{"id":631,"date":"2015-04-01T05:05:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/five-timely-tips\/"},"modified":"2015-05-27T14:42:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T18:42:16","slug":"five-timely-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/five-timely-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Five “Timely” Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Five<\/a><\/p>\n

At the end of a recent post\u00a0\u201cTime in a Bottle\u201d<\/a>, I promised a Timely Tip article, so here it is!<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u201cFive\u00a0Timely Tips\u201c\u00a0<\/strong>(in no certain order)\u00a0that 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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. Attach things to things already in your schedule<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"Five<\/a>Twenty-five years ago we were blessed to learn from an amazing family teacher, Gregg Harris.\u00a0One of the things that he taught us that we began implementing immediately\u2013and continue to use to this day\u2013is the concept of attaching important things to things already in your schedule.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 \u201calready-in-the-schedule-no-matter-what\u201d\u00a0activities).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We came home and started attaching things to our\u00a0meals, rising times, and bed times\u2013and before we knew it, we\u00a0were attaching attachments to our attachments! It really worked!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We started out simple\u2013just keeping a family devotional by the dinner table for one of us to read while the rest cleaned up the\u00a0meal, moving the kids\u2019 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\u00a0many wonderful things that we thought only really disciplined and perfect families did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. Watch out for time robbers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Five<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0In \u201cTime in a\u00a0Bottle,\u201d I described how we would respond if\u00a0someone were to break into our car and steal our wallet\u2013and $100.\u00a0We would be outraged! It would serve\u00a0us well in our families to be a\u00a0little bit more outraged by time robbers in our lives\u2013those things that steal our time (or that we allow to steal our time).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The statistics on television viewing,\u00a0\u201cscreen time,\u201d\u00a0and 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\u00a0the next person, but, thankfully, we were taught by intentional parents many years ago that we cannot let entertainment overtake our lives\u2013and pull us\u00a0away from the important things in life\u2013God, spouse, children, and others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u00a0average weekly \u201cscreen time\u201d of thirty-three hours per week per person\u00a0are really true, can you imagine what\u00a0would happen if any of us who are logging that kind of \u201crecreational\u201d screen time\u00a0simply took half of that time to be with those we love, to truly\u00a0raise our children, and to serve others and the Lord?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Understand Seasons of Life<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"Five<\/a><\/p>\n

The aforementioned Gregg Harris also taught us about an important concept\u00a0concerning time and priorities: the seasons of life. At the time that we heard his teaching about doing things that are in \u201cyour season,\u201d we were a young couple with four small children trying to do what \u201celders\u201d should do\u2013and wondering why there wasn\u2019t time for everything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once we understood that our season was \u201cbabies and business\u201d at that time, we were free\u2013free to raise our children\u00a0(and work really hard at that!) and free\u00a0for Ray to work to earn a living, but not necessarily do everything else that men without four small kids were doing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Guess what? We started to get good at what we were doing! We started being successful in our parenting\u2013simply because we had the time to do what we really needed to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you have trouble saying no to things that are obviously out of\u00a0your season, I recommend that you get this teaching (Ebay?) and take it to heart. Even if you don\u2019t get the entire teaching, consider these few paragraphs here. Are you continually trying to \u201cfit it all in\u201d? Maybe some things you are trying to do aren\u2019t really for you right now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. Skip the good to do the best<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"Five<\/a><\/p>\n

This sort of goes along with Tip #3, but this, too, was a\u00a0\u201cgreat awakening\u201d for our family. Everything looks \u201cgood\u201d\u2013all of the\u00a0dozens of activities for our kids, many programs and hobbies for parents, even Bible studies and\u00a0Christian groups. And now with the internet, we are bombarded with good things to do all the time\u2013ways to make our home more beautiful, our food more healthful, our children more cleverly-dressed, and more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u2019s\u00a0all. Good, but not\u00a0best.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each family has to determine what is their\u00a0family\u2019s \u201cbest.\u201d Nobody but you and your spouse can do that. However, when we went through our family\u2019s schedule and rated things as simply \u201cgood\u201d and\u00a0\u201cyes, best,\u201d it was another eye opener for us that allowed us to streamline our lives and make the most of our time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hint: The \u201cbests\u201d for all of us will include at least some time with our kids\u2013and probably less running!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a05. Show your kids their value to you by giving them the greatest gift of all\u2013-time<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"Five<\/a>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\u2026. (Okay, maybe the Reishes didn\u2019t \u201cunearth\u201d it, but we are still shouting it from the mountaintops\u00a0anyway!)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In our parenting seminar (\u201cRaising Kids With Character\u201d), 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, \u201cAnd on this manner did Absalom to all\u00a0Israel that\u00a0came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the\u00a0men of Israel\u201d (Ii Sam. 15:6).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Ray likes to tell it:\u00a0What did Absalom\u00a0do that allowed him to \u201csteal\u00a0the hearts\u201d\u00a0of the Israelites?\u00a0He was available<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u00a0marriage relationship\u2013and it is also true for our children. Our children will \u201cgive their hearts\u201d (as in the Absalom story) to those who are available to them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am persuaded that one of the\u00a0strongest factors in\u00a0the 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\u00a0by giving them the greatest gift\u2013the gift of time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Five<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I pray that this article helps families. If you are being helped by Character Ink publishing and \u201cRaising Kids With Character,\u201d tell\u00a0your friends about us. (We are still Positive Parenting on Facebook<\/a>.) Or host a parenting seminar in your church or community. And whatever you do,\u00a0do the next\u00a0right thing. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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