Helping your child develop a servant's heart

This is a typical scene in our house: I call my 3 darling boys into the kitchen for snack and they all but barrel each other over to get there first. Then a mess of hands are waving in my face in hopes that that might some how win them a granola bar before one of their brothers. Or how about this daily occurrence - We get home from wherever our day has taken us. The older two boys start running the minute their feet hit the grass. We then hear whoever gets to the door first (usually the oldest since he does move at a much more rapid pace then our much smaller middle child) yell triumphantly, "I was first, I was first! That means I win and you LOSE!!"

What is it about kids that makes them think first is best? That everything is a race and that whoever is first is the winner? I don't think this is just my kids. I hope not at least! While I realize that this is completely "normal", it certainly isn't a characteristic I want to foster. It can't be possible to grow into a kind, generous, giving person if you continue to think of yourself first and do whatever it takes to beat the other guys. So how do we help our kids go from this state of me, me, me to a place of serving others?

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10

A servant's heart isn't something we are born with. Not initially. Maybe it's a survival thing - babies HAVE to be demanding to get their needs met so they can survive and thrive. Maybe it's an environmental thing - a kid's first handful of words often includes the ever popular mine as a way of asserting ownership and dominance over anyone else who might dare lay hands on their coveted blankie or stuffed animal. Before you know it the teenage years have hit and Lord knows teenagers can't see 6 inches outside of themselves. It's not their fault, what with all those hormones bouncing around it's really a wonder they can accomplish anything! For some it doesn't get much better in adulthood - I know several grown-ups who have a case of "see it, take it, and I make it mine" (any Elmo in Grouchland watchers out there??) that has carried over from childhood.

Turn my heart towards your statutes and not towards selfish gain. Psalm 119:36

Despite what seems to come naturally, we are called to serve others as a service to God. And that means as parents we are called to teach our kids how to serve as well. How do you do that exactly? I don't have all the answers but I will share what we are doing in our house.

"...But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15

Leading by example
You have all heard the old adage, "Do as I do, not as I say!" All of us with kids know all to well that children are far more likely to follow our example than follow our words. That is why it is important that our first method of teaching our kids how to have servant's hearts is to have a heart for serving ourselves. My husband and I make an effort to not only serve when the opportunity arises, but also to create opportunities for our entire family to take part in serving. Even if that means they come along as we bring a meal to a family in need. This simple act creates a teachable moment where we can talk to them about giving what we have even when it doesn't seem like much and how God blesses others through our willingness to give.

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12

Giving opportunities to practice
I think it has been pretty well established that this servant's heart thing doesn't come naturally. That means that it is going to take a lot of intentional practice to help our kids get to a place where it begins to become natural. One way we have recently begun to give our children a way to practice serving is by setting the table. As they begin to take each cup and plate to the table we make sure to remind them to serve everyone at the table before serving themselves. The first few times this is all we said. After several times of doing this we made a point to talk about why we do that. We told our kids that when we are serving, we are putting others before ourselves. This has begun to lay the foundation for when the opportunity to serve someone else naturally presents itself. We can then say, "You know how when we serve dinner we serve everyone at the table before ourselves? This is just like that."

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

Pray for them and with them
Let's not forget one of the most powerful tools that we as Christian parents possess - the power of prayer. By praying for our children daily, we are not only remembering to give their lives to God but we are also keeping them in the forefront of our minds. It's much easier to be intentional about something you are praying about. I like to pray that God not only gives my children a servant's heart, but that he gives me the tools to parent them in a way that helps develop that. Not only do we pray for our children but we pray with our children. Often. Yes, we do the typical pray at meal times and bedtimes, but we also make an effort to pray throughout the day and whenever a need arises. In the car on the way to school we pray with our Kindergartener, that his day would go well, that he would choose to be kind to the other students and listen to his teacher. This helps set his day up for success and also teaches him to give everything to God in prayer. So if you see your child struggling with serving others (and you know these struggles will arise because I still have them as a 30 year old!) stop and pray with them. Don't know what to say? It might look something like this,

"Lord, you know Johnny's heart. 

