Dear Nieces & Nephews & other family members.
I am speaking at Granada's MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) group on Oct. 5 and I would like some of your ideas about what you do to help your children be generous. It could include being generous giving gifts, to missionaries, to his/her siblings, etc. I would love your perspective "from the trenches" so to speak. When you comment, inlcude the ages of your child(ren).
Thanks SO much!
Aunt Gretchen
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6 comments:
I think that a thankful spirit naturally leads to generosity. We try to stop and express how thankful we are to have what we are enjoying, pointing out that many people do not have so much of what we do. When we recognize a good meal, a cute sweater, our car, etc. as a gift and not a "given" it helps us think about the riches we have to share with others.
Also, there are not a lot of homeless people here, but there are a few down and out people who kneel with hands outstretched for help as we walk by. I explain clearly to Amelia that sometimes people don't have the things they need, and that we need to help them. I have her give them money, and we both offer warm smiles and eye contact. I think it could seem scary to a child, as it sometimes does to adults as well, but compassion is key, in the form of a human connection, and makes helping more fulfilling and less heroic.
Another thought! We talk a lot about hospitality. Being an only child, Amelia has a harder time than the average kid sharing her things with others. We talk about what it's like to be in a new place and not have your things, and to not really know what's going on. She is very empathetic, so that helps. Then we talk about what a nice opportunity it is when we can help someone feels good, and practice hospitality by offering to let them play with our things, come into our room, and generally helping them feel comfortable and showing them a good time. This usually works well to put things in a different perspective and develop a joyful attitude about sharing.
I wish I could hear your talk, because I'm sure you have a lot of great ideas!
Since Garrett is only barely three, I don't have a whole lot of tips or experience, but I do try to help Garrett put himself in other people's shoes to help him see what it would be like to have someone share something with him. This usually plays out with Wyatt, his "closest neighbor", when he will pick something up that Wyatt dropped and hand it back to him, or when he gives a toy to Wyatt because I point out that Wyatt doesn't have a toy and needs one right now. It has been fun to see Garrett move from me asking him to do these things to doing them on his own for Wyatt. I give him lots of praise and attention when he does it, too.
Going into hospitality like Ariana talked about, I like to have him help me clean the house for whoever is coming to visit and talk about how we want them to be comfortable and have a nice clean room to stay in.
Erin
Okay, so my kids are older now. Our Ariana is 15 and Ethan almost 11. But they were preschoolers once upon a time. I think the number one thing you can do to help your kids be generous is to practice being generous and model it for them. Whew! That is very convicting. I could do so much more and I struggle with feeling like I am not doing all that I could do. But like Ariana Mullins said, it means being content and thankful for what we have and out of our thankful hearts can flow generosity. It means holding loosely our possessions, which isn't easy to do. It means being sensitive to the people and needs around you. And on a practical level it means including them when we give our time to help someone or give money, or food we have grown, or something we have made.
Of particular importance to me is having the kids make Christmas gifts to give to away to their cousins and friends. I want them to have a stronger connection to the gift they are giving. I want them to have put some thought and effort into it. It does mean that I spend a lot of time before Christmas trying to invent some kind of project that is within their ability to make that hopefully won't be tossed as soon as Christmas is over. As they get older it means that the gifts can get a little more intricate, but spend a little time in a craft store and you will find all kinds of neat ideas that even young children can participate in. Stickers, self adhesive card stock and magnets, pre-cut paper crafting supplies, and paper punches in hundreds of shapes, let you put together projects that take no glue or scissors and can look pretty polished. For small children you can have them paint (or finger paint) on a poster size sheet of nice paper. After it's dry you can cut out sections that look particularly interesting and glue them onto plain cards that come pre-folded with envelopes. Make 'modern art' card sets from your budding artist! Anyway, there are tons of ideas out there Every year we turn a big table into an assembly line and have a lot of fun making and wrapping gifts and thinking about all the special people they will be going to.
Thanks you ladies! Keep the ideas coming! I was just talking to Grandma and she shared that gratefulness is certainly the foundation for generosity-so true! Just what y'all shared. :-)
I've been thinking about this and what comes to my mind is that children pick up what they see, like you have all said. When we're generous to our children, giving of our time or our stuff, and being patient with them, they learn how good it feels. Our family wasn't over-the-top as gift givers, and I think our kids have excelled us on this. But we always enjoyed hospitality, meeting the needs of others and being generous with our home, our food and our lives, and I think they liked it and have really picked this up. I think it's a good idea, as one of you said, to hold our possessions loosely, knowing God will provide, and have the joy of giving things away to people. I think kids will pick up our outlook on life and stuff, whether it's contented or greedy. Generosity is a state of mind that cares about others and is able to put oneself in another person's shoes enough to think of something they would like or need.
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