Families teach their children values without even speaking a word. Our children learn what we value by observing how we invest our time and our attention. Unfortunately, our time and our attentional investment don’t always match our true values. That’s where this gift, a gift of simplicity, comes in. This gift can be given any time of the year. In fact, it’s a good idea to give this gift throughout the year. Let me explain the gift.

First, we all strive to create a home of security and peace, a place where everyone can express their true self. We want our homes to be places of mutual honor and reciprocal grace, a place where we celebrate one another and our family as a whole. This value gets easily overwhelmed by the fast-paced, overbooked lifestyle our culture drives us toward. For instance, …

• Our work comes into the home at an ever-growing rate as more people work remotely. Our investment of time in work even after work hours combined with our giving our undivided attention to work while dividing our attention within the family is interpreted by our children as us valuing work and the people with whom we work more than them…not a value we believe or desire to communicate.
• Our children experience an overwhelming array of supervised activities that detract from their opportunity to explore the world around them and the world within them, robbing them of the opportunity to discover their interests, strengths, and weaknesses. This also limits their ability to develop their own voice. In addition, our children become exhausted and irritable when they don’t have time to rest. Once again, our children come to believe that we value activity, their involvement in structured activity, and their achievement more than we value their person, their growing knowledge, and their relationships. After all, that’s where we invest our time and presence.
• An “avalanche of information” floods into our children’s lives every day. This information comes not only through school, but through a range of social media apps. Unfiltered information floods into their lives about any number of catastrophic events and doomsday predictions as well as instructional videos for any number of unhealthy behaviors. Unless we pay attention, other children become the only people with whom they process that information.
• Finally, we live in a “paradox of choice.” We have seemingly infinite choices in our marketing world—choices in streaming stations, video games, ketchup, clothing, shoes…everything. Too much choice is not helpful. Too much choice leaves us always doubting whether we made the “right” choice or if the “other one” would have been better.

All of this robs our children of the peace and security we desire them to have in the home. It detracts from their happiness. It robs them of rest and the opportunity for true “re-creation.” This is where the gift comes in. The gift is simply promoting “simplicity.” You can promote simplicity in your home by creating space for these four things:

1. Rest. Make sure your whole family gets a healthy amount of sleep. Build down times into your day, times when you can relax, sit around, enjoy the yard, “putz” around the house. Allow time to rest.
2. Play. Play is crucial for development as well as the maintenance of mental and emotional health. Encourage board games, card games, make believe games. Allow children free time to engage in unstructured, unsupervised play and imaginative play. Some of our best learning comes from time to play. And take time to play with your children. Engage in a simple game of catch or a board game. Enjoy an imaginative make-believe game. Times of play build intimacy and open the door to deeper knowledge about one another.
3. Family time. Create time in which your family engages in activity. You might create a family game night. Mealtimes are another great family time. Bedtime also presents a daily opportunity to share family time. Vacations, family outings, worshipping together…each represents a valuable time to spend as a family. Spend time as a family.
4. Time to get bored. You’ll know you have slowed the pace of family life down enough when a child says, “I’m bored.” That’s great. We all need time to “get bored” so we can learn how to entertain ourselves, to stimulate our intellect and allow us time to dream. So, build some boredom into your family schedule. It will do the family good.