Parents, Work & Significance

I love listening to people talk about work. Some people love to work and others will do anything to avoid it. I know some people who are somewhat addicted to work while others seem more allergic to it. This week we look at another aspect of parenting and family life. We’ll gain a better understanding that when something is done intentionally and over time it produces a specific outcome. And in this case, when we work with and for our children they gain a better sense of significance.

We started out with a quick thirty thousand foot view of this whole overtime idea. Then we looked at how love over time gave a sense of worth. We’ve discussed how words chosen carefully and spoken over time provide direction. And we even put words together into stories and showed how stories give perspective. This week we’re looking at how work given and done over time produces as sense of significance.

As parents we all want our children to have a sense of purpose and significance, but we also want to protect them. From my experience in an effort to protect our children, we tend to shelter them. The purpose of this post is to help us more intentionally provide opportunities for our children to develop a strong work ethic. And through that hard work, they’ll gain a sense of accomplishment and even significance.

Now let’s get real for a minute. Our accomplishments do not define us and that’s an important truth to build into our children! But when they feel a sense of I did it! They’ll gain some confidence that will propel them forward with momentum in life. Doing something well and accomplishing a task provides significance to our children, and for us as well for that matter.

But what kinds of work should we hand off to our children? And what about paying them for the work done? I’m not really going to take sides on the whole allowance debate but I will share that we have decided not to provide an allowance for work done around the house. I mean come on we provide everything for them so pitching in is just an expectation. So what kinds of work can you provide to help build a realization that your children are significant?

There are tons of options here! My personal favorite is to pick something that I’m fairly picky about. For me that’s washing my car or mowing my lawn. These are two pieces of work that I take very seriously. I remember the first time I let my son mow the yard. He felt so great knowing that I trusted him with the work. I also remember when my daughter would come out early in the morning on a Saturday to help me wash the car. She knows I’m particular about it but she loves to help however she can. These are just a couple of examples of how work done over time can help build a significance in our children.

What work can you do with your children to build significance in them? What work can you hand off to your children to help them know you trust them enough to do something important? Build significance in the lives of your children now and then watch them build on it. Remember this is done over time so keep it up!