Teaching Children Gratitude/serving

I think your article was great. It had really made me open my eyes to do more. At our house before christmas and birthdays we do box up toys that we no longer play with or that never get played with and donate them. I think its a great idea. My children also give at church sometimes its only a very small amount but they will learn to understand why along the road. I thing you have really lite a fire so to speak under my butt to do more Thank you.

I received a bookmark from the agency I volunteer with this week with a quote on it from G. Donald Gale, "A pessimist, they say, sees a glass of water as being half empty; an optimist sees the glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty." This is what you are doing and teaching you children, and I think it is great.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now two, I made goals for myself as a parent. One of the things that I wanted to model for my daughter was giving and volunteerism. I did my training for my volunteer training when I was nine months pregnant with her and she has been going with me as I volunteer since she was a newborn. What I do is mentor a teen mother. We do many fun activities and my daughter sees it as going out with friends at this point, but I'm trying to model for both the young mother and my daughter. It has had the added benefit of teaching me a lot about what it is like to try to make it in this country when you are disadvantaged. If anyone is interested in doing this kind of mentoring they can through Children's Home Society and Family Services in St. Paul ###-###-####. www.chsfs.org

Something that I want to do when my daughter is a little older is volunteer with Feed My Starving Children. They make dry meals that are shipped around the world to nations where children are malnourished and starving. www.fmsc.org

My current favorite charity is the CF foundation. My nephew has Cystic Fibrosis and they need funds to find a cure. It is an orphan disease, which means not many federal funds go their way because not enough people have the disease. Researchers may be close to curing CF. I think it would be wonderful to be part of curing a disease, and if that is not possible to at least make life better for those afflicted by the disease. To make a donation, volunteer, participate in a fundraising walk etc. go to www.cff.org for more information.

I think it is important that we show our children how fortunate they are and that even children have a responsibility to make the world better.

T.:

Thank you for your article. I live in a fairly affluent area where it seems to be a given that fancy electronics are given in preschool and it just keeps moving along until they get the car in HS. A friend of my daughter's had the nerve to make a list for the Easter Bunny (my response to this was that rabbits 1)don't take requests and 2)are not tech savvy).

We too make sure the kids tithe at church (making the physical act of putting a coin we give them into the basket). We don't give them a cash allownece yet - they earn priveleges instead.

My oldest recently did Feed Our Starving Children - it was a wonderful experience I would recommend to anyone of any age group. We've also had the kids choose a toy for Toys for Tots each year and have cleaned up parks, etc.

I guess our biggest challenge will be the area we live in and the rub-off in the entitlement attitude so many children seem to have here. I just keep repeating that our responsibilities as parents reqire: shelter, safety, healthy environment, food, clothing and love. They need to be thankful for all the rest. They also need to respect their things.

They learned at and early age that broken toys are tossed not repared and more recently, my second grader learned that even though she didn't mean to lose her Webkins code ($40 stuffed animal with internet site), she will not simply get it replaced. She's saving her money.

As parents, it's all in our examples and attitudes. Glad to find those of you who think the same...

K.

I always try to teach my children to think of those who don't have what we have. This may sound kind of mean but my daughter had been complaining recently about having to bring a bag lunch to school instead of getting the hot lunch that the school serves. to show her how it felt to be one of the kids who may not be able to have a good lunch be it school provided or from home everyday I purposely forgot to pack her lunch for three days. On those day she had to have just a plain sheese sandwhich and milk from the school. I also have been having her help me make her fathers lunch for work so she could see the amount of work and love I put in to making their lunches. Let me say they were both successes and she has not complained anymore about having to bring a lunch and she has even helped make her lunch. As a reward we let her pick one day a week to have hot lunch at school. Also every year before my kids birthday and Christmas we go through their things and donate some of there toys to kids who don't have any.

I teach my daughter to put some money in the Salvation Army's kettle pots at xmas, she enjoys trying on clothing to see what still fits and what doesn't she gets to pack up and go give her hand me downs to a few people we know that greatly appreciate them. She knows to hold the door open for others and not be rude and let it slam in their face, I teach her alot of manners. I'm a single parent so financially giving isn't always possible ya gotta take care of your own before you take care of someone else's is my motto. I do give away most of her old toys on freemarket.org, we shovel for our elderly neighbor in the winter, if were somewhere where a child is left out I will tell my daughter to go include that child or go start up a conversation. I tell her to not run to the popular kids instead seek out somoene lonely usually they make better friends that way anyways.

We teach our daughter to put money in the Sal Army kettle during the holidays. Once a year, we go through her toys and make a bag of her toys that she doesn't play with anymore, and we add it to the bags that I have going to goodwill/Epilepsy Foundation/Veterans of America. She puts her bag of toys in there for another child and is proud of her donation. Kids learn by example, if we are giving, then they will be too.
I WILL NOT deal with those "want" tantrums and my daughter knows that I don't give in when I say no, I mean it. When I say no, she generally listens, and it takes tantrums and a lot of consistency to get her to believe me. She knows she is privileged in other ways,...for instance, she was really good on Friday when we went out to a fancy restaurant, so on Saturday, we went to 4 playgrounds just for fun. We reminded her that it was because she was so good the night before and we rewarded her for her good behavior. Going to the playground is a privilege and she knows it. (sometimes she needs reminding, but that's what parenting is.)

Also, incase anyone is interested, there is a good article about "how to raise a Money-Smart Kid" in the April issue of Parenting magazine. Just some good tips.