Habits of the Household

One of the most significant things about any household is what is considered to be normal. Moments aggregate, and they become memories and tradition. Our routines become who we are, become the story and culture of our families.

It was the point where something we've done became something we do. A habit of the household was born.

To steward the habits of your family is to steward the hearts of your family.

Nothing important is easy.

These communities [early church] realized that if they didn't shape their trellis of habit, the world would shape one for them. They were saying, "If we don't have radical communal habits to form us, we will end up conforming to the communal patterns of the world around us."

Parenting, seen properly, is an unceasing spiritual battle. A battle that God is using to refine us, and a battle that God will win for us, but if it feels like a fight to you, that's because it is.

This is what stories are for - moving reality from the head to the heart. We must tell and retell the stories of reality to ourselves and our children, lest we continue live in our bad dreams.

If I'm struggling with my annoyances with my kids (which always threatens to reduce them to problems to be managed instead of image-bearers to be loved), I will try to put that into a prayer where they become human again: "Lord, may I love and serve my children this morning as you loved and served me."

The most important habits will always be the source of questions and complaints - but parents persevere. Remember - that's why we're here.

There is no tiredness like the tiredness of a parent.

A vacation with young children is really just going somewhere scenic and working overtime shifts of parenting hours. Great memories for the kids, but hard work for you.

Put simply, the liturgical lens is the idea of having the eyes to see the spiritual worship bound up in a habit we didn't think was spiritual at all.

But these things [habits of liturgy in the home] are not about the one moment, they are about aggregating moments that become new normals.

Candles help mark moments, especially for children.

We shouldn't be surprised that the stories of our homes are constantly shaped by moments of discipline. If we love our children, then we will find ourselves faced over and over with the task of discipling our children through discipline, not as a means of controlling their behavior for our convenience but rather as a means of stewarding their hearts toward loving God. This is why discipline is both the highest call and the hardest thing we do as parents.

[Loving authority] is the opposite of sitting on the sideline and making a request. We are not politely petitioning our children to consider our point of view, we are parenting them.

Discipline without love is punishment for an act, but discipline as discipleship is training a child to become self-reflective. A parent's role is to try to really understand a child's heart in these moments because watching you do that is a way for them to learn how to understand their own hearts.

If I get to the end of a discipline moment and I am still so mad that I cannot hug or tickle or joke with them, then I probably have not done it right.

But the fact is, for both us parents and our children, we will either form our screen habits or our screen habits will form us. There is no alternative.

As parents we take the pain now so our kids don't have to later.

Yes, this [less screentime for the kids] is going to mean I get fewer breaks and have to be more involved and have to manage constant requests, but this is for their formation, which means it is a fight worth fighting well.

When it comes to family spiritual formation, it's not about perfect practice, it's about moving from nothing to something.

Catechisms at a young age work like holds in a rock-climbing wall. They are sturdy things a mind can grab hold of and begin to work with.

I remember when my parents gave the gift of short prayers to me. I was six and I was terrified to go to bed every night. They highlighted a verse in my Bible and told me to take it to bed and pray it. It is at the tip of my tongue still now.

We shouldn't make complicated work out of teaching our kids to pray. When Jesus taught us to pray, he gave us something short and met us where we were. Pray about bread. Pray about being delivered. Call God your father.

Marriage is radical because Christianity is radical, and that is a beautiful thing to display to our children.

Deep down in a child is the desire to be included in the work of the person who loves them. My dad loved me. I loved him. And I desperately wanted to be invited into his work.

Our sacrifice for their reward - here again, we see one of the central paradigms of parenting played out, just by asking them to sweep the floor.

Try catechizing your kid to say, "Work is good, it is from God and for others, and we feel his pleasure when we work."

If a child can do it for themselves, try your best not to do it for them.

Teach [your children] tasks as early as possible, whether picking up toys, hammering a nail, taking out trash, washing a dish, folding towels, wiping tables, or sweeping floors. Children remember these moments as bonding moments, even when they are work.

Whether this is sending kids to the back yard or telling your teen to turn off the TV and go take a hike, instructing them to go out and engage with the world on their own means we invite them to get comfortable with the struggle against boredom (which is really just the struggle against the fallen imagination) and do the good work of play by themselves.

Conversation - inside and outside of the household - is the learned art of friendship.

We practice conversation in the household to teach the spiritual art of friendship, that we might befriend each other, and train our children to go out and befriend the world.

Vulnerability is not a given, and usually a child is honest because a parent is honest first. A child is vulnerable because a parent demonstrates it. A child engages in conversation because a parent seeks them out.

On most days, our vision of life is so shortsighted. It is of the next hour, at best, of the next day. But not much more.

I often think about how the gospel posture of a parent is opening yourself up to be hurt by your children, while committing to loving them anyway. That's what Jesus did for us, after all.