The Habit of Listening; End of Month Roundup
2012
Throughout this month of focusing on the habit of listening we’re hit upon a few ideas that have seem to have truly resonated with the boys – ideas that are fun, practical and hit their little boy imaginations in a way simply talking to them could never do. I have shared a few of those ideas each Monday -
Games That Encourage the Habit of Listening (we have played these many times over the past month)
How Listening Applies to Nurses (two nurses came over for dinner and talked about this subject)
Listening Through Serving (the boys were waiters during lunch time)
In addition to the activities I already shared we shared a wonderful evening with a fireman and his wife. The boys had prepared questions to ask him (most of which had nothing to do with being a fireman) and he also shared with them why it is important to listen as a fireman. (Did you know GPS on a firetruck is relatively new?! A couple years ago they had to listen to the dispatcher give the street address and find it themselves!)
We have enjoyed stories – picture books and Bible stories – on the habit of listening. We have played many games and, in general, just kept the habit of listening on the forefront of our minds as this month slipped by. We stuck fairly close to our original plan made up at the beginning of the month for focusing on the habit of listening. A few tweaks were made (we had less people over to discuss this habit than originally planned) but overall we were able to follow through with the plan and enjoy a month learning about and exercising the habit of listening.
Are they super awesome listeners? Nope. Not at all. They’re still little kids, who struggle with listening. But they have a growing awareness of what it means to exercise the habit of listening and how it is useful in the long term scheme of life, as well as short term.
These monthly habits we are focusing on aren’t meant to change my children in a month – they are meant to be the beginning of a life time of change and development of ones self and character and to bring us all to an awareness of how our daily habits and focus directly affects our person.
