Giving Our Kids Time to Discover Who They Are

Did you go to school? Were your teenage years crammed full of lessons, homework and preparation for exams? Perhaps, like me, you had very little free time for yourself. And when you did have a few quiet hours, were you encouraged to do something useful with them rather than rest or think or dream or chat?

Many parents get concerned about time. It seems to pass too quickly, doesn’t it? Should we try to make every moment count by cramming as much knowledge as possible into our kids during their childhood years? Keep them busy. Don’t allow them to ‘waste’ time.

Or maybe, because time is limited, we should slow down and savour our days with our kids. Take time to hug often and say, “I love you!” Linger around the kitchen table when everyone is enjoying the conversation instead of hurrying onto the next task of the day. Snuggle under blankets on cold winters’ days and watch movies or read books together. Do things that are silly and fun without worrying about their educational worth. Put aside our own activities and listen to our kids when they’d like to share their thoughts and opinions.

And we should let our kids have plenty of time for themselves so they can daydream while staring out the window. Or sit in the sun, swinging their legs while thinking. Or lie in bed late in the morning, replenishing their energy. Or hide in a leafy tree with a favourite book, away from adult eyes. Or dress up in oversized clothes and spend all day on pretend adventures. Or bounce on the trampoline, hour after hour. Or cycle in never ending circles around the garden.

Maybe these ‘unimportant’ and seemingly unproductive things are actually the most important of all. They allow our kids time to rest, process what they’ve learnt, create stories in their heads, replay events and situations in their lives, ponder ideas, imagine, make sense of the world and their place in it, and discover who they are.

I had no idea who I was when I entered adulthood. Was I really the person everyone told me I was? Was my worth really based on my exam results and the opinions of other people? What did I believe? What was important to me? What brought me joy? Was it actually okay to do things that made me happy? What was my purpose in life? Was there a God? Did He care about me? Was I okay?

As an adult, I’ve pondered these questions and discovered who I really am. But, for many years, I lacked confidence to be me. It was easier to keep pretending I was someone else and do what was expected so I was accepted.

What do we want for our kids? Do we want them to have the confidence to do what they feel is right regardless of what people around them are doing or thinking? To know they are important and have a purpose in life? To feel joy? To know they are loved unconditionally just as they are?

We can help our kids achieve all that. All we have to do is give them time. Time to think. Time to rest. Time to ‘waste’. Time to discover who they truly are.

Photos

Each day, I wander through the bush close to home. It’s my thinking and praying place. It’s where I spend time making sense of my world.

Something Extra

Kids need to play. It’s how they learn. But are we happy to let our kids play for as long as they like? Or do we think there are more important things that they should be doing?

Here’s the beginning of a story that contains a lot of happy memories of my children’s play adventures:

Years ago, we lived in a back-to-front cottage. The back door faced the long driveway that led to the road, and the front one turned towards an endless paddock of chewing-the-cud cows.

Around the cottage was what the real estate woman had called a yard: “It’s nothing fancy,” she’d said on the day when she’d shown me the house. Her yard was my garden, and my garden was my kids’ magical world. They loved the untidy grass, the crabapple tree, the row of pine trees and our vegetable patch.

Some days, my girls, dressed in faded cast-off adult skirts, hitched up their trampoline wagon to the plastic chair horses, and set off over the wild garden prairie. Or they squeezed into the pirate baby bath ship and set sail on the waving grass seas. Four girls piled onto a tricycle meant for two and hurtled down the hill, screaming with excitement, sometimes hitting the tree at the bottom before tumbling to the ground.

My kids climbed trees, stirred crabapple and grass and dandelion stews, and vied with each other to make the best cubby house ever under the pines. The girls created tiny fairy gardens under bushes, and the boys showed the girls how to make bows and arrows.

My kids chased escapee cows back through the sagging wire fence. They discovered mushrooms in the shade of the trees after the rain. They collected red and yellow autumn leaves and crunched on frosty winter grass. They observed seedlings breaking through the soil in spring and threw water bombs at each other in summer. They listened to the birds, ate snails when they were babies, picked flowers and dug in the dirt…

Maybe you’d like to read the rest of my story, Doing What Kids Ought to Do?

Do kids need lots of free time? Should we let them daydream, rest, play or do nothing much at all? Perhaps ‘wasting’ time is essential? What do you think?