An idle Mind is the Devils' workshop.....

And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.  1 Timothy 5:13 NKJV

What can parents do today to instill a work ethic and give a child a sense of self worth and accomplishment? We have students that do not feel that they are able to DO anything with their hands that is not associated to a hand held game or technology. I have met students that do not have any responsibility for the running of the home in which they live and some students that respond to the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” With the reply: “retire”.
I see very tired parents trying to work 2+ jobs and keep things running on the home front and children with nothing to occupy their time and thoughts productively.  My solution…. Keep them busy. When all else fails, pick up rocks or dig a hole and fill it back in. There needs to be some way that children can productively release some of their energy and burn some calories. Work is good….. A lot of free time can be bad…..
Growing up on a farm, we were always busy. When my parents did not have anything for us to do, I think that they dreamed of things for us to do. My children will probably say the same thing about us. The Puryear farm was also a place that always had work or chores to do.  The proverb     “An idle mind is the devils’ workshop” was branded into my brain and became the back bone that built my work ethic.  My parents made sure that I was constantly checking off the list of chores and that time was well scheduled and organized.  Now…. Because that proverb was branded into my very essence… you guessed it…. My children were introduced and taught to live by the same proverb.
I am not talking about, sports, classes, tutoring, band and other scheduled extracurricular activities. Yes… we did participate in extracurricular school activities and we were also very active in church and community activities.  I am talking about chores that assist in keeping the house hold moving forward. Chores that MUST be completed before you eat dinner or go to bed. There was always something that had to be done at the house. My children were second generation dish washers,  television remotes, mail delivers,  window washers, lawn keepers, painters and were called upon to complete any other job that needed to be completed during the 23 years that they lived at home.  Yes… you guessed it again….. in the Puryear house… we had those darn chores too. My girls did their own laundry, took turns cooking dinner and received their very own checking account with a set monthly allowance deposit, as a Christmas present when they were 13 years of age. During the middle school years, we added horse showing to our family farm activities. Oh my…. The chores did add to the agenda after that. We added hay bailing and hauling. Stall cleaning, horse riding, pasture mowing, riding ring maintenance and I bet they too, thought just like I did when I was their age, that MOM  must have dreamed of things for them to do to keep them busy.
Working with your children while they live at home, under your care, is the perfect time to teach time management, survival skills and money management.  Yes…. Sometimes I felt like I was trying to teach the impossible when we worked with some task. But, even on our crazy days, we tried to have fun and make the best of the task at hand. The girls would even laugh as we drove the gator around the pasture to pick up rocks on one of the days we were out of school during spring break. Yes… I said rocks. 
I know there are many definitions to the word Idle when you begin to analyze this motivating phrase. My second generation interpretation of the phrase that was passed to me as a child and was handed to my girls’ states that “idleness means you have no particular goal in mind and that you can be easily distracted”.  My parents took this definition in conjunction with II Thessalonians 3:10-12,

"For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread"

very literally and made sure that we learned through experience to stay focused on a job until it was completed and we also learned how to schedule our time on task to complete long day-after day task that needed larger amounts of time to complete.

When my girls were just beginning to walk, I purchased a child sized “grocery cart”  and each evening it was their job to pick up all of their toys and carry them to the toy box in the closet for storage. Oh such a simple task… but a lesson learned and carried out into older childhood and adulthood. Each night, the house was picked up and organized, for the next day, before turning in for bed. Each person had their books for school packed, clothes picked out for morning, and each needed event materials loaded in the “car bag”. An example… piano books, band instrument, dance shoes etc… were loaded in the car bag so that needed extracurricular supplies were on hand.

God uses work and responsibility to build our character and strength. I want to leave you with one lesson that I learned in my school science classroom one year. Each year, in my science classroom, I would hatch chickens. The local Clemson county extension agent would bring the incubator and the eggs to hatch. The first time that I watched the eggs hatch… the students saw the chicks struggling to crack and remove the egg shell and they asked to help a few. I consented and allowed the students to “help” the chicks and make the hatching progress easier and thus the chicks were free from the egg faster. Guess what? The chicks that the students helped did not live as long as the chicks that were allowed to remove the egg shell by themselves.  The “helped” chicks were weak and did not fare as well. The chicks that we did not assist, had to work to get the shell removed and that struggle build up their strength and those stronger chicks, out lived the assisted ones. That told me right then and there that God builds character with struggles and work. We become stronger individuals when we work through complications and struggles.

When I compare this lesson as an analogy to my girls…. I wanted my girls to grow up to be strong independent adults. While they were living at home, I felt that it was my responsibility to give them opportunities to work and develop in a safe environment. They were allowed to try jobs, learn how to do new task and all the time, have the safe haven that if they failed we would be there to assist and pick up the pieces. I have helped balance bank statements, paid over draft fees, eaten burned dinners, eaten meals that did not taste right, bought new clothes to replace the washing machine and dryer mishaps and supported decisions that were made by my girls. I felt like that was my job as a parent.

I challenge young parents  to find an avenue that you can use to give your child chores, challenge the mind and give them the support when they fail NOT if they fail.  What can you do as a parent to assist your child and help prepare him/her for adulthood and “real world situations”?  We need strong adults!! This is learned when we give opportunities to help build confidence and character in  our children.