When we found our current home about 10 years ago, it already had a mature lemon tree in the backyard. What a blessing it was and has been for these years! Not only has it blessed us with more than enough lemons each winter, but it has also given us chances to teach our kids some important life lessons.
Life Lesson 1 – Nature has Rhythm
Any kind of plant that survives from year to year can teach us that nature has a cycle. Even though a lemon tree is an evergreen, never losing it’s leaves, it goes through it’s cycle of blossoms and ripening fruit each year.
Why is this important for kids to see? They learn to appreciate that the food they eat does not just magically appear at the grocery store or in their pantry. There were people and plants and time involved in getting food to our table. They can also learn from nature that things take time to become what they hoped for. Whether it’s learning to read or getting good at a sport or instrument, it will take patience. But with persistant care, they will get that fruit in time!
Life Lesson 2 – Prepare for the Future
It’s awesome to be able to walk out and pick a ripe lemon and bring it in to make some lemonade! But that season doesn’t last forever. If we want to keep having lemon juice to use throughout the year, we have to preserve it. Our simple way of preserving has been to juice our lemons into ice cube trays. Once the juice is frozen we put the cubes into gallon freezer bags. We’ve often had enough juice to last us at least until fall with just 3 gallon bags full.
What life lesson do our kids learn from this? The importance of preparation. With a little planning and extra work now, we can be taken care of through the heat of the summer, or the hard times in life. Whether it’s grabbing a water bottle before you leave, or putting some money in savings, there are lots of times in life that preparing pays off big time.
Life Lesson 3 – Sharing feels Good
Every year we’ve gone out to pick lemons by the hundreds! Even using all we can, we can’t come close to using them all. So we load up left over lemons in grocery bags and share them with our neighbors. This has been a wonderful tradition! We have made lots of friends with our lemons! And the joy on our kids’ faces from sharing is priceless! The last couple years the kids have asked about us sharing lemons as soon as they see some that our yellow on our tree. I love it!
Life Lesson 4 – When Business is Bad, Family’s Got You
I’m not sure where the idea of a lemonade stand came from, but my kids have really liked that idea. We’ve had at least one lemonade stand each year, and I think most of our kids have had a few turns running it. Standing out in the sun trying to help with the lemonade stand and keep the toddlers out of the street, many times with a baby in my arms, has not been very fun for me. Then why do I let them do it?
I feel like they learn a good lesson when they make an effort and wait to see if it pays off. They learn that sometimes business is not so good, and that’s discouraging. Other times they see a great generosity from our neighbors. If no one else buys, they know that Dad and their siblings will make sure the lemonade stand is not a complete failure. Knowing your family will support you is a great lesson to learn!
Life Lesson 5 – Take the Bad with the Good
Year round our kids love to climb that lemon tree! So what? Well, lemon trees have thorns. There’s not a single time they climb it without getting either a poke or a scrape or a new hole in their clothes. But they love it! The thrill of tackling a climbing challenge and being able to see over the neighborhood walls is worth it to them. Being able to hide in the leaves or scare mom with how high up they are is a delight to them.
I hope my kids always remember to take the bad with the good and to keep loving life anyway! That’s a lesson I have to keep relearning myself.
Life Lesson 6 – Life has an End
At the end of our lemon harvest this recent winter, our lemon tree’s leaves started to turn brown and fall off. That is not a good sign from an evergreen. We were sad to watch as the leaves kept falling and the branches dried up. Our lemon tree was dying! We were so sad to see it go. It was such a good tree for us.
Death is not an easy subject, whether it’s our plants or pets or just a dead bird on the side of the road. But it’s important for our children to know that it happens, because it is a part of life. Sooner or later all of us will face the passing on of loved ones, and eventually pass on ourselves. The less we know about death, the scarier it can feel.
We can use the passing on of our plants and pets to teach our children that this life will come to an end, and that it will be the start of a new chapter in our existence. The scriptures teach us that “the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body… are taken home to that God who gave them life.” (Alma 40:11)
This time of year we are looking forward to Easter, and what does Easter mean? It is a celebration of the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ! He has overcome death, so that even death will be temporary! What a joyous thing to celebrate! (See Parenting with Holidays.)
We are very thankful to have had 10 bountiful harvests from our lemon tree, and several life lesson it helped us teach our kids.
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