It is my hope that Eli and Maddux grow up to be generous kids and happy givers. Regardless of your religious affiliation or belief, I think you might all agree that the world could use more do-gooders. The only way I know to 'teach' that at this phase of their lives is to model the behavior. I try to reinforce why we share (so other people can be happy too), but in the end, I think it's more about what we as parents do than what we say. So from time to time, the kids and I take trips to Goodwill to drop off clothing and toys. And last month Eli and I bought and assembled Christmas boxes. But aside from the obvious holiday giving, I was running out of 'new' ways to show Eli how we can brighten someone else's day. Enter our church's "On Mission" challenge.
A month or so ago, our pastor started commissioning people in the congregation to accept a mission to give back. One of the missions was to go through a fast food line and pay for the car behind you. Easy Cheesy - Done and Done. The kids and I attempted this last week before we met friends for a walk, but the line was too long and after ten minutes we had to bail so we could make our meet-time. We finally completed our task this weekend. I'm not sharing this to boast or say "Yay me" in anyway. All I did was donate five minutes and $10. No skin off my back really...I'll never miss the time or money. But I would be willing to bet the person on the receiving end smiled for a minute, if nothing else. The reason I'm blogging about this is to invite you to 'model' for your kids in similar ways. Maybe even in a way that allows them to see how they can positively impact the people around them. Maybe it's baking cookies for the local firehouse, or a larger-than-usual tip for your next Waffle House waitress. If nothing else, it will spark some conversation with your kids about why you're doing whatever it is you're doing. I am trying to remind Eli to think about how happy it would make him to receive a Christmas box, or an unexpected meal from Chick-fil-A. It is oh-so easy to be the one on the giving side (again, $10 and five minutes), but the impact it can have on some one's day is the focus.
Enough preaching....I will now return to my regularly scheduled baby-worship posts.
1 comment:
We do the same. We took cookies to the firefighters on thanksgiving morning. They were so happy and Ryan was excited! We also try to find every moment we can to teach him to love others first. A hard task sometimes!
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