*My son Luke in 2013 with friends from his Ambleside Kindergarten class. Three of those young ones have siblings still at Ambleside. Do you know which ones?*

Dear Parents,

Years ago, after giving birth to my son Luke, a guidance counselor at the school I was working at said to me, “The days are long but the years fly by.” How true that statement turned out to be.

I look at my son now, taking Driver’s Ed on the cusp of 16, and think, “He was just 6 years old yesterday!”And now, learning to drive and growing into manhood. Where did the time go?

Similarly, this year has gone by in a flash. I wonder at times where the winter went and how I am already thinking about Shakespeare and my annual trip to Michigan. It seems like I just blinked one day back in September and now, here we are, staring the end of the school year in the face.

Do you feel this way too?

When the end is in sight, one thing I have personally experienced is that I leave off for another time those things that I should be tackling today.

“He’ll get better at this next year,” and “We’ll work on that this summer.”

Can you relate?

I want to encourage us as parents not to adopt this attitude. As busy and tired as we are, our children need us today.

Let’s take math facts as a simple example. It’s not too late to tackle those equations that just aren’t sticking. Make a plan to practice each morning on the ride to school. The first step is the hardest, but once you get in the routine of it, it’s easy.

What about the reluctant or slow reader? Purposeful practice is key. Sit together, thigh to thigh with a book open across your laps. “You read the first page, and I’ll read the next.”

*Some of Ambleside’s class of 2021 during a First Friday event. Five of the six pictured here were also in the summer pool pic at the beginning of my note!*

It’s also not too late to begin training your child to obey right away when you tell him to come down for dinner or brush his teeth. Can you imagine what a classroom would look like if all of the children there had been trained to not obey until the third time their parents asked them to do something?

It’s important that we as parents take the time to do these things because our children need this from us. They need our time, our full attention, and our care because in the blink of an eye, ten years will have passed and we’ll say, “Where did the time go?”

Raising and educating children is no easy task but one that God has appointed to all of us. I join with the author of Ecclesiastes in encouraging us that, “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

In this case, it’s helping our children finish this school year strong.

Let’s make the most of the time we have been given.

I blinked … and he turned 16