attaching attachments to our attachments! It really worked!

We started out simple–just keeping a family devotional by the dinner table for one of us to read while the rest cleaned up the meal, moving the kids’ breakfast to the little table where I planted myself on the end and read as they ate, etc. But before we knew it, a little bit at a time, we were doing many wonderful things that we thought only really disciplined and perfect families did.

2. Watch out for time robbers

 In “Time in a Bottle,” I described how we would respond if someone were to break into our car and steal our wallet–and $100. We would be outraged! It would serve us well in our families to be a little bit more outraged by time robbers in our lives–those things that steal our time (or that we allow to steal our time).

The statistics on television viewing, “screen time,” and more are alarming when you consider the number of hours we spend on entertainment vs with our children. I like movies and entertainment as much as the next person, but, thankfully, we were taught by intentional parents many years ago that we cannot let entertainment overtake our lives–and pull us away from the important things in life–God, spouse, children, and others.

Rather than tell you to get rid of this or that, let me leave you with this thought about time robbers: If the latest stats about average weekly “screen time” of thirty-three hours per week per person are really true, can you imagine what would happen if any of us who are logging that kind of “recreational” screen time simply took half of that time to be with those we love, to truly raise our children, and to serve others and the Lord?

3. Understand Seasons of Life

The aforementioned Gregg Harris also taught us about an important concept concerning time and priorities: the seasons of life. At the time that we heard his teaching about doing things that are in “your season,” we were a young couple with four small children trying to do what “elders” should do–and wondering why there wasn’t time for everything.

Once we understood that our season was “babies and business” at that time, we were free–free to raise our children (and work really hard at that!) and free for Ray to work to earn a living, but not necessarily do everything else that men without four small kids were doing.

Guess what? We started to get good at what we were doing! We started being successful in our parenting–simply because we had the time to do what we really needed to do.

If you have trouble saying no to things that are obviously out of your season, I recommend that you get this teaching (Ebay?) and take it to heart. Even if you don’t get the entire teaching, consider these few paragraphs here. Are you continually trying to “fit it all in”? Maybe some things you are trying to do aren’t really for you right now.

4. Skip the good to do the best

This sort of goes along with Tip #3, but this, too, was a “great awakening” for our family. Everything looks “good”–all of the dozens of activities for our kids, many programs and hobbies for parents, even Bible studies and Christian groups. And now with the internet, we are bombarded with good things to do all the time–ways to make our home more beautiful, our food more healthful, our children more cleverly-dressed, and more.

And there is nothing wrong with any of those. But I would appeal to you that some of those things are good. But just good. That’s all. Good, but not best.

Each family has to determine what is their family’s “best.” Nobody but you and your spouse can do that. However, when we went through our family’s schedule and rated things as simply “good” and “yes, best,” it was another eye opener for us that allowed us to streamline our lives and make the most of our time.

Hint: The “bests” for all of us will include at least some time with our kids–and probably less running!  🙂

 5. Show your kids their value to you by giving them the greatest gift of all–-time

Okay, so you are tired of hearing me say this. But if you had unearthed the most amazing tool for raising children ever to be discovered, would you be able to keep quiet about it? Smile…. (Okay, maybe the Reishes didn’t “unearth” it, but we are still shouting it from the mountaintops anyway!)

In our parenting seminar (“Raising Kids With Character”), my husband loves to tell the story of Absalom in II Samuel. In summary, the people who came to the king for help kept stopping outside the gates and getting advice from Absolam. The verse says, “And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel” (Ii Sam. 15:6).

As Ray likes to tell it: What did Absalom do that allowed him to “steal the hearts” of the Israelites? He was available.

There is nothing that shows people their value to us like the giving of ourselves, the giving up of our time for them. This is true in the marriage relationship–and it is also true for our children. Our children will “give their hearts” (as in the Absalom story) to those who are available to them.

I am persuaded that one of the strongest factors in the relationships that we have with our teens and young adults (seven kids, ages sixteen through thirty-two) is our availability. They know that we will give up anything of our own to spend time with them. We show them their value to us by giving them the greatest gift–the gift of time.

I pray that this article helps families. If you are being helped by Character Ink publishing and “Raising Kids With Character,” tell your friends about us. (We are still Positive Parenting on Facebook.) Or host a parenting seminar in your church or community. And whatever you do, do the next right thing. 🙂

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