- By Joni Meyers
(Joni is a mother of six, and full-time missionary/musician/singer along with her husband, Vas, in Mexico.)
You know how there are some things you don’t particularly like doing but you force yourself to do them and the end result is that you have acquired a new skill or achieved something and you are so happy about it–the hard part is over. Well, I believe it is the same way with children.
I started teaching our 5-9 year olds to play guitar and to be honest when I presented them with the idea they weren’t too thrilled. So I just explained that we would only practice a little each day–10 min or so, and tried to give them the vision and get them excited about learning this new skill. We’re just starting out but they now know 5 chords and are learning to play the Christmas song “What Can I Give Him?” They’re enjoying it more each day and I can see the satisfaction on their faces of watching themselves achieve.
I think it has been good for them in many ways. I’ve noticed that many times children will want to only do the easy or “fun” thing and balk a little at learning something new if they think it means work, or cuts out some of their play time– (Isn’t that like all of us?) But when you gently lead them and try to motivate them to receive the input, they start to really enjoy it and feel challenged, grow in self-respect, learn self-discipline and how to stick to a task, and are being prepared to be successful and happy adults later on in life.
Of course, we can do especially well if we call on heavenly help to assist us, and are enthusiastic and making their learning exciting!
It’s also important to pray and ask the Lord if what you are planning on pouring into them is what He wants you to teach them and will be a good use of your time and theirs and is what the children need. Then you can proceed in full faith armed with counsel from the Lord on how to go about it.
Comments are closed.