You know that he wants to follow you 

and that following you means 

putting others before ourselves. 

Johnny is having a hard time with that right now. 

We ask that you help him to 

make the choice to serve others 

even when it feels really hard. 

We know that you can do this and we know that Johnny

can do this with your help. 

In Jesus name, Amen." 

After modeling this several times you will find that with prompting your child will be able to pray this for themselves. And the hope that is eventually it will become a response that doesn't even involve you anymore.

Pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to help your child develop a servant's heart. As I said before, I am no expert. Just a mom doing the best I can and trying things out as I go. I would love to hear from you all on how you are making serving a priority in your kids (and your own!) lives. We all have something to gain from sharing our knowledge with each other.

Teachable moments

There are concepts and beliefs as a parent that we go out of your way to teach. Starting with little things like mama and dada and the ABC's and then moving into the big stuff like faith and what we stand for. We thoughtfully orchestrate moments that allow our little ones to learn without them even knowing it. Sitting down with connectable toys to teach the baby "in and out" which looks to him an awful lot like play time or grabbing a pencil and paper to help the oldest one write a letter to daddy which feels like a lot of fun because he's never done it before. Reading them Bible stories so that the word of God penetrates them while they are just excited to be read to. All of these moments accumulate over the days, weeks, and years to make up a lifetime of learning.

And then there are the moments we don't plan. When life presents itself in an unexpected manner and you grab onto the opportunity and make a learning experience out of it. In elementary education we called this a teachable moment. These don't just happen in the classroom, these happen in your home as well and as a parent I take advantage of that whenever I can.

Today just such a moment presented itself. Late last night my sister-in-law texted me to tell inform me that my 8-week old niece was in the er. As the night went on they discovered she had a severe UTI and would need to stay for observation. So this morning as I was easing into the day with my boys I took a moment to share with my 4 1/2  and 3 1/2 year old that their cousin was sick in the hospital and that we should take a moment to pray for her. Right then Nathan (the 4 year old) clasped his hands, shut his eyes and spoke a prayer out loud on Sienna's behalf. And then we went about our day. But as the day continued we learned that things were a little more serious and that baby Sienna has a benign tumor on one of her kidneys and will be needing surgery.

Now at this point I had some options in regards to what I would tell the boys. How much do you share with little ones in these situations? I am sure each of us would answer differently and it would depend on the kid but in my case I decided to fill them in on the basics of what was happening. I told the boys that Sienna had something that wasn't good for her in her stomach and that they were going to have to take it out by doing something called surgery. I explained that surgery meant they had to cut her open. Nathan says with big eyes, "But that will hurt her!" I said, "Yes, it will hurt. But it will make her better." Then he says, "But if they cut her open she will be broken forever." I stopped for a minute and then looked right in his eyes and told him that she won't be broken forever, that the doctors are there to help Sienna and that when they are done with the surgery they will fix her back up. I explained that we didn't need to worry but that instead we should pray. Pray for Sienna, and for the doctors, and for her mommy and daddy and sister so that they won't be scared. So we did. We prayed.

For some of you, this may be seem like too much information for children that are not even school-aged. But to me it felt like the right moment to teach them that sometimes things in life seem scary and we don't understand them but that we can trust God and turn to him in prayer. "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." (Psalm 56:3) I am thankful for moments like this - not because I want loved ones to be in the hospital but because they allow me to model my faith for my children. The more times I get the chance to do that, the more likely there will come a day that they are the ones suggesting we should pray instead of me. And on that day I will being doing cartwheels inside...just like when they first said mama and knew they were calling me and just like that first time they said their ABC's all by themselves. Because I will know they got it. Really got it. And I will be reminded of why I do what I do each day.

Money Management Ideas for Munchkins

One of our main goals as parents, after raising our children to love and follow Christ, is to give them the tools they need to be successful, productive, generous adults. We want them to have a solid foundation that makes the challenges that are bound to arise later in life more manageable. One of the largest areas of difficulty for many adults is managing their finances. There are so many ways to go wrong and when given the wrong information, or no information, people can make some horrible decisions regarding money. We know that we have, and continue to, struggle with properly managing our finances. We do not want the boys to start out their adult lives with the same struggles we have had, so while we are first working on ourselves (afterall, living by example speaks volumes over what we actually say to them) we are also trying to plant some early money management seeds in our youngsters.

