Children love sweets.  Ice cream, candy, cookies, you name it.  Something that I learned early in motherhood is that once sweets are introduced, it becomes a little one’s main mission to consume as much as mom will allow.  Suddenly the sweet baby, who only yesterday, was content with baby food, begins asking, sometimes demanding sweets.

We desire our children to consume lots of healthy, God made food.  With this end in mind, we keep the amount of sweets limited.  I serve healthy, flavorful meals.  And you know what?  My children eat them!  Sure, there is the initial training in this area but lots of gentle perseverance has always done the trick.

In addition to providing healthy foods, we also model healthy eating.  This means mom and dad practicing what they are teaching!  (Tip:  If you fill your pantry with junk food, that is what everyone will gravitate to.)

I would like to take this idea of developing healthy appetites and apply it to the area of free time.  Just as children gravitate to sweets over healthy food, I believe they also are drawn to high stimulation activities over simple, God honoring pursuits.  So often  I hear about children within homeschooling that have no interest in reading, board games or the simple pleasure of nature watching.

Perhaps this is the result of developing an appetite for being entertained by television, video games and IPods.  Just as sugar dulls a child’s taste buds, these activities dull their other senses.  It is not so much a debate over whether television and video games are bad.  The matter becomes what these pursuits replace.

One of the toughest things about this issue is the simple fact that children will follow our examples.  How are we spending our time?  Our first priority as believers should be to love and glorify our Creator.  Do our activities show this?  Let us store up our treasure in heaven and not here on earth. 

Have you ever seen one of those charts that are designed to help you make healthier choices in regards to your diet?  One side shows the unhealthy food while the other side suggests a healthier alternative.  In keeping with the developing healthy appetites theme, I would like to offer such a list for activities.

May you and your family find joy in developing God honoring appetites.