Growing Home: The Importance of Character in an Education | And a Double Giveaway!
Head over and check out Growing Homes post on the importance of character in an education!
It's got some really great things to ponder today.
Taken from the Growing Home post linked above:
In Kevin Swanson's book Upgrade, he shares nine major themes from the Book of Proverbs that are necessary in preparing our children for life and eternity:
- The Principle of the Tongue & Truth
- The Principle of Hard Work
- The Principle of Self-Control & Avoiding Temptation
- The Principle of Conflict Resolution & Getting Along with others
- The Principle of Fearing God
- The Principle of Receiving Reproof & Respecting Authority
- The Principle of Trusting God
- The Principle of Humility
- The Principle of a Virtuous Spouse*
Swanson goes on to quote a study done by Dr. Thomas Stanley, a man who has devoted his life to researching successful businessmen in America. He found that of 733 millionaires, the five most important factors to success in life were listed as follows:
- Telling the truth
- Self-discipline
- Getting along with people
- Having a supportive spouse
- Hard work
I do not currently own Upgrade, but am going to put it on my "wish list". I do have Kevin Swanson's "The Book of Proverbs: God's Book of Wisdom - Family Bible Study Series" and it is very good.
This is the second school year that the kids and I have read a chapter in Proverbs that is in line with the day of the month. After reading through Proverbs a few times, Javon asked why we couldn't move on to something else. (We do other Bible reading during devotions.) I also thought, "Should we move on? Is this getting repetitive? But then decided that we had not mastered all that Proverbs had to offer so went on reading a chapter each day we were home together. Now, two years in, it's a wonderful habit that we've formed. Each time we read a chapter, we always find something that we need to work on. Some character flaw that needs improving. We're all a work in progress!
It might be neat to take the above mentioned list of "The Principles" and have the kids (and myself) write out a list of verses that we see about each of those subjects. I think we might try that. ;-)
Regarding my last post on the Character Training Chart, I have a friend who home schooled all three of her well-rounded, lovely girls and she shared something they used to do with the chart.
She would "ask the girls over the past week when they either saw someone do one of the attributes or they themselves did something that was on the chart. It helped them to not only be aware of those attributes but notice when others were doing them too. I had them write a paper, one page, on when and what they saw." I thought that was a very good way to apply the lessons and not just talk about them!
Praying that something here blesses, encourages, challenges, motivates, etc. someone that is walking this road of training our children and others for Jesus!
