GIVING THE CHILDREN A CHANCE - OUR 4 YEAR OLD PRACTICES PROBLEM SOLVING

Praise God for children!

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As many of you may already know, @papa-pepper is not my real name. Hopefully none of you take that news too hard, but it is true. If it is any consolation, I really am a papa and I do like peppers.

Though I may be a papa now, there was a time when I didn't want to have any children. Life was very different back then, and I am glad that those days are over. I think a lot of my success here is due to the fact that I am very different than I once was. Without that change being made, I don't think anyone would be too impressed with me. I share more about all of that in this video I made a while ago, just in case anyone is interested.

Now that I have five @little-peppers, children are a big part of my life. Since we homeschool them and since I am trying to set up our lives in a way that I can work from home to earn whatever income we need, our children are around us a lot, and we are around them a lot too.

It is a huge blessing to be able to see my children all throughout the day when I don't have to leave for work. Since they are around, they see the things that we do ranging from household chores and normal "life stuff" to building chicken tractors and clearing land for our house. Often, from their tiny perspective, they manage to come up with some very good ideas.

MONSTER TRUCK THE PEPPER SOLVES A PROBLEM

THE BLESSING OF CREATIVITY

The happy little guy with an apple in the photo above in "Monster Truck the Pepper." (Also not a real name.) He is one of my biggest helpers, since he is still four and doesn't have the same regiment of studies that his older sisters have with our homeschooling curriculum. Basically, that means if @papa-pepper is working on a project, there is a good chance Monster Truck is my right hand man.

There is usually some job appropriate for a little guy his size to do, so I try to keep him busy and engaged, and together we can get a lot done. Before we left on our trip up to Wisconsin, I wanted to get a new area fenced in for our hogs to graze on. Eventually we will try raising them in a pasture, but for now we are using them to clear some land.

Driving T-posts in the ground and hooking up some cattle panels to them takes a bit of effort, but in the end they serve the purpose and get the job done.

At one point I asked Monster Truck to go get me a spool of wire. It took him a bit, but when he came back he had a spool of wire and a bungee cord. To a parent, there is the instant encouragement to think that the boy took longer because he goofing around playing with other things, like the bungee cord, rather than just getting what he was asked to get, like the spool of wire.

Sometimes in these instances it is best to not jump to conclusions and to instead give the child a chance. When I asked him about it, he certainly had an answer.

He figured that if I used the bungee cord to hold the wire spool to the fence, then I wouldn't lose it in the bushes or have to struggle to find where I left it. Instead, it would be hanging right there where I could see it. The little guy had already watched how I would fill a five gallon bucket with tools and hang it by the handle on top of the T-post to keep my resources close. He took things one step further and found a way to do the same with the wire.

I was personally blown away, and also encouraged. Often there are things that I make and create without a plan or blueprint. Sometimes it is best to search your mind for a design or solution rather than have to look one up every time. Apparently our @little-peppers are learning to do the same!

For all of you parents out there, be slow to judge a matter and give your little ones a chance... not only to explain their actions, but also to think, create, and invent. They are the future!

As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:

proof-of-bungee-cord

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Until next time…

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