Character Building

In our family meeting this Sunday, a topicwas brought up that our family needs to do more service. We asked for suggestions. After going over many options, we decided that Dad would call aranch in our community that might need our help and see if we could come do some REAL hard WORK.

Good hard work strengthens character. I grew up with my dad answering our questions of why we had to do certain things with, “It builds character.” Now I finally know what he meant. Build a home culture which does lots of REAL work and you build confident, proactive children and solid family relationships.

I think that it’s good for work to often even replace study, especially when the family is losing sight of its vision for character. Work is a character’s base. It also acts as a personal custodian to our character. For good moral, intellectual, relationship, and physical health, or to repair any character illnesses, WORK is the answer.

My husband and I look around for opportunities to teach our children how to work real hard. Our society has itso easy that the character of the people is suffering. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t believe in child torture, but we do believe in buildinga strong work ethic.

Dad called the aforementioned ranch, so yesterday we had a great work experience. This huge beef ranch is about 30 minutes from our home. The ranch depends on volunteers to run it. There is one small family that lives there and all the rest is volunteer. The beef raised at the ranch is used completely for humanitarian purposes; people do not buy it.

We called the foreman to the ranch and asked if our family could come out for a few hours to do some work together. He was so kind. He asked us if we wanted to paint corals, fix fences (they have over 500 miles of fence), or clean up all the debris that fell around the property with the winter winds. We chose to clean up the sticks and things so that our smallest child could even help. It was a fantastic experience.

We worked for 2 hours, and then ate our food that we packed for dinner and went to look at the baby cows and horses. My children loved it! We decided that we want to go back to the ranch at least once per month to do service and hard work.

There are places all over our communities where we can do service and teach our children how to work. Look for them and you will find them. If you bring it up to your children and they don’t want to do it, then you KNOW that they NEED to work a lot more. That is the first clue that the family needs more character building.

If you find any great places to serve and work, leave a comment.

🙂 Nicholeen