Have you heard that cry from your child? Or perhaps even from a friend when you show her the books and curriculum you are using to teach your child?
To me, there’s been an over-emphasis on fun in today’s world. Everything must be fun or entertaining before we will do it.
Work must be fun, church must be fun, the preacher must be entertaining before we will go and listen to him preach. School must be fun.
Mothers and teachers stress themselves out trying to find the most fun way to teach their children or charges.
While there is nothing wrong with fun per se, not everything is fun in real life. Hey! While we hope that everyone is working at their dream job, the reality is that most of us aren’t. But we still haul ourselves and go to work and make the best out of the situation. So when we stress fun too much for the child, we are inculcating values in him that are neither helpful nor realistic in helping him cope with life.
Let’s face it, being a Christian is sometimes not fun – isn’t it more fun to do stuff and indulge our fleshy needs than to be spiritual and think of spiritual things? I know it is for me! Lol! And yet, I struggle everyday to walk in the Spirit. Why do I bother? Because I know that pleases God, my Father whom I love very much, who sent His Son to die for me!
Fun is not something I want my children to seek day-in, day-out. I want my children to seek their heavenly Father’s face and learn to put aside their own wishes, to die to self and do what is required. And I believe that as they learn to do the work they are given in their schoolwork even if it looks boring, they mature and learn what responsibility is.
When it comes to work, I expect my children to do what is required, whether the work looks interesting and fun or not. Of course, I do not deliberately choose the most boring, plain and difficult to understand books for them! Lol!
I just choose what is appropriate and they would be required to use it. I have been swayed before and I did purchase a curriculum that was fun and interesting. But they got distracted and I got stressed trying to figure it out. In the end, it got ditched and I went back to the old, “boring” way and they got it!
As they do what is required everyday, regardless of whether it is fun or not, I pray that this teaches them to be adaptable to whatever life throws at them in the future.