I want my children to be well-prepared for life – prepared emotionally and socially, prepared academically and with wisdom, prepared spiritually and with discernment for their life purposes, prepared physically with healthy habits. I want my kids to be prepared. That preparation doesn’t begin when they’re 16. It begins from a very early age. We talk about all this in the series Preparing My Child to SOAR Beyond the Nest.
The conversation begins this week in episode 107 with a holistic view of raising a child. "Holistic" from the Greek root "Holo" meaning "Whole." Let's equip our kids through a WHOLE PERSON LIFESTYLE. Four Steps for Moms to Equip Your Kids with a Whole Person Lifestyle 1. Parents model self-evaluation and growth in these four areas of life. The goal is growth, NOT perfection. 2. Continually seek to create and maintain a home environment that focuses on developing these four areas of life as a family. (Listen to episode 14) 3. In upper elementary or middle school, begin equipping your children to self-evaluate & set goals in these areas as well. (Listen to episode 107) 4. Throughout their lives, from young to old, be their biggest cheerleader in their pursuit of holistic living.
(Holostic, root word holo, Greek for whole) God introduces the holistic approach to raising our kids in Luke 2:52
This Checklist will be helpful to go along with this episode. This week's podcast refers back to episode 14 in which I introduce a method for evaluating and goal-setting about our kids, called "Raising a Luke 2:52 Kid." Click the button below to listen to episode 14. Episode 14 Raising a Luke 2:52 Kid
This is the second episode in the new series "Preparing Your Child to Soar," where we're talking about how the best preparation is a holistic approach, based on Luke 2:52.
In this episode I'm joined by our youngest son Andrew to discuss specific and practical techniques for thriving. Today we cover the following topics:
Time management skills
People skills
Balancing Weaknesses & Strengths
Stress Management
How to Detox from Toxic (environment or people)
Work Ethic
What does EXCELLENCE look like - God's perspective over mine.
Links: Episode 14: Raising a Luke 2:52 Kid Book: Gaining Momentum - Preparing Your Student for a Career, With our Without College
"COMFORT ZONES are pretty dull places to live..." This week is about helping our kids to STRETCH for growth, to SPREAD their wings in order to fly. It's one of those episodes you will want your kids to hear.
"You become a leader by learning to serve others"
"Don't compare yourself to others"
"Everything you do speaks and you are constantly building your brand" are just some of the truths shared in this mother/daughter conversation.
As parents, our tendency is to want to make life easy for our kids. However, a life of constant and immediate happiness, doesn't bring GROWTH. If we want our kids to be strengthened, we must help them embrace challenges and obstacles as OPPORTUNITIES for their world to expand and for their abilities to increase. Comfort zones are pretty dull places to live. And, usually God's design for our lives, is far bigger than our comfort zone. In this episode, I'm joined by my daughter Abby to discuss the benefits of stepping out of our comfort zone, overcoming obstacles, and the good changes that can come from challenges. Bible Verse Philippians 4:8
Everything you do as a parent is an investment in your child's future. Therefore, let's be sure that the effort we are making is effective for strengthening their life steps. In Episode 110 we are going to have a checklist for growth steps toward the ultimate goal of helping our kids to live fully in God's unique purpose for their lives.
To do this, we look at Val's diagram of A Child's Hierarchy of Needs to God's Will for Their Lives, from her book When Littles are Loud: Maximizing the Moments without Drowning in Chaos. But this hierarchy of needs is not just about small children. It applies to every life - we need to progress to the next step on the ladder as a daily checklist, but also over their lifetime.
The levels of A Child's Hierarchy of Needs , which Val discusses in episode 110, are
-Safety Needs mentally, socially, spiritually, & physically
-Physical Needs
-Love & Justice Needs
-Knowledge of God and Who you are in relationship with God
-Need to Know your unique design from personality to gifts, talents, passions, experiences, strengths, weaknesses - our child needs to know that the unique design that is YOU is exactly what this world needs. Your life is a unique message to the world and PURPOSE in the world
- Need to Hear God's voice & do His will - how do we teach our kids to hear God's voice for the daily small stuff and the big decisions o f life.
On each step of the hierarchy, we want to take child through the following process:
1. Let them experience life with this step of life being HEALTHY. Are we giving them a healthy view of this part of life or a warped view?
2. Simultaneously, MODEL for them of how it looks for an adult to live out this area of life in a healthy way.
3. When they are old enough, EQUIP them to MONITOR this area of their life.
4. When they are old enough, EQUIP them to IMPROVE this area of their life.
RESOURCES mentioned in this episode
The Bible Project short family videos by Tim Mackie
Bible Study: Experiencing God - Henry Blackaby
About George Mueller
Val's hierarchy of needs for reaching God's purpose in your child's life comes from her book, When Littles Are Loud
