Mothers we are to be teaching our children. Surely this means God’s principles. Also, seeing as this is a Proverb, we can assume teaching includes life wisdom, in other words character. Yet, today the teaching I am thinking about is every day practical tasks.
Children are not born knowing anything. As moms we have the job of teaching them everything.
It can be difficult to remember all of the responsibilities we need to teach our children. The best way I can think of to make sure we don’t leave big holes is to talk through everything, as we are doing it, with our children.
Here is an example of what this might look like with vacuuming: As our precious preschooler is sitting playing on the floor, we can announce, “I am going to vacuum. Here is the vacuum; I need to plug it in right here. When I push this button the vacuum will turn on, it is going to be kind of loud.” “See, isn’t that noisy?”
“As I push this machine around it sucks up all the dirt we leave on the floor.” “In order to cover the whole floor I push the vacuum around in a pattern. Each line over laps the next line, so I don’t miss any dirt, see?” “I can’t go too fast; slow and steady works best.” “Oh honey, see that crumb, I have to go back and get that. Sometimes it takes several swipes, vacuuming requires paying attention.”
Too much information for a preschooler? You would be surprised.
These little ones are so eager to learn, just watch their play. Next thing you know they will be teaching their dollies how to vacuum. Even little boys will be teaching their soldiers how to do life skills. And what better way to learn than to teach someone else?
Yes, our explaining what we are doing, and doing it often, is some of the teaching we do not want our children to forsake.