Wow! I have been terribly busy for almost three weeks now, and I haven’t been able to find time to think about or write on my blog! I am hoping things will settle down now, so I am returning and will try to get back on track. We have had company, entertained grandchildren, visited our son in Dayton, been to the Dr. and dentist, etc.!
We started the topic of contentment last time and I would like to continue on that line today. Another important principle of teaching contentment to your children is to keep your home “low key”. Teach your children to enjoy the simple things of life. Make a big deal about things that you want them to enjoy like going for walks and picking flowers. Let them plant things in the garden and watch them grow. I learned very early on that my children would reflect me, so if I was happy, they were happy. If I was frustrated, they could soon be frustrated. The kids would enjoy the things that I enjoyed. Sometimes we underestimate how much we influence our children from a very early age. So, it is important for us as mothers to have responses that we desire our kids to have.
Since we are in the fall time of the year, we will soon be faced with several very different options of how to celebrate the “holidays” that are on the calendar. As I have come through the past several years of my life, it has become more and more important to me to celebrate Thanksgiving in a bigger way! Without getting into the moral or spiritual aspects of Halloween, may I just say that Halloween at best teaches those who participate in it a very selfish attitude about “getting”. There is a lot of greed involved in going around and asking for candy from everyone we can think of! Why not skip Halloween and move from fall to Thanksgiving. I mentioned in my last entry that teaching your children to be thankful is one good way to ward off discontent. So this will give you a very good way to teach this in a tangible way! After Labor Day is over we give it a couple of weeks and then we get out the Thanksgiving things and put out things that remind us of the blessings of God and how much we have for which to be thankful. I have noticed to my dismay that most stores skip right over Thanksgiving, so if you are taking your cues from them, you will miss Thanksgiving too. Thanksgiving doesn’t offer much in the way of revenue, so it is not on the calendar except as a “comma” between Halloween and Christmas which are the real money-makers.
Speaking of teaching your kids to be content, one thing you can do to encourage this is to teach them to serve others. It is good for them to see others who are in need so they realize they have some responsibility to minister to and share with them. Every fall in early October, I have my grandkids over to help me make cookies to distribute to some of the elderly and shut-ins that we know. So on October 2, I picked them up and they came over. I had cut out the cookies (maybe as they get a bit older, I will let them “help” me cut them out as well) in the shape of apples. Then as I frost them with red frosting and green leaves, the kids are responsible to put on some red sprinkles and red cinnamon candies. Then we pack plates and deliver them around town. This year we delivered ten plates in all. Of course there is the joy of the older people that delight in hugging the children or giving them a treat and when we get home, everyone can have a cookie with milk. It is a very special time for all of us and I just pray that this will be the beginning of teaching them to minister and give to people who are in need.
Children are not born being content. They are born with all kinds of needs and desires and the culture adds to that and soon we have children who are very self-centered and selfish. And there is no one thing you can teach them that will solve this problem. It takes a life time of teaching by example and helping them arrange their priorities. I have so many thoughts on this topic, but I pray that you can see the way to plant some seeds and I pray that you will see growth and fruit in your children and grandchildren.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Let's Raise Contented Children
Today is a new month and I am going to start a new topic! I have been dealing with some topics related to modesty and I am going to turn a corner today and share some thoughts about how to raise contented children. Just to justify the importance of this topic, you need to look up I Timothy 6:6: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”
Contentment is a rare quality today, but it is one that can really make a difference in our whole life! In a culture where there are way too many choices for all of us, especially children, contentment is something we must learn or it won’t happen!
My daughter recently observed a party for children and she was very struck by the fact that the children were so outspoken about their likes and dislikes related to the food and other activities at the event. We need to remember that children learn by example and by teaching and when neither one is occurring properly, children will not pick up the qualities that they need in order to set them for a life characterized by contentment.
So how do we teach contentment? First of all, we need to model contentment for our children. If we are always trying to get and get and get more, then they will learn that is what life is all about. When we feel free to share openly about our likes and dislikes related to food or other basics of life, they will learn to share all the things they don’t like as well. I remember when our kids were young, we believed it was bad manners for children to come to the table, ours or anyone else’s, and talk about the food being or containing something they “don’t like”. In fact, we made a rule in our home that if someone complained about the food or asked what was in it so as to ascertain whether they would want to eat it, they would then have a slice of bread and a glass of water for that meal while the rest of us ate the meal along with the dessert. I think we only had to enforce that rule one time and it never happened again! It is also not wise for a mother to plan a meal that allows for each person to eat something different so that no one must eat anything that he doesn’t like. Food is only one small aspect of contentment, but it is an area where children think they can take control if they are allowed to get away with sharing their opinions.
Children can learn to try to control early if they are allowed to cry for things in the grocery store and see their desires met if they cry loud enough. If they know you are not going to spank or otherwise discipline them when you are out, they will learn very quickly that they can have anything they want in a grocery store. So how do you stop that in a climate where we don’t dare spank our kids in public? Well, as soon as the child tries that crying routine in the store, you very calmly explain to him that if he doesn’t stop that immediately, he will be punished when he arrives home. And then when he arrives home, you need to remember that promise you gave him and you need to carry through with something that he will NOT forget! (Spankings work well and I believe that is God’s punishment of choice.) You see, if a child receives an item in a store because he cries, he will learn by experience that he can get new toys, treats, etc. every time he goes to the store and you will begin to plant the seed of discontent in his heart because he can always have more if he can manipulate you by crying.
So the bottom line of the discussion today is that we as adults need to display the quality of contentment before our children if we expect them to learn how to be that way. We need to be thankful for the provisions of God and always be careful how we approach our meals at home and other places. There are some other principles that are important related to contentment, and we will continue on this topic in the next entry. As is often the case, I think that the basic approach to becoming content is to learn to be thankful!
Contentment is a rare quality today, but it is one that can really make a difference in our whole life! In a culture where there are way too many choices for all of us, especially children, contentment is something we must learn or it won’t happen!
My daughter recently observed a party for children and she was very struck by the fact that the children were so outspoken about their likes and dislikes related to the food and other activities at the event. We need to remember that children learn by example and by teaching and when neither one is occurring properly, children will not pick up the qualities that they need in order to set them for a life characterized by contentment.
So how do we teach contentment? First of all, we need to model contentment for our children. If we are always trying to get and get and get more, then they will learn that is what life is all about. When we feel free to share openly about our likes and dislikes related to food or other basics of life, they will learn to share all the things they don’t like as well. I remember when our kids were young, we believed it was bad manners for children to come to the table, ours or anyone else’s, and talk about the food being or containing something they “don’t like”. In fact, we made a rule in our home that if someone complained about the food or asked what was in it so as to ascertain whether they would want to eat it, they would then have a slice of bread and a glass of water for that meal while the rest of us ate the meal along with the dessert. I think we only had to enforce that rule one time and it never happened again! It is also not wise for a mother to plan a meal that allows for each person to eat something different so that no one must eat anything that he doesn’t like. Food is only one small aspect of contentment, but it is an area where children think they can take control if they are allowed to get away with sharing their opinions.
Children can learn to try to control early if they are allowed to cry for things in the grocery store and see their desires met if they cry loud enough. If they know you are not going to spank or otherwise discipline them when you are out, they will learn very quickly that they can have anything they want in a grocery store. So how do you stop that in a climate where we don’t dare spank our kids in public? Well, as soon as the child tries that crying routine in the store, you very calmly explain to him that if he doesn’t stop that immediately, he will be punished when he arrives home. And then when he arrives home, you need to remember that promise you gave him and you need to carry through with something that he will NOT forget! (Spankings work well and I believe that is God’s punishment of choice.) You see, if a child receives an item in a store because he cries, he will learn by experience that he can get new toys, treats, etc. every time he goes to the store and you will begin to plant the seed of discontent in his heart because he can always have more if he can manipulate you by crying.
So the bottom line of the discussion today is that we as adults need to display the quality of contentment before our children if we expect them to learn how to be that way. We need to be thankful for the provisions of God and always be careful how we approach our meals at home and other places. There are some other principles that are important related to contentment, and we will continue on this topic in the next entry. As is often the case, I think that the basic approach to becoming content is to learn to be thankful!
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