Train children in the way they should go; when they grow old, they won’t depart from it. -Proverbs 22:6

It snowed yesterday. I assume you noticed, but in case you’re reading this from somewhere other than Central Iowa, it snowed here yesterday. It snowed a lot. Less than a foot, but more than six inches of heavy, wet snow. The kind of snow adults dread moving off their driveways and sidewalks. The kind of snow children delight in building forts and throwing snowballs.

At my house, after a more leisurely breakfast than Tuesdays usually allow, my kids requested my assistance in building an igloo. With an hour to go before a Zoom meeting, I told them we could start an igloo. 

Equipped with waterproof gloves and plastic bins hastily emptied of their craft supplies to serve as block molds instead, we headed outside. An ambitious perimeter was established for the igloo’s base. After a few technique corrections,  we had managed to construct one full layer and half of the next before I needed to go in and have my meeting. 

After lunch, I turned my attention to clearing the driveway and sidewalks before J.W. got home from work. The deep snow at the base of the driveway was too much for my snowblower, so I got a shovel and moved it out by hand. That heavy snow seemed a lot less fun piled next to the driveway than it had been built into blocks in the backyard.

Sore and tired after all the shoveling, with snow-caked scarf and hat hung up to dry, I sat down with a mug of hot cocoa, hoping to get through some emails. My kids appeared. “Mom, let’s go work on the igloo!”

I will tell you that I did not much want to go put all my snow gear back on to kneel down in the snow and pack more bricks onto the slow-growing igloo. I was just about to tell my kids so when I remembered two things: the forecast of miserably cold temps starting later this week, and the joy I felt as a kid from building igloos with my dad even after he had shoveled the whole driveway.

We went outside. Not because I am a great and selfless parent, but because my dad showed me that taking the time to build an igloo is also telling a kid they matter. Because I want my kids to be the kind of people who can put themselves aside for the sake of others. Because “training up a child in the way they should go” has a lot less to do with rules and expectations than it has to do with the way we act in front of our kids.

Anybody who spends time with kids–whether as a parent, grandparent, teacher, scout leader, volunteer, or neighbor–knows the challenge of helping kids grow up. Even leaving aside all the questions of getting them into the right activities, programs, teams, and clubs, or of making sure they haven’t outgrown their snow pants and lost their gloves, there is a question of character. What kind of adult will this child grow up to be? Will they be kind? Confident? Generous? Patient? Persevering? Self-controlled? Faithful? …or not?

The more time I spend parenting, the more I realize that raising my children the way they should go has a lot less to do with telling them to stop this or do that, and a great deal to do with being for them the sort of person I hope they will become.

Being is a lot harder than telling. But if we want to make a difference for the kids in our lives, perhaps the very best place to start is with ourselves. Are we kind? Confident? Generous? Patient? Persevering? Self-controlled? Faithful? …or not?

Who knows? Maybe snow days are the best days to find out who you are and shape who your child will become.