"No Tech Tuesdays"
Protect Your Time, Protect Your Family
Monday, April 11, 2016
To be clear, you will be the odd family out if you do this. We still hear jokes from well meaning friends about our inability to commit to outside activities and not being able to communicate via phone or email on our chosen family night once a week (Tuesday in our home, dubbed by these aforementioned naysayers as No Technology Tuesdays).
Its important that we start here together because in creating and separating one night a week to be intentional about your family and where it is headed in Christ, you are strategically setting yourself up for conscious time together for a lot of the activities that will be discussed in future posts and you will have a scheduled opportunity each week to positively impact the direction of your family. This might be the single most important time you have each week; so lets be intentional about it.
Lets STOP measuring the success of our family by our overcommitted schedules (like the number of extracurricular activities we can shove into a day and birthday parties the children are invited to) and lets START by making a plan in very simple steps:
Pick a Night: Pick the night that you don't have any standing commitments currently scheduled and that you and your spouse can agree to block out any future invitations for. If you don't have an unscheduled night, get serious about making one. And if you don't get initial support to do this, discuss your vision of what a more strategic approach to parenting looks like in 5, 10 or 15 years for the adults you are creating. For me, it started over 5 years ago because I simply wanted more Joy in our home and a time that we could disconnect from the world and "Check In" together.
Plan the Night: Once you have created (and PROTECTED) the time, now comes the fun part! As our family nights evolve, more intentional plans allow us to priorities virtues and scriptures that we want to imprint on our children's hearts. When you think about how little time we actually have to "parent" in impactful ways, this time becomes so valuable. So much of parenting becomes reacting to situations. This is your chance to stay in front of it and be the parent you want to be deep in your soul. You get to share your wisdom and God's in age appropriate ways.
Keep it FUN! Enjoy yourself and your children will too. It feels amazing to laugh as a family. Do Highs and Lows; Ask random questions to let everyone share who they uniquely are and create a space for respecting each other during this time. (Check out The Game of Family Dinner Questions or the Family Dinner Project if you want help with this
Keep it SIMPLE! If you become sophisticated or complicated with this you may miss the whole point...I have done this countless times myself and must remind myself its not about creating deeply profound lessons but rather a chance to reinforce our values and beliefs in an easy to understand way.
Don't Dominate! Invite participation and ask questions to listen more than you speak
Go with the flow! Have an Outline...I do! But don't let structure STEAL an impression opportunity which tend to show up most often in unplanned and unexpected ways.
Mix it up! Experiment to discover what works best for your family to keep the level of excitement and anticipation up for your family and use books, games, videos, props, made up stories, songs, and/or family outings to support the weekly message
Don't Judge Yourself! Unless the Holy Spirit is speaking to your children, there will not be a genuine heart experience. God is LOVE. Wait on God's timing and just enjoy this process rather than push to be somewhere or someone that you are not.
Consider these things ahead of time in leading your children to Christ:
Realize that God is more concerned about your child's eternal destiny and happiness than you are
Pray for Godly wisdom about leading your children at their individual maturity levels
Don't use esoteric terms that children might take too literally and take your time to make sure they have reached understanding: Use outside resources to support you with this, like Kid's Answers, or Heritage Builders which offer great family devotional lesson plans
Now that you have a basic plan for getting it going, we will get insights and creative ideas (together) to plug in to these nights at least once a week on this site.
Carrie