Leaving A Legacy of Work Ethic

One of the Legacies I find myself very passionate about is Work Ethic.  Something desperately wrong has happened to the youth of today.  It's called low expectations on the parts of parents and the fulfillment of those low expectations by their children.  Isaac and I went to a seminar years ago called the Household of Strength by Gregg Harris, where he talked about this concept in great depth.  As Isaac and I sat there listening we were getting fired up, because we had so many conversations about this exact issue.  We had decided years ago that we want to Leave a Legacy of strong work ethic which ultimately comes from having a vision for what you are accomplishing and an innate drive to compel you to take action and get it done.
I personally believe that work ethic is not something that is taught, it is caught... just like the love for reading, compassion, and so much more.

In order to teach work ethic, well you need to have some yourself, right???

Proverbs 21:25-26 says this:

"The desire of a lazy man kills him.  For his hands refuse to labor.  He covets greedily all day long, But the righteous gives and does not spare."

So what are some practical ways we like to practically teach work ethic?  

Well we don't give allowance.  Personal preference here, but we feel that the kids are part of a family unit, a team.  If we all make a mess, then we all work diligently to get the mess picked up and then we can all enjoy the next activity together.  We have taught our children that in life God gives us the gifts of "jurisdictions" in our life and as we show him (and our parents) we are "responsible" with little, we are then given greater responsibilities.  With greater responsibilities comes greater privileges.  What are some privilege's???  Staying up a little later is one example.  Now, don't get me wrong... we desire our children to understand how to handle money wisely (another post), so we do have extra chores they can do to make a little Dough!  $$$

One Tolpin Family Motto is this:  

"Work Hard, Play Hard"

The Motto is all fine and dandy, but your kids needs to see you work.  

Practice what you preach... don't just have them do our weeding... go outside and weed with them. We pay $.01 per weed with roots and certain days I surprise the kids with double days or double hour and they can make more.  I find that the kids are eager to get there "responsibilities finished if they know they can look forward to earning money  by doing the extra jobs.  

Leaving a Legacy of Purposefully Working Hard & with the Right Attitude

If I grumble and complain while I do the dishes, how can I expect my children to do it with any better of an attitude.  We have to be modeling the right heart attitudes and teaching them the "Reasons behind WHY we do these things."

What Legacy Are You Leaving?

Our decisions, our training & discipleship, our passion, our purpose-fullness or lack there of, our work ethic, our political beliefs, our personal philosophies, our discipline or lack there of, our selfishness and sin, our mistakes, our conflict strategies (anger & intimidation/manipulation/interrogation/aloof judgement), our expectations, our lifestyle, our priorities, our "realness" or facade, our faith or lack there of; all these things and so much more play a part in the legacy we leave in our children.

As parents, we are imprinting what "parenting and marriage"look like in our childrens' subconscience and conscience minds.  We are their example (or role model) for how a parent is supposed "parent"and how an adult Christian is supposed "worship or pray or obey" Christ. We are their example of how to treat others with love & respect. How to practice Patience, Integrity, and Self-Control. We teach them frugality or frivaliousness.  We teach them to be concerned about the heart or to be consumed with outward appearances. We teach them how to treat friends and how to be "real."  We teach them to LEAD or Conform and Follow. Our marriage and how we treat our spouse models to our children so many different things.  It models what we beleive about Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, it models real life examples of how marriages interact and treat one another, we model how to resolve conflict, how to work as a team.  We model the good, the bad and the ugly of every area of life... dont' we.  We have an incredibly important duty & privilege.  To "help" mold the future generations, you hear this all the time.  Teachers motto is teaching the "next generation."  Parents, you still have the most influence.  You were chosen to be the parent.  Not the teacher, youth pastor, or coach.  You were given this precious gift in your child. 

  How serious are you going to take your responsibility? 

Feeling the pressure yet?  Isn't it HEAVY!  Fortunately, for us all, there is a God who is full of grace & more sufficient than necessary for redeeming our children, even with all of our mistakes and sins.  Jesus is full of Grace for us and the mistakes we make, but he can redeem them and use even our sins to bring forth fruit.  As we humbly come to Jesus, aware of our mistakes and repent.  And as we take our relationships with our children seriously enough to be humble and apologize, teaching them about the sin of even our hearts.  We are teaching them self-control, kindness, humility, forgiveness, and grace.  

Come Back again soon as I will be posting more ideas on the Leaving a Legacy. 

Socialization? To School or Not to School?

I was recently inspired to blog about the whole "Socialization" controversy that tends to "attack" home schooling families.  Its always funny to me when I get asked why do we home school?  I have to laugh; because, if you have home schooled for any amount of time at all... boy... that question is opening a whole can of worms... isn't it!  It is not a simple answer, at all.  In fact, its probably one of the hardest questions my husband and I have ever made... or at least it seemed like it at the time.  Now home schooling is just our way of life.  It's part of our family culture... part of our identity if you will.  

So to start of this concise opinion on socialization here is my disclaimer... remember this is merely my opinion, based on observation, experience, research & reading... but still just my opinion.

Here's the definition of Socialization from Dictionary.com:

so·cial·i·za·tion

Leaving a Legacy: Teaching our kids about Pregnancy and Childbirth

Leaving a Legacy: Teaching our kids about Pregnancy and Childbirth

Get Wisdom

Get Wisdom
by Ruth Younts

This is such a sweet little devotional handbook on the topic of God's Wisdom.
One of my favorite things is finding new devotionals to teach the kids about our Lord Jesus. This little book is so handy at lunch time or whenever for teaching on a topic like "Mercy" or "Obedience." You can read it directly and ask the heart probing questions, have a child read the bible verse and pray together, or you can take it and expand on it.

Just thought I would share this great resource!
God Bless!
Go to Get Wisdom for more info or Christianbook.com has it for $7.19