I have to give a lot of the credit to Laura from Happily Ever After as it was her post about teaching her young daughter how to begin being wise with her money that sparked the idea to do the same in our home. I had always planned on being intentional in teaching the boys about money but never gave it a thought to start so young. But I realized, that just like everything else in parenting, you give them what they can handle at each stage. For our 3 and 4 year old that is an "allowance" of a dollar a week. They earn this by doing their part to contribute around the house. That includes keeping their rooms tidy, clearing their own plates at meal time, picking up toys around the house, etc. We give them this dollar in the form of 10 dimes (thanks again Laura, you are too smart!) as this makes it easier to show them how to split up the money. 1 dime goes in their God jar for tithing, 4 dimes go in their spending jar and are available to them to spend as they see fit, 5 dimes go in their piggy banks which are for saving and can't be touched. I can't tell you how much they love this and we are seeing good things developing because of it. They are learning about the value of money, counting, fractions as well as responsibility and being a good steward of their money.

Today they actually got their first chance to spend some of that well-earned money. We made a trip to the dollar store last week and they saw some light-up batons that they loved and continued to talk about all week. So I told them that when they got their allowance this week we could count up what they had in their spending jar and if there was enough they could chose whether or not to go buy the batons. They each had two dollars which we told them was enough for just one thing at the dollar store (darn tax!) and they both chose to spend it. You should have seen their little faces as they marched into that store, chose their batons carefully, waited in line and handed the cashier their money. I think they were happy with their decision:

I would love to hear the things you are doing in your family to help your kids learn the value of money...feel free to share all your great ideas!

Unwholesome talk

The interesting thing about writing a blog about your life is that it is so easy to pinpoint what is going on in each season based on the reoccurring themes in your posts. What's going on in my life right now? Parenting issues! So lucky you, you are along for the ride as my blog focuses on this very thing. Your welcome:)

These past few weeks I have found myself having to really pay attention to what my children are watching on television. Not to say we weren't doing that to begin with, but now it is on a different level. About two weeks ago I heard my little 3 year old start calling his brother an idiot. While not the worst word in the world, I certainly don't want to hear it coming out of my children's mouths. Especially to insult someone else. It didn't take me long to figure out that the role model for this behavior came from their new favorite movie Toy Story 3. Needless to say after several reminders not to use that word it came down to taking the movie away for awhile. Unfortunately, that hasn't done much to curb it. Jordan has realized that he has found a way to ruffle some feathers and still smirks every time he says it. This doesn't surprise me as it is his personality to take joy in doing something he shouldn't. And in line with his personality, Nathan began copying this behavior because Jordan was having so much fun with it. You would think being the older brother he wouldn't fall prey to this, but he is a follower to a fault. Now name calling is a favorite past-time it seems. I was finding myself at a loss for how to deal with this until today.

A friend of a friend posted on Facebook that they used Ephesians 4 to discuss unwholesome talk with their kids. BINGO! I am really striving to raise my kids to choose to live as Jesus did and I want to set strong examples for them that are built upon the teachings in the Bible. This was an excellent chance to do just that. So after a car ride home from dinner tonight filled with various names going back and forth (mostly silly stuff but annoying nonetheless) we decided that we would substitute bedtime stories with some time in the Bible. I sat them both down, one on each side and begin to read through Ephesians 4:17-32. We stopped after each verse so that I could explain what it was saying in a way they would understand. I focused heavily on verse 29 which reads (from the NIV): "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." We talked about examples of unwholesome talk (Jordan's favorite part of the whole thing) and how saying those things would make others feel bad about themselves and that we are to only say things that would make others feel good about themselves. This is definitely going to be a conversation we continue over time. After all, they are 3 and 4 and repetition seems to be as necessary as water and breathing at this age. But I am pleased with how the discussion went and hope they took something from it.  

