January is the month when many of us double down. The end of the year seems so much closer than it was on the other side of Christmas. There are so many lessons that we HAVE to do before the end of the year. So many skills that are still behind grade level that the goal was to have caught up. Many of us begin packing even more into the week making for a tornado of work.
In this blitz to get done don’t burn out, yourself or your child. One way to keep the balance is teaching silence.
Imagine standing in a woods with snow falling so thickly that you can hear the gentle plops as the snow touches the ground. The gentle groan of branches under the mounting weight of snow. The smell of clean, brisk air that seems to have come straight from the northern most reaches of the world. A white so bright that all other colors fade. A silence.
Silence is a rare commodity today. Not one our children tend to yearn for. We need to teach it though. In silence your thoughts and racing emotions become still enough to hear the Lord. It can be uncomfortable for our children who have racing OCD, ADHD, or accelerated gifted thoughts so we need to teach this skill like any other. Slowly but surely.
Have your child step out on the back porch, bundled up for five minutes of just listening. Then have them journal what they felt, heard, saw, smelled.
I encourage you to give the gift of silence in this tech heavy world to a generation that will need it.
Wintry Seashore This is a video of a wintry seashore.
Oh.. how precious silence can be! Especially in a home where my kids stim by making noises, and we are still working on “inside voices” at age 10. The only blessing of insomnia is the beautiful silence.
Ps – I liked your suggestions about journaling to teach this to the boys more effectively. It always feels like a punishment, or a game – but rarely an enrichment activity. This could work.