Character through Cleaning

Everyone slept through last night!  Yeah!  Makes you feel like a whole new person when you are getting sleep again.  Yesterday was great - I was amazed at how long I was able to keep the kids at it, cleaning that is.  There is more to come today!  Today it is walls, windows, door frames.....just about everywhere you see a fingerprint, which is pretty much throughout the whole house.

Surely you are doing school, too, right?  This is school.  How can you say that?  You aren't cracking a book open!  I have so many great arguments to that....Allow me to begin with an opening remark from Kevin Swanson......

When he and his wife first started homeschooling they went to all the homeschool conferences, just like the one I went to this past weekend, and they were overwhelmed by all the choices out there.  At some point in their journey, it occurred to Kevin to go to the Bible and see what it had to say about education, so he looked in the concordance and not too much came up, but then he looked under knowledge and wisdom and sure enough - entire books were dedicated to the matter, namely Proverbs.  That's when he realized he had it all wrong.  The book of Proverbs didn't have math equations or geography, per se, but it set out all the ways to be a human being full of knowledge and wisdom.  The fact it didn't include proverbs about math and science made him start to wonder if God, who is really smart, actually found the building of character more important!  That got Kevin to thinking, if God is really smart and he made humans and if he thinks character is important enough to dedicate an entire book to teaching it, then Kevin and his wife thought they should, too.  That's what they did.  They determined to teach their children character first.

Did he throw away the math books?  Certainly not.  The way he described it is by comparing it to a house that is being built.  Character is like the studs and framing of the walls.  Math and Science is like the wall paper once the foundation is there.  If you only focus on the math programs with no character, then you will have a very flimsy wall where the wallpaper won't even stick!

That's what we are doing, at least attempting to do.  One of the ways we are doing this is by teaching them to be stewards of our home.  The character traits are endless in this one.  Perseverence, patience, faithfulness, obedience to parents, etc.,  They didn't love working as long and as hard as they did, but at least a few of the rooms in our house are looking at little better.  Don't forget, I had RM's towers in here that he was building in my house for months, not to mention the mud, grime and dust that came with them, so this is a definite necessity, not to mention, when the kids are home all day, they really are expected to contribute to the cleaning up.   It is way too much for one person, namely me.  By learning to work hard in our home, then they'll be able to work hard on anything, even math.  I'm actually starting to see this.

Living on a farm gives lots of opportunities for character development as they have to go out in all types of weather to take care of the animals.  Then, when I have a quick errand for them to run to van or something like that, they don't even flinch.  They're so used to working hard in cold awful weather, that going to the van for a quick thing is easy!  That is what is called "farm schooling" and it is really working!

At the conference I did pick up a fair amount of curriculum, so I do see that it is important to teach my children that, but never in the name of neglecting true education, which is keeping my children's hearts.

Israel Wayne was one of the main speakers this past weekend.  He spoke on worldview, which is a hot topic these days.  I never even knew that word when I was a kid.  We are always making decisions and viewing life through a lens, our worldview.  It is super critical that we make sure we are explaining to our children what a Biblical worldview is and ideally making sure they also have a Biblical worldview.  The thing I liked about this talk was not just getting our children to have a Biblical worldview, i.e., he was suggesting that instead of stuffing it down their throat, we needed to make sure that they knew what our convictions were and WHY we had those convictions.  That made me want to add in a more serious level of apologetics into our home where they know beyond a shadow of a doubt why the Bible is reliable and why it can be trusted.  It will help them to explain their faith to others and even to themselves.

We also went to a talk on money, also given by Israel Wayne.  Nothing too new, but always good to be reminded that we need to stay on track.  We were challenged to remember that NOTHING is ours, EVERYTHING is God's - including our time AND money.  We tend to think money is God's, but I can take care of everything else, but no, everything is God's.  That has helped us make more time for God in our day as sometimes we can be tempted to say we are too busy and that isn't good.  When we skimp on God, it seems we run out of time in our day.  We are stewards of everything he has given us, like the parable of the talents and we are required to do all that we can with what He has given us.

So, back to the whole idea of cleaning.  I asked my 7 year old why he thought I was having him clean all the kitchen cupboards.  "Because they're dirty?"  "Oh, there's more reasons than that!"  I said.  I went on to tell him how he would be a Dad one day and that he would have kids who would mess up his house and that he needed to be able to teach them why they needed to clean!  Always forward thinking!

By the end of tomorrow, I'm hoping to have a much cleaner home and happier kids, too.  They love a clean house!  My husband and I sat down in one of the new clean rooms and watched our 2 year old play.  Why was he having such a good time with his big brother?  Oh yeah!  He could see the floor and find the toys! He hadn't been able to do this for awhile.  And why were we having fun watching them?  Because we were able to find the couch that had been covered in who knows what for weeks during the tower contract!  How pleasant!

We read a verse that is it worse to be in a rich man's house that is full of strife, but instead better to be in a poor man's house that is full of peace (a paraphrase).  Peace is reigning (well, most of the time!) in our little farmhouse as we are seeking order, character and even cleanliness!