In recent posts I listed seven key influences in the life of a child that will make a lasting impact – discipline, expectation, teaching, wisdom, affirmation, friends, and Jesus Christ.

These are crucial deposits that parents have both the privilege and responsibility to invest in the lives of their children.    I have often said the most rewarding thing one will ever do is to train their children, but it is always the most difficult thing.

However, it is not impossible.   We live in a culture that constantly competes for our most precious resource that is required to make these deposits – time.  We intend to, but other things cry out for our attention.   Suddenly we wake up one day and we are running a deficit in the most important areas that will impact our children.     And we cannot catch up in a few weeks or months in what we should have been doing over the years.

Any student of time management knows there is a major difference in the urgent and the important.     There is an excellent little book on this issue by Charles Hummel called, “The Tyranny of the Urgent”.    The thesis is simply this: the urgent is rarely important and the important is rarely urgent.  

If we are going to make these investments in the hearts of our children then it is going to have to be intentional and a priority. Someone wrote, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing”. 

Taking time with the grandchildren.

Here’s a short article that summarizes the impact on little ones when we are willing to give our them our time.    It was written by a third-grader.     It’s power is in it’s simple message; our children need our time most of all.

“What is a Grandmother?” 

A grandmother is a lady who has no children of her own.    She likes other people’s little girls and boys.    A grandfather is a man grandmother.    He goes for walks with boys, and they talk about fishing and stuff like that.

Grandmothers don’t have to do anything except to be there.   They’re old so they shouldn’t play hard or run.   It is enough if they drive us to the market where the pretend horse is, and have a lot of dimes ready.  Or if they take us for walks, they should slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars.   They should never say, “Hurry up”.

Usually grandmothers are fat, but not too fat to tie your shoes.   They wear glasses and funny underwear.  They can take their teeth and gums out.

Grandmothers don’t have to be smart, only answer questions like “Why isn’t God married?” and “How come dogs chase cats?”.

Grandmothers don’t talk baby talk like visitors do, because it is hard to understand.   When they read to us they don’t skip or mind if it is the same story over again.

Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don’t have television, because they are the only grown-ups who have time.    

(Taken from “What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew about Women” by James Dobson)