Homesteading with boys is the perfect life if you ask me. It's the best and perfect way to prepare them to be real men. My boys love to be outside. Mind you we only have one acre of land, but they always seem to find all sorts of creative ways to spend their time outside ~ and for that I'm grateful.
Give my boys some tools and some scrap building materials and you never know what you're going to get. Recently, my 12 and 10 year old boys spent several days building a "shop". They received zero help for any adult besides their 18 year old brother helping to cut some metal. To say I was impressed by the finished product, is putting it mildly!
Their little shop could easily pass as a crude cabin from days gone by! When I think of all the lifeskill AND academic lessons they had to use for their special building project, I'm convinced they're going to be just fine when it comes to securing jobs in the future. There's so much more to an education than sitting at a desk staring at a textbook. Sometimes the best teacher is just trial and error and figuring things out for yourselves. But, the opportunity must be available, children have to be given the time, resources, and confidence to experiment with what they can actually do.
Our current society seems to be convinced that modern tech is the way to go. Well, sorry y'all I'm just not convinced. And, it's in moments like these, when my children use their minds and hands to create something so awesome, that I know our alternative lifestyle is perfect for us. Our kids have limited access to technology. I'm not 100% anti technology, but I am very pro keeping devices in the background of our daily lives. Our children do have allowed time for tv gaming and family tv watching it's just not a regular facet of our day.
Our children do not have cell phones (yeah, not even my 16 year old and he manages a successful business), they don't have tablets, or computers. We do have computers and tablets, but they don't belong to our children and they are strictly used in a supervised environment for the purpose of education or research. For our family, technology is a tool used to help us grow in knowledge not a means of pleasure time. For us there's just so many better ways the children can spend their time. One of them is for them to get outside and get creative.
Do I ever hear "I'm bored!" "There's nothing to do!" Um, yeah, plenty of times, but that's when I encourage my children to keep searching for something to do or I put them to work (trust me there's endless work that needs to be done around this homestead!) That usually sparks their creativity bone and they run off to do something on their own or with a sibling, lol.
I realize this way of thinking and raising children isn't the norm, and I'm ok with that. We aren't living our days to keep up with the world, we're here to follow the calling God has in our lives; and for us, living a simple life and teaching our children to use their minds and their hands is simply part of that lifestyle choice. I'm not here to convince you this is the only way to live. My goal is to encourage parents to put technology on the back burner for a bit, and allow their children to use their God-given creative spirit. You might just be a little surprised at what your children can do. 😊
With Love & Hope,
Jennifer
This is a picture of my 'shop building crew' working
in the pouring down rain to get their shop finished.
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