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What could you give your children that would make each day easier for them for the rest of their lives? Money is an obvious answer that comes to mind, and yet money can make life more difficult at times, more complicated, and it can unexpectedly fly away like an eagle, as Proverbs tells us.
I think the answer is good habits. When we intentionally help our children form good habits, we are giving them a gift that will make each day easier for the rest of their lives.
Charlotte Mason wrote,
There are few parents who would not labour diligently if for every month’s labour they were able to endow one of their children with a large sum of money. But, in a month, a parent may begin to form a habit in his child of such value that money is a bagatelle by comparison.
(Parents and Children, p. 173)
A bagatelle is a thing of little importance, a trifle. When you compare the value of money to the value of good habits, good habits will come out the winner. Here’s why.
When we intentionally help our children form good habits, we are giving them a gift that will make each day easier for the rest of their lives.
Almost half of the actions that we do, and even the thoughts that we think, each day are habits that we have formed—either good or bad. We don’t realize how much we are creatures of habit, because once a habit is set up, we stop focusing on it. And when that habit is disrupted, it increases our stress level.
You probably have a morning routine that you go through every day when you wake up: you get out of bed on the same side every morning; you walk to the same bathroom; you wash your face and brush your teeth in the same way every day. And all the while you are doing those things, you are most likely thinking about something else: What’s on the schedule for today? What are we eating for breakfast? What are the kids doing? I don’t hear them! That’s because the actions of that routine are habits. You don’t have to think about them anymore; you just do them, which frees up your mind to think about other things.
But when you are staying in a hotel and living out of a suitcase, you have to put much more conscious thought into your morning routine. I travel quite a bit, and I can’t tell you how many times I have woken in a dark hotel room and thought, “Which way is the bathroom?” And when you have to think about where your toothbrush and toothpaste are and where each piece of clothing is in your suitcase, you realize how much of a blessing habits can be. In an unfamiliar situation, your mind is no longer free to think about other things; it has to exert energy to focus on what you’re trying to do and what it will take to make that happen in these unfamiliar surroundings.
The more good habits we can instill in our children when they are young, the less mental stress they will have in their lives. If our children cultivate the habits of keeping their rooms tidy, cleaning the bathroom, and doing their laundry, for example, those skills will be automatic and easy for them to do when they are grown and start to live on their own. They won’t have to put forth the effort to learn how to do all of that at the same time they are learning how to navigate a new job or a college campus or life with a spouse.
And that principle doesn’t just apply to household chores; it also applies to character traits such as the habits of paying attention, of giving best effort, and of showing kindness—the habits that make our children the kind of person people want to be around and the kind they have confidence in. In other words, we can set our children up for success in life by intentionally helping them to form good habits now while they are in our homes.
Once a habit is set up, it will run automatically. So the sooner we can instill good habits in our children, the smoother their lives will run and the lower their mental stress will be. Those of our children who struggle with scattered thinking can especially benefit from the stability of established good habits that run in the background of their minds and don’t require their focus or mental effort.
The sooner we can instill good habits in our children, the smoother their lives will run and the lower their mental stress will be.
Instilling good habits in our children is an endowment: something that we can invest in now that will pay our children great dividends in the future. Children do not by nature look far ahead; that is a task that we as parents must do for them. We can invest our time and effort and energy now to help our children intentionally cultivate good habits and set them up for success in life.
And the beauty of that investment is that our children are not the only ones who benefit from those efforts. As we help our children to cultivate good habits, each one will also contribute to our home life now. As new habits are mastered, our days as a family become smoother and easier too. So it’s a win-win situation!
Good habits secure smooth and easy days—for our families now and for our children for the rest of their lives. It’s such a valuable endowment! Why wouldn’t we work on good habits with our children?
Good Habits Resources
Get the guidance you need to instill more than 50 good habits and character traits in your children’s lives with Laying Down the Rails. This comprehensive series is everything you’ll need for years of establishing good habits that will benefit your children—and you—for life.
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