Hey Mama Monday: What Are YOU Reading? Children Follow by Example, Mama
Let them catch your love of reading and model your reading behavior. Seems so easy. Not always.
It works for most kids. Then there are those who don’t love to read. Maybe it’s physically hard for them to read, they have a learning disability, or maybe it’s just not something they enjoy doing. I had a teenager who preferred doing anything else but reading for pleasure. He read his required books, biographies, and classics, was an excellent language arts guy, and enjoyed books while reading them. But give him a choice, and he’d rather be doing something active. In fact, he’ll even go so far as to say he doesn’t enjoy reading. He’s been fashioned in God’s hands to be just who he is.
Some kids, if given the choice between reading and something more active, artistic, musical, or science-y, they’ll choose that other activity every time. They are just wired differently. And that’s okay. We can provide read-alouds and books on tape for such a child so he can listen while doing other things. We can still require reading, but we can’t require a love for reading.
More importantly, we need to develop discernment of what constitutes good reading for both ourselves and our children. We don’t want to waste precious time on fluff. What are they reading? What are you reading? Is it edifying? Does it glorify God? I love reading—I could read all day. But I had to give up reading “twaddle” when I became a mom of many. My time was so limited that I had to make the best choice. And I benefited from putting down everything else and picking up God’s Love Letter to me. It was my Bread of Life in the constant change of my reality. It was my source of strength during heartbreaking trials. No other book could ever do this. I developed a love for the greatest Writer of all time. God, as an Author, has given us everything we need in His penned Words and through His Son, the Word incarnate.
Our children need this example. We need to teach our children to read their Bibles on their own (or go to sleep with it playing on a Bible app) because we know this is what will bring them health of spirit and soul. Develop this love of reading the Bible while exemplifying a love for its Author. He is the only Living Author that can change their hearts and the trajectory of their lives.
~Deborah
Deborah Wuehler is the Senior Editor and Director of Production here at The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine. She would say she is a very ordinary homeschool mom–with one exception: she has an extraordinary God Who provides all she needs for life and homeschooling. She has eight children aged 11 to 29. Deborah’s mission is this: to point other homeschoolers to the Lord in all they do, think, and feel—and to confirm that they, too, can find everything they need for life, godliness, and homeschooling in their knowledge of Him (2 Peter 1:3-4).
