It may be snowing, but Louisa is eager to use her new snorkel set!
Playing with your children and their toys: it is easy when they are little, but as they grow up a bit, we don’t play quite as often. But an 8-12 year old enjoys Mom and Dad engaging with them just like a little one does. And toys—oh, they take on magic when a parent is involved playing with them.
When we spend $$ for that colorful, wonderful new toy, we are hoping, wishing, and dreaming that we can delight baby or keep our toddler busy “for hours” like the package says. But it turns out that toys are just toys—and not Mommy. No surprise. Mommy is what children really need and want!
Toys are the tools of little ones! I learned in college how stimulating a child’s brain led to higher intelligence, so I always wanted to have as many as good toys as possible at my house, feeling like they would help my kids brain develop. I was on the lookout at yard sales when I was a young mother, and pretty soon, the house was littered with toys. And the kids got bored of them. I got a big toy chest thinking I could lasso the toy mess but it just became a black hole—it seemed toys from the bottom were irretrievable! And you could break them just trying to yank them out.
Self-control is so sorely lacking in our society! Troubles caused by lack of self-discipline range from littering to illegitimate babies to college shootings. We must start very young in teaching our little children to master themselves. They can never call God “Master” until they can call themselves the “King of Me”.
