Parenting With Godly Purpose: Busyness

This week's post is something that has been on my heart a lot as my children grow older. Lately it seems like every activity in the world beckons to my kids. They want to experience so many different things, yet we struggle to stay grounded and close as a family. Also, as parents, my husband and I are running in a thousand different directions while still trying to do all we can to be good parents.

Busyness.

It seems to be the scourge of American life and of Christianity, in my opinion.

Not only are there the necessary things that clamor for our time....such as church, work, ministry, and household chores, but then we feel the pull to enrich our lives with extras such as hobbies, sports, music lessons, home school activities, trips, parties....and the list goes on and on.

We can be so committed, or over-committed, to activities that we miss the main goal, even while we are thinking that we are chasing after things that we must do!

What is the main goal? First and foremost, to love the Lord our God, and our neighbor as ourselves. Secondarily, as parents, we must find a way to build a strong relationship with our children and tie lots of heart strings between us and them, while we are also teaching them to love God and their fellow man. Sometimes the busyness of life just plain gets in the way of this.

In my own life, I often have to fight to say no to things, making a choice between something that is good and something else that is better. Rarely do we 'waste time' yet some of those days when we do produce some of the best memories with our kids.

I think this is a situation that each parent must examine for themselves to see if their parenting life is balanced in these areas, or if they are just plain too busy to spend time getting to know their child. Can you name your child's favorites? Favorite color, snack, book?

We need to take the time to unplug from our electronics and be one hundred percent available to our children, rather than always being available to everyone in the world, and interrupting our child because we have to answer a text or phone call.

Enrichment activities are important for homeschoolers of course, but when the endless lessons and sports and classes begin to wear out the doers from all the hectic schedule, it might be time to pick and choose which ones are most important and which ones can fade away.

Do you have a child who secretly hopes the power goes out or a class gets canceled so they can spend some time just being with you and 'hanging around'? Are your children too tired to be faithful to their devotions because of their busy life? Then these might be clues that the schedule needs some close inspection.

Also, one thing I notice is that sometimes the schedule is so booked, and every minute so planned out, that we eliminate any chance of  being spontaneous, because, well...we are just too busy! Perhaps a neat opportunity comes our way, or the pastor announces a special meeting at church, yet we can't make the time to attend because of prior commitments to everything, or from just plain being too worn out and stressed to add 'one more thing' to the schedule.

Don't let busyness ruin your investment in parenting. Live the simple life as much as you can. Sometimes the common, everyday life is truly the best!

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This post is linked up with Meg and Cristi's "Blogging Through The Alphabet"

Check out the link for a list of fun ABC themes!