Teaching Kids the Practice of Reflecting
Christmas is over and a new year is just a couple days away! As expected, a vast majority of our society has shifted from merry-making to resolution-making … and right now there’s quite a bit of noise out there on the topic.
To Set Goals or Not To Set Goals?
You’ve got people who look at a new calendar year as an opportunity to start fresh, and are fervently finalizing resolutions that they hope will create real change in their lives once the clock strikes midnight.
And then you’ve got those who rebel against the idea of treating January 1st like a magical key that will unlock a new, disciplined you.
Honestly, I have been both at different times within the 42 years I have lived on this earth. Now, I fall somewhere in between.
I am fully aware that most resolutions die as soon as they care created, LOL. They are fun to dream up, but frankly, without strong conviction, consistent discipline, and a sincere accounting for one’s current, real-life context, lasting change is hard to come by.
But I also feel that there is just something special about that space in between one year ending and one year beginning. For me, this transition of time serves as a milestone in the story I am living; a marker that encourages me to reflect how far I have come in my journey, as well as a place to thoughtfully re-assess the direction I am going.
An Invitation to Reflect
Whether resolutions are your jam or not, my encouragement and challenge this season is to pause and reflect. Before going off and dreaming up a new year, take time to recount God’s work in your life in this current one. And invite your kids to join you!
Those who already know our family know how big we are on being guided by vision and mission. My kids have been trained up to own their stories within God’s bigger story, and to constantly ask God for direction in how to steward their lives accordingly. Every quarter (or more frequently), we assess where we are at, using our compasses.
But the biggest, and – in my opinion – most important part of the process of moving towards our objectives is the discipline and practice of reflection.
Sounds simple enough, however, in this fast-paced, go-go-go culture, taking time to stop and consider all that God has allowed in our life (good and bad) is actually a challenging thing to accomplish!
We are a forward-moving people, bent on plowing through our overfilled days. We barely have time to dream and plan, so we neglect to look back.
But I personally feel that the one big reason most people fail to stick to resolutions and make headway in accomplishing goals is BECAUSE they do not take time to assess how they have been living … which is key in taking the next, appropriate steps in their story.
Don’t let the time required to pause and reflect prevent you from the benefits!
Benefits of Reflecting
- Recognize how much undeserved goodness God has blessed you with. Life isn’t easy, obviously. We live in a broken world with broken people and there are some really suck-y days. Our human nature typically compels us to remember all the hard things that come our way, tempting us to become embittered an ungrateful. But when we take time to reflect … take time to mine for the treasure in our story … we can remember and praise God for His grace and mercy in our lives.
- Recognize areas of your life you still need to grow and be sanctified in. This doesn’t always feel good, but awareness of our weaknesses and sins is FOR our good. We can’t progress in our journey if we don’t know what areas of our life we need to exercise our muscles in. How can we honor and glorify Jesus, if we can’t first acknowledge our need for him in our everyday lives? While we receive eternal salvation through Him, we are also in need of the Holy Spirit’s practical, functional salvation as we continually transform and grow in Christ-likeness, until the day we call heaven home.
Teaching this practice of reflecting to our kids NOW is important, so that they can have it established as a regular part of their rhythm as adults.
The Practice of Reflecting with Kids
Put it on your calendar.
First of all, carve out intentional time with your crew to sit down and do this together. This isn’t something you should do in the car, while on the way to grocery store, LOL.
For our crew, I time block it into our routine like I would with our educational compasses … and consider it part of their lifeschooling activities for the day!
Make it special.
You want this to be something your kids look forward to! It doesn’t have to be grand or fancy, but make it “set apart” from your normal, everyday routine.
If you don’t already do tea time, then incorporate that as part of this practice. Depending on your budget, you can take your kids out to a coffee shop or bakery for a special treat. Maybe you present them with new journals for the new year as part of this practice (this is what I did with my kids this year).
YOU prepare ahead of time to make your time efficient.
Kids only have so much of an attention span, and trying to reflect on a whole year’s worth of life can be a bit much, especially with younger ages!
I always do my own reflection time before we gather together (usually a week or so before). This gives me opportunity to outline the things we did together as a family, so it is easier for them to recall when we get together. If I can get my act together, I may even have photos to go with special memories. That way, when we finally sit down together, we aren’t wasting time trying go back and remember what we did, but instead can use those specific recalled instances as jumping off points to get our discussion going right away.
Practical Tip #1: Create an outline or a visual timeline of those major milestones in your year to help your kids “see” all that you got to accomplish.
Practical Tip #2: If you can be consistent with this, purchase a simple planner for the new year. Our crew did this for 2021. We didn’t use it for our schedules, but instead used it to log all the things we were grateful for. We tried to document daily but that wasn’t always feasible based on how busy we were. However, we were pretty consistent in documenting weekly, and by the end of that year, we had a special accounting of all the good things God blessed us with, that we were able to use to help during our annual reflection time.
Reflection Prompt Ideas for Kids
- What are some of the major milestones/events from each month of this last year that we can praise God for (this is where your preparation of an outline or timeline can help)? What are the fun things God blessed you with this year?
- How did God grow/stretch/convict you this year? What areas of your life has He given you victory in?
- What areas of your life are you still struggling in? Are there any sins you need to repent of or ask awareness for? Let’s pray for God to continue to humble and help you as you move into the new year.
- If your family does a word of the year (we did for 2022): How did your word serve you this year? Did it help and guide you? Are there any words that are speaking to you right now, that God may be wanting to use to help and guide you in the new year?
Obviously, tweak these to meet your kids where they are at. But even younger kids will benefit from the simple practice of remembering even a few, significant things God has blessed them with in the last year. Longer, deeper discussions will naturally come as they grow older.
Looking Forward in Alignment with God’s Will
After we reflect on the closing year, we get to dream about what is possible for the new one!
In fact, taking time for this practice of reflection is essential for helping us create realistic goals/intentions for the coming year, because we get a relatively clear picture of where we are currently at and how God would want to continue to grow us.
Only then can we set objectives based not on what we want, but what we feel God wants to do with our lives.
Practical Tip for Looking Forward with Kids: One year can seem daunting for kids, so our crew usually operates on a 3-month vision. For fun and general direction, I still ask my kids what they would love to have accomplished by this time next year (“What is possible if God would allow it?”). But as far as any concrete objectives, we only go out three months and then reverse engineer from there.
I hope this post was helpful for you! If there are any questions, please comment below. I’d also love to hear how other families transition from one year to another… do you reflect and set goals/intentions with your kids?