-by Mimi Rothschild

For families of multiple children who also home school, dealing with the challenges of different age groups and sibling rivalry can be a daily battle. One of the most important and valuable skills we can teach our children is that of teamwork.

The Bible tells us that “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

This means that God wants us to help one another. To build each other up and not tear each other down. So how do we pass this critical lesson on to our children?

Start educating them early. From as young as toddler age, children can be taught to help each other. Tasks as simple as assisting one another at putting away toys can begin to instill a sense of giving in their hearts. This is also the time to reinforce manners such as saying “please” when asking for things, and “thank you” when someone helps them. Remember, encouragement of others is part of teamwork too.

Recommend that your older children help their younger siblings. Perhaps your fifth grader could spend some time helping your third grader with his homework. The time spent doing this will teach your younger child humility, give your older child a sense of accomplishment and build a strong bond between the two of them that won’t easily be broken.

Team building activities are a wonderful way to teach trust and togetherness. Here are a few good ones:

Build a Bridge

The idea is simple – split your group into teams of 2 or 3 (if you have only two, just make them one team) and give each team a “Building Kit” consisting of a shoebox and a variety of building materials such as popsicle sticks, bluetack, paper clips, string, glue, etc, and a bowl of water.  Each group has 30 minutes to build a bridge to span across a bowl of water.

At the end of 30 minutes, each group has to demonstrate their bridge.  You then test it for strength by adding pebbles one at a time, until the bridge collapses.  The team with the strongest bridge wins!

Make sure each group has the same amount of materials, just to keep things fair.

Encouragement Game

Sit in a circle and give everyone a piece of paper and pen.  Each person should write their name at the top of the piece of paper, and then pass it to the person on their left.  Each person then writes one or two (or more) positive characteristics about the person whose name is at the top of the paper. After 30-60 seconds, everyone passes the pieces of paper around to their left again.  This continues until everyone has written on everyone else’s paper.

A typical piece of paper would look like this:

Joanne

Kind
Thoughtful
Always thinking of others
A good cook!
etc.

The final step is that everyone receives their piece of paper back again.  It works best if you collect them and hand them out one at a time, so everyone can see people’s reaction seeing the positive comments about themselves.  You may even choose to have each child read their own list out loud.

Done well, this is an incredibly affirming game and can be a night that people literally remember for years to come.

As an added benefit, these activities also foster critical thinking and writing skills, thus reinforcing some of their daily school lessons as well.

Helping your children to learn the value of teamwork will provide them with an invaluable attribute that will serve them throughout their whole life. It will also help make your home a peaceful one.

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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.