This also comes at a time when I have been feeling convicted that as a family we should be taking a break from tv all together for awhile. I will write more about this in a later post but it is just confirmation that this is an area we need to be diligent in when it comes to parenting. May not win us any popularity contests with our kids, but I can live with that!

You don't like it? You make it!

These past two weeks have been pretty rough for Nathan (our 4 year old). He has been full of attitude, defiant and complaining about everything. We think he is just really needing some one on one time. He is the most dependent of the 3 and this works against him as far as getting mommy and daddy's attention. This weekend Jeremy is planning an outing for just the two of them so he can get some of that attention he seems to be craving. Another thing we are doing is letting him get more involved in helping out. Not just "Grab Isaiah's binky, please" or "Can you go shut that door or turn off that light" but things that give him responsibility as well as time with one or both of us.

One of his big complaints this week has been dinner. He has not been pleased with what I have been serving and has made no effort to hide that. In this house we do not cater at mealtime, I take into consideration what everyone likes and dislikes but we have one meal and if you don't like it, you don't eat. I have followed through with this all week but have decided in an effort to give him some sense of control (as well as a taste of what I go through to put dinner on the table) I am going to let him start being in charge of one meal every so often. So I sat him down while I was doing the meal planning and told him what day he was in charge of. His responsibilities included planning a dinner menu, helping do the shopping for it and then helping me prepare it.

His dinner night is going to be Friday. What are we having you ask? Spaghetti and Meatballs with broccoli on the side. I thought that was a reasonable choice. And for dessert: his major requirement was that it had whipped cream and he finally settled on putting that on top of brownies.

 

On the menu!

So Friday came and Nathan was actually super excited about getting to help at the grocery store. I let him pick out the head of broccoli, which kind of pasta sauce, the brownie mix, etc. He had so much fun that he helped me with my entire list and did a great job at it. I think I found a new shopping buddy!

As soon as we got home and got the groceries put away we decided to get the brownies going. So he donned his new chef ware that he got as a Christmas present and jumped right into baking.

Doesn't he look so excited?

Who needs a Kitchen Aid when you have a 4 year old?

As soon as that came out of the oven it was time to start making the meatballs. This is where things took an interesting turn. First off, he didn't realize what I put in my meatballs. "Squash...I don't like squash!" he whined as I explained that he loves my meatballs and that is what has always been in them. Then when I told him we mix up the ingredients by putting our hands in he wasn't all too thrilled either. Ummm, this is a 4 year old boy we are talking about, right? I thought he would be thrilled to play with his food but not so much. So I talked him into putting his hands into it and that is when all heck broke loose. He was thoroughly disgusted and was begging to wash his hands. I told him I wanted him to make one meatball to see how it was done and I pretty much had to force him to do it. I think the pictures say it all:

Disgusting!

Mean old mommy made me make a meatball (try saying that 3 times fast!)

As this was going on he realized that one of his favorite shows was on tv and he wanted to quit all together to watch tv. This is where the lesson came in. I told him that being responsible for making dinner isn't always fun. That besides the planning and shopping, you also have to stop what you are doing and sometimes miss out on the fun stuff to get it done. This is why it hurts mommy's feelings when you complain about what I make. While I wanted this entire experience to be a fun bonding moment between us I am glad this life lesson was incorporated into it as well. This was the backbone to the whole idea and I am glad it came about naturally so that he could truly get the point. After some time in his room following a full on meltdown (and a mini mommy meltdown), we got back to cooking and everything turned out great. His favorite part was serving everyone and getting to choose how many meatballs went on his plate. I told him one of the perks of being the cook is deciding how much you put on your own plate. I then asked if he wanted two or three meatballs to which he replied, "I think I need four, I have a really big mouth!"  Four it is Nathan. Four it is.

Enjoying the fruits of his labor

They were right...life ISN'T fair!!

The older I get and the more children I have, the more I realize that my parents were right. About most everything! If only I would have really listened to them then. It seems like when you are at the age to absorb and make use of the words of wisdom older people impart on you, you are completely incapable of doing