As you may know, I am a co-owner of Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd., and Sonlight has a very active online forum community.

One of the moms, “Brenda in GA,” wrote a story about doing a road trip with her almost-14-year-old daughter. I asked her for permission to reprint it here — permission which she gave willingly.

Why would I want to reprint her story? Because, as one of the other forum participants commented in response to Brenda’s post, “I love road trips . . . [because, as you said, t]hey are quite a bonding experience.”

Brenda’s story, and the follow-up comment inspired me to urge you: Long before you seek to establish your own family government, you’ll want to do everything in your power to establish good relationships with your children, grandchildren, or others among your progeny.

More about that “message” in a moment. But first . . .
Brenda and Katie’s Excellent Adventure . . . from somewhere in Georgia to Branson, Missouri.

My almost 14-year-old daughter, Katie, and I are en route to a family reunion. It’s the first long trip we’ve ever taken, just the two of us. (As the fourth of five kids, alone time is at a premium.)

My parents told us that taking the southern route was so much better than sticking to the interstates. Well, when you do Mapquest directions, and they start off sending you over Sand Mountain, with a dozen “turn left on County Rd. XX and go .4 miles,” you know it’s going to be an interesting trip.

We managed to get to a main road with only one wrong turn.

It has been quite an experience!

. . . Katie introduced me to the joy of Red Bull.

. . . We had a great time listening to each other’s playlists.

. . . We laughed and laughed . . . usually at nothing at all.

. . . Did you know that there’s a “National Bird Dog Museum” somewhere in Mississippi? . . .

Tomorrow we finish driving to Branson and get to visit with a bunch of my cousins from all over the country. I think this is shaping up to be an awesome bonding experience!

Brenda’s story reminds me: One of the greatest benefits my wife and I experienced in our years of homeschooling with Sonlight Curriculum was along similar lines. We felt our homeschooling helped us to bond with our children. Reading great books together, laughing aloud one with another, sometimes — actually, often — crying together over deeply moving passages, discussing the implications of what we were reading: these things brought us very close together. And now, some six years after we stopped homeschooling our youngest, and, I think, 14 years or more since our oldest went to a classroom school, we find ourselves still enjoying the benefits of those hours spent together bonding with our kids.

We find ourselves able to discuss, today, the deeper issues of life. We are generally able to talk with them even about the difficult things. Not only with them, but with their spouses. There is an openness, and understanding, a willingness to give and to take, to try to help each other understand when we are, apparently, misreading one another.

Some other great bonding opportunities: camping trips, road trips (I drove all four of our kids at least one time, one way to their colleges out-of-state), Sunday afternoon walks. . . .

At this point in our lives, with our eldest grandson being six years old, and our two youngest grandchildren not even two months old (one was born on July 27, the other a week and a day later), I will confess I am having to learn to put aside my work — sometimes so that I can hold one of the little ones . . . or, simply, to interact with the somewhat older ones. And this is not always easy. But I am moving forward in the faith that my investment now will pay off later, both in their lives directly, and in our relationships one with the other.

But while I have shared some of my thoughts and experiences in bonding with our kids, what have you done to bond with your progeny? Or what are you doing now in this regard? What might you suggest to others — either younger or of your age — in their family journeys?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under family relationships, kids, legacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.