52 Ways To Teach Your Child To Be Charitable - #11

photo by Mike Licht

Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by someone’s act of kindness at a moment when you least expected it? Didn’t it just make your day? Here’s a way to teach your child the art of paying it forward.

Leave grocery coupons for others.

Practice some stealth charity, the kind where no one will ever know it was you and your child who did it. Sit down together and go through your stash of coupons. Pull out several, and during your next grocery store visit leave several of them next to their items in plain view of unsuspecting shoppers. Giddiness while doing it is totally appropriate.

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3 Ideas For Opening Communication Lines

A recent mother-daughter outing resulted in this snapshot

My daughter recently shared a discussion she was part of in her youth group, where the girls were asked who they would turn to if they needed to talk about a problem or concern. Most of the girls said they would turn to a girlfriend, or maybe even a specific teacher or coach - not unusual responses. But one girl surprised her peers with her answer.

She would go to her parents.

Most of the group replied with a “You’re kidding” or “Seriously?” in response to her answer, somewhat dumbfounded that any teenage girl could have such a relationship. Then, as my daughter reported it, many of them remarked how they wish they had that kind of openness with their mom or dad.

Research studies show that our children want that kind of relationship with us, but we have either believed cultural perceptions, gotten ourselves too busy or allowed our own personal faulty thinking to intervene with connecting with our kids.

If we desire to share our faith with our children, if it’s our goal that they learn about the Good News of Jesus Christ, if we want them to experience a personal relationship with a Savior, then we have to open up communication lines with our kids so we have those opportunities to share.

Below are three ideas for doing just that. No rocket science here, folks. Sometimes we just need reminders to do what works.

Schedule a regular parent-child day
I emphasize the word ‘schedule’ here. If your calendar looks anything like our family’s, this activity just won’t happen of its own accord. I also want to emphasize the word ‘regular.’ You determine what would work for you, then tell your child what day(s) are going to be your special get-togethers. Plan with your child what you’re going to do and how long you’ll get to spend with each other.

Make it something that would be totally enjoyable for your child. There shouldn’t be any hidden agenda, such as an educational purpose or a hoped-for spiritual breakthrough. Save those for other times. The goal is to allow you and your child to relax together, encourage conversation, and to get to know each other.

My daughter and I get together once a week, usually over a meal somewhere. With her work schedule and my jam-packed calendar, Thursdays are typically what work best, although we’re flexible if we need to be. Three Thursdays a month we stay local, grabbing a quick bite and spending maybe an hour or so talking. Once a month we make it an all-day affair, throwing in a shopping trip to a mall or something. Spending money is actually optional, but we enjoy trying to find a ridiculous clearance price on an article of clothing, smelling the newest scents at Yankee Candle Co., or making wisecracks about how much of the Victoria’s Secrets model’s beauty is actually natural.

Take advantage of at-home quiet times
Sometimes these are spontaneous and sometimes they can be planned if you know you’re family’s calendar well enough. This is one-on-one time where other family members are gone, or where the rest of the family knows this is your special time together and won’t interrupt you inordinately.

Do an activity of shared interest. Bake a batch of cookies. Build a lean-to. Have a tea party. Erect a race track for a ball bearing. Just you and your child. Have fun, laugh, talk and play together. Relax. Open yourself up for sharing and connecting.

Nobody else in our house particularly likes sci-fi the way my youngest son and I do. We like watching Star Trek. I wouldn’t call us Trekkies, but we definitely share nerdish qualities that the rest of the family just doesn’t get. Same thing with movies based on Marvel comics. Stan Lee is a world-class cultural icon in our eyes. Sometimes we’ll discuss certain things during the TV show or movie, but most of the conversation comes afterwards when we share favorite lines of dialogue, cool action scenes or pretend to zap each other with spidey-goop from our wrists.

Plan those spontaneous moments
Yes, that sounds like an oxymoron. It’s not very spontaneous if you have to plan it, is it? What I’m talking about is springing a surprise on your child that you knew about ahead of time, perhaps as you woke up that morning and decided that you could put aside your usual chores for the afternoon and spend some time with your child.

These are snippets of time together, designed strictly to have a moment of fun in the midst of the typical day. Go for a bike ride. Dash up to Dairy Queen for a Dilly Bar. Play H-O-R-S-E at the basketball court. Go to the playground and dare to go down the slide with your kid. Take your teen out for a driving lesson. Go for a walk.

The overriding theme to these ideas is to have fun and RELAX. You also need to engage with your child. These are times where you want to find out what your child thinks about and what’s going on in his life, not spend time expounding on adult matters.

Connecting with our child one-on-one like this is not about teachable moments, per se. However, regularly interacting with our child like this will open up countless opportunities in the future for sharing what we know is most important: a relationship with a risen Savior.

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52 Ways To Teach Your Child To Be Charitable - #10

photo by robinsan

It’s easy for our children to develop a narrow vision of the world around them. They hear of the poor, the hungry, the lonely, but unless they’re purposefully led to engage with those who suffer, our children will not learn how to give to those who are less fortunate.

Volunteer your time.

Nursing homes are filled with people who don’t have family to come visit. Food pantries need stockers and other staff to care for the community poor. Soup kitchens always need workers, not just during the holidays. Even the local animal shelter could use a hand with taking care of the throwaways that end up there. Where can you and your family fill in?

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A Father's Instruction And A Mother's Teaching

photo by skittzitilby

Our family began a study of Proverbs this morning, passing the Bible around while each one of us read 6-7 verses of Chapter One. The first ten chapters of Proverbs is the Prologue, kind of an introduction about, well, the wisdom of being wise, really. It’s full of admonition about how important it is for the reader to forsake the ways of the foolish in favor of obtaining instruction in discernment and knowledge.

Verse eight says the following:

“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”

I bet I’m not the only parent who wants to jab their child, reminding him in a not-so-gentle way to PAY ATTENTION to that verse, especially if he wants that proverbial head garland and neck chain promised in the next verse. After all, if this child would just LISTEN TO ME when I tell him something, he would “live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm” (verse33). “Harm” in this case is losing whatever electronic device I deem would create the most discomfort while the child discerns how he could have handled a situation differently.

(In truth, I haven’t had to employ this disciplinary tactic for several years, my two children remaining at home being 15- and 17-years old. Such is the benefit of putting Christ in the center of your home, but that’s a topic for another article. Suffice it to say it would be the disciplinary method of choice if I had to use it.)

What struck me about verse eight this time, however, was not how my children should heed it, but how I should be living it. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve been doing such a crack-up job of teaching godly truths to my children lately.

I spoke about it with my husband the other day. Since he’s retired from driving over the road, which used to place me as the one in authority while he was away during the week, I’ve relinquished some of my responsibility toward teaching the children. I guess I kind of thought, well, Bill’s home now so I’ll step back in deference to his place as the primary teacher.

And he has stepped up to assume that role. Every morning he brings us together for a daily family devotion of prayer and Bible reading. Somewhere in the transition, though, I lost touch with my role.

What’s my role? Seeking opportunity to insert Jesus into my daily conversation and activity with my children, what others would call ‘teachable moments.’ The operative word here is ‘seeking.’ During these transitional months of my husband being home 24/7 and us adapting to a new routine, I’ve gotten a little complacent about looking for those teachable moments.

It’s kind of hard for my child to forsake my teaching if I’m not making a diligent effort to, um, teach. That jab I spoke of earlier needs to come poking around in my direction.

Yes, I suppose you could argue that it’s only been a few months since my husband retired, and after all, what terrible thing could have befallen my children during that time? However, I’m reminded that it is all too easy to allow complacency to gain a foothold. None of us intend for it to happen. But it does happen, in tiny little increments, until at some point it becomes a totally different lifestyle from what we had not that long ago.

We must always be in appraisal of the role God has called us to, especially if we are a parent. We must consistently be in the Word of God so His truths pierce whatever veil of distraction or complacency have occurred or, quite frankly, we’ve allowed.

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52 Ways To Teach Your Child To Be Charitable - #9

photo by Horia Varlan

In a lot of homes, there’s a TV in every bedroom, along with a video game system, a stereo, a computer and any number of other electronic devices. It makes it very easy to shut out the rest of the family and indulge in self-focus.

There are towels that need to be folded.

Charity needs to start at home, and that includes doing things for other family members. Everyone needs clean towels, so the next time the bath linens are laundered, give your child the task of folding the towels. It’s something even young children can be taught how to do.

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