The Adventures of Joel and Isaac

Training Children..or Children Training Me?

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
(Pro 22:6)

Such an important scripture to know when you are raising children in your household. I am not good at keeping house. A place for everything and everything IN it's place is a hard thing for me to do. Troy and I have talked very much about how we want to instill this and not our practices in this part of our life. How am I to accomplish this? By following the lead of our eldest son. His personality requires everything to be where it belongs. He has long taught us to shut curtains before leaving, putting the toys away before we leave. Taking shoes off at the door when we come in. Sometimes when we are in a hurry we can get frustrated, but thinking back to Proverbs 22:6, we continue to let him do that which he needs, and we need to allow. This past week has proven even more the things he does that is better than I have been teaching so far. Last week he started emptying the dishwasher all by himself. Trying to put everything away, setting the items he couldn't reach on the counter. Then later he found a pile of trash that Troy or I had swept but hadn't finished putting in the trashcan. What did he do? Go get the broom and dust pan. And today after lunch was done, Joel comes over and grabs my plate. "Done" he says and proceeds to place my plate in the empty dishwasher and the rest of lunches dishes....all while the dishes from breakfast and supper last night sat on the counter..also when they could have been placed in the same empty dishwasher. I must say it is rather humbling to have one so young teaching us how to keep house.