Are You Raising Fat-Souled Children? Part II

This is a continuation of a post I started yesterday. If you have not read that one, I would encourage you to do so before reading this one.

• Show your children lots of physical affection. Hug them. Kiss them. Wrestle with them. Tickle them. Lay in bed with them at night as you put them to sleep.  The physical matters to God. He will raise our bodies from the grave, not just our souls. Your children need to know that you love them through physical touch. By the way, this doesn’t go away when they become teenagers.
• Learn to enjoy and participate in sports. Sports such as basketball, golf, tennis, running, rock climbing, swimming, fishing, etc. are great for the body and the soul. In our culture, these things have become idols so we are tempted to write them off entirely. This is a mistake. Our family plays basketball. We go on long hikes. We fish. We swim a lot in the summer. We run around and play tag when they are little and throw the football when they are big. Sports teach us so many things: how to endure pain, how to recognize our weaknesses and strengths, how to work together, how to lose, how to win, and how you can out there and give it your all and still come up short. I am not necessarily encouraging organized league sports, although that is fine.  But find some way to get it in.
• Read to your children a lot, especially fiction and poetry.  I do not know the science of this, but I do know that good fiction helps to make us fat souled. I know that poetry, whether it is Mother Goose or Shakespeare helps our souls put on another layer of the good stuff. Read to them Treasure Island, Beowulf, Johnny Tremain, Time of Wonder, Blueberries for Sal, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, etc. History is great as well.  Give them great stories whether true or fictional.
• Give music a prominent place in your home. This should include singing Psalms and hymns. But it could also include U2,  Johnny Cash, Bach, Mozart, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King and if you are feeling particularly frisky, The Ramones. We must be careful of course. There is a lot of trash out there. But music makes us fat- souled. We should also teach our children to play instruments. One of my great regrets (and my wife’s) is that I never learned to sing or play music. I am glad my children will not suffer the same deficit.
• Tell jokes, read funny stories, watch comedies, and laugh a lot. At our house we read Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts. We watch older comedies that do not have the junk of newer ones. I love Far Side comics. My sons and daughters are always trying to make up new puns or funny stories to tell, usually with their stuffed animals that look like they have been run over several times. Laughter should be heard regularly. Teach your children to laugh at themselves. Fat souls laugh a lot, especially at themselves. We look funny, act funny, and funny things happen to us. Sometimes we are the butt of the joke. And that means as a parent you must learn to laugh at yourself.
• Teach them to delight in the world God has made. When there is a thunderstorm at my house we usually go out on the deck to see it unfold. What power and majesty!  When there is full moon we take a peek out our windows. My boys feed fireflies to their toads and the fireflies glow in their mouths until they are dead. We collect snakes and spiders and flowers and weird shaped sticks. We watch Shark Week on Netflix and laugh at the evolution, while standing slack jawed at the sharks. We come back from the library with books on alligators and crocodiles and insects you hope you never meet. Have you ever looked at Surinam Toad? You should. Google it. And remember God made it that way. Fat-souled children love the world God has made.
• Feed your children well. I am not encouraging gluttony. But often a lean dinner table produces lean souls. Sacrifice so they can be well fed. I have four sons between 8 and 14. They eat like horses and show no signs of slowing down. I can grumble about the cost. My wife could grumble about how quickly her labor over the stove is consumed. But does God grumble when he feeds the world (Psalm 104)? Also, teach your children to feast.  On occasion, pull out the nice dishes, put on the nice clothes, pop the cork on some good wine and eat, drink and be merry, preferably with friends. The end of our life is a feast. Give your children a taste of it now.
• Enter into the joys and pains of your children. Play with your children. Get excited over the painting that is cannot be interpreted or the story you have heard seventeen times already.  Bend down and look them in the eye. Build Legos with them. Color with them. When they hurt weep with them. Don’t make them wimps or flatter them with false praise. But too often we sit back in a proud posture while our children suffer or rejoice. Enter into their life.

Most of these things do not require much money (except for feeding teenagers), but they do require time. We cannot have fat-souled children if we do not feed them with our time and energy. Is this not the problem with raising children who delight in God and his world?  Is this not the reason why so many of us give up and let their souls wither and die? It is hard work. But remember hard work produces fat souls.

What are some things you do to feed the souls of your children?<> ы копирайтинга отзывыпозиция а в гугле