“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it.
You can’t keep it, but you can spend it.
Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”
Harvey Mackay
Throughout our parenting journey, time seemed to be one of the hardest things to come by and manage. There’s never enough time! Yet, we discovered that we did make time for the things that are important to us. In other words, the way we spent or misspent our time reflected our priorities and some character issues as well.
When our boys were 5 and 3 years old we took a parenting class where the idea “the preciousness of others” is a major theme. The premise of the idea is that all people are important to God. This quickly shined a spotlight on our lack of self-discipline and our selfishness regarding how we treat others. Ouch! In the area of how we spend our time, one thing that jumped out right away was that we needed to evaluate our own use of time and teach the virtue and habits of punctuality to our boys.
We Started with Ourselves First
One of the most frustrating things in our marriage, for Rich, was that I struggled with being on time. I wanted to be on time, but my easy going, conflict avoidance, spontaneous approach wasn’t helping. What helped was putting some structure in place to help me be a better steward of time. I learned to be proactive and to have a good routine for myself and our boys to be successful in things like getting out of the door on time. In the mornings, for example, after Rich had already gone to work, I was usually unsuccessful getting myself to work and our boys to preschool on time. I evaluated what wasn’t working and put a new routine in place. I had the boys get dressed and brush their teeth right after they woke up and before coming down for breakfast and it worked. We were out the door on time! We also had backpacks and clothes set up the night before so we could avoid those struggles in the morning. In addition, I adopted the idea that I wanted to be ten to fifteen minutes early so if something came up (usually with the boys), I could still be on time.
Next, together we examined what we were spending time on. We then prioritized those most important things that invested in our family – CouchTime, Family Mealtime, Date Nights, and Family Fun Night to name a few. What a game changer for our family! This helped us to avoid spreading ourselves so thin, rushing here are there to less valuable activities. Rich and I became less stressed, which lead to much more relational harmony in our marriage and time for meaningful fun in our home.
Teaching Our Kids About Punctuality
In training the concept of time to children, “more is caught than taught.” Meaning, we were actively modeling time stewardship with our kids. Along with the above instances, we made sure they “caught us” and pointed out how we were managing our time wisely. We demonstrated how being punctual is an important way to show respect to others and recognize their preciousness to God; that when we don’t use time wisely it makes us late and we’re actually taking time from others.
The five minute warning is another great way to train time stewardship. This simple tool creates an environment for them to be successful in being on time. When they were younger, we set timers and gradually worked on their internal clock and organization with punctuality and self-discipline.
Honoring time became part of our lives in transformative ways. It builds and shapes character by “loving others as ourselves” with respect, honor and thoughtfulness.
“Behave wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of your time.” – Colossians 4:5
Blessings to your family,
Shelly & Rich
For the first time, the minds behind Growing Kids Gods Way, Babywise and The Life Series – Gary & Anne Marie Ezzo, Rich & Julie Young, and Dr. Robert & Gayle Bucknam – will be coming together to share new insights and encouragement for your parenting journey! Don’t miss these parenting pioneers!
GFI Parenting Conference – April 19-20, Denver, CO
https://events.humanitix.com/gfi-2024