The habit we will be focusing on this month is that of encouraging others. I am really looking forward to this as there is so much potential for creativity to explode in their little boy minds as they will be stretched to think about encouraging others in big ways and in small ways, to strangers and to family.
As with the previous habits I have come up with our month long plan on how we’re going to play out this habit of encouraging others with a day by day plan.
Intentionally nurturing good habits in our children takes time and effort. I passionately believe this is so worthwhile! Equally so – it should not be a heavy weight and another thing on the “to-do” list. Good habits are best lived out, and while we will always be learning along side our own children, our extra years on earth lend some experiences and lessons we can share with our children. While I have mapped out activities to do each day of the month that will direct our attention towards the subject of being encouraging, please do fill it in with your own experiences to share of yourself with your children.
The following activities are meant to be simple, short and repetitive. I don’t imagine them taking more than five minutes a day. My hope is that through simplicity, faithfulness and focus the habit of encouragement will be deeply rooted in their foundation.
Activities for developing the habit of encouraging others;
1. Make a poster-person of each member of the family and write words of encouragement to each person on their poster-person.
2. Random Acts of Kindness day to encourage someone else
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4. Role play how we should respond to to others when they encourage us.
5. Go to a friends sports game and cheer them on.
6. Read 2 Samuel 9, David’s kindness towards Mephibosheth because of his friendship with Jonathan.
7. Object lesson following the Water Fun suggestion here. Tweaking slightly for my purposes.
8. Add to our encouraging poster/make game plan for the week, specifically plan our RAK day
9. Random Acts of Kindness day to encourage someone else
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11. List a random assortment of people (old, new mother, peer) in a variety of scenarios (bed ridden, sick, newly moved) and come up with practical and specific ideas on how each of those people could be uniquely encouraged.
12. Find a local race to go and cheer the runners on at.
13. Read Luke 5:17-26, Paralyzed man was brought to Jesus by his friends.
14. Make Encouragement Flags {inspiration from here, though will be changing it up to serve my purposes.}
15. Add to our encouraging poster/make game plan for the week, specifically plan our RAK day
16. Random Acts of Kindness day to encourage someone else
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18. Find an activity to do together as a family where we need to encourage each other through the process of completing it. {Need to figure out what exactly that will be!! Could be as simple as building a big train track, or something more skilled and new if I can think of something!}
19. Make cookies to give to others.
20. Read Ezra 1, King Cyrus gives generously for the rebuilding of the temple.
21. Pudding Fun Object lesson {inspiration from here, will be slightly tweaked}
22. Add to our encouraging poster/make game plan for the week, specifically plan our RAK day
23. Random Acts of Kindness day to encourage someone else
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25. Paul and I will spend the day doing things to encourage our boys throughout the day.
26. Let the boys decide who and how to encourage someone(s)
27. Read Ruth 1, the story of Ruth and Naomi
28. I have an object lesson developing in mind that would use one of those little ‘pets’ you put in water and they grow bigger … I need to develop it further before sharing, but that is todays idea.
29. Add to our encouraging poster/make game plan for the week, specifically plan our RAK day
30. Random Acts of Kindness day to encourage someone else
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For this months planning I have found inspiration at the Kids of Integrity website. It had some helpful suggestions for character building.
As you will have noticed I have left 5 of the dates blank. These are the days that we’ll be reading stories about people that encourage others. I have not yet decided which stories I will be using so I haven’t included any, but I shall update that once I have sorted that detail out!
Again, I am so very thankful for those that helped contribute ideas towards making this months habit development achievable day by day plans!
