What Are You Doing This Weekend

So much of our time as parents are consumed by our kids and rightly so. Our kids are valuable gifts that God has entrusted to us. Sometimes however, I don’t feel that valuable in the parenting process. You see, my kids are getting to an age and activity level where I am feeling more like a taxi driver than anything else. Our lives are so busy. Our kids are as busy or busier than we are. As parents our job is not only to make sure our kids lives are filled with experiences that shape them, but also to guard our kids time. Don’t give into the mindset that you need to help your child experience all that life has to offer. That mentality leads to over scheduled, stressed kids and exhausted parents. I think we need to guard our children's time. We need to make sure our children have margin in their lives. Our children need space between the lines of their lives to process our what is going on in them. Help your children structure time where they can have time and space to hear from God. Model this empty space in your lives  schedule for your kids and schedule empty time in their schedules for them. Put blank time into your calendar to make sure you don’t miss out on this important time to rest and reflect. We need to make sure that our kids lives are not so full of things to “do” that they have little time left just to “be?”
So what are you doing this weekend? Try to take some time for you and your kids to take a breath. It’s ok, we all need to breathe to live.