One thing, among many:), that Shawn and I are trying to instill in our girls is a spirit of giving. How in the world do you teach that to a 3 1/2 year old! We do the best we can and I often wonder how much of what we say to Adrianna is actually sinking in. We decided to do Operation Christmas Child this year. We had a box ready last year but for some reason missed the deadline. Anyway...we had it almost filled and we wanted to add a few more things to it. Last night I sat down with Adrianna and first reminded her of all the blessings we have like our house, food, clothes, and toys. And how fun it is to receive gifts on our birthday's and Christmas. I tried to tell her that Jesus wants us to share the things we have with people who don't have much. I told her about a little girl that would not be getting any gifts this Christmas and it would be so much fun for us to send her this box of toys. I asked her if there was a toy she would like to give away to a little girl. She immediately found a small Strawberry Shortcake doll that I think we got in a happy meal a while ago. When I told her we were going to put it in the box, she said "Okay, but the girl can send it back to me when she is done!". I told her that she would not be getting it back because the girl would be playing with it.
CUE DRAMA......
She started crying uncontrollably and saying that it was her doll. I had no idea what to say! Should I have just taken it from her and said this is what we were doing, or just dropped it? I wanted her to be the one to put it in the box, not me. Well, I took the doll and set it on the counter so that I could think of what to say. I did tell her that it would sit there until she was ready to have a giving heart. Throughout the evening she kept looking at it and saying "There's my doll".
This morning we got up and were getting breakfast ready when Adrianna saw her doll and said to me "I'm ready to put it in the box for the girl". So she promptly gave her doll a kiss and put it in the box. She still thinks the girl will send it back when she is done! Adrianna kept asking what the girl's name was so I'm really hoping someone will respond to our letter!
All this to say that our kids do listen to our words! They might not respond right away or seem to understand, but I think they are catching more than we think and more than they let on! It was a precious moment when Adrianna decided to put her toy in the box. It is so amazing to see them choose to be giving or loving on their own without us giving them a direction all the time. What a humbling thing to see the work of the Holy Spirit!
If anyone has any good ideas about teaching kids how to be giving, please pass them along!
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2 comments:
When you figure out how to teach sharing, tell me! It is the hardest of lessons to teach anyone, let alone our children. It breaks my heart that Alex is not more of a giving child with her things. She says that she loves her things so much, she cannot bare to give them away. She is getting better, though, and having Adrianna and Colin (and Eliza too) has helped. It struck me while reading your account, how Adrianna might have reacted if you had sacrificially given something of yours. We often ask our children to share but we (I mean me!) don't want to "sacrifice" what we have. This is something for me to think about too. Anyway, I have a paper from BSF about sharing that I will share with you on Dec 1. Unfortunately, it is no sacrifice for me to give it to you.
Aunt Sue
A giving heart.. unfortunatly is not inborn in us, but is taught, by action, and words. Adrianna is learning to give by watching you, Becky! All the meals you take to others, the times you are availble for others are all examples of giving she is learning without you knowing it. A few exaamples you might not even remember of how I tried to teach this to you and your siblings. Christmas caroling and making those trays of cookies, singing in church and always telling you how you were blessing someone else, not doing it to show off your talent, getting the smallets serving of ice cream and not saying, hey i want the biggest one! Then waiting for everyone to be served and the one who didn't complain about the smallest serving got the biggest.. some of you sure learned that quickly! Doing jobs around the house to make money so you could buy something for someone else. Then shopping, wrapping and giving the gift yourself. And always.. teaching.. to look at a persons face on how happy you just made them! And the most important of course was teaching the sacrifice that Jesus gave to us. Were these things successful? Looking back I have to say yes, for each of you have a very giving heart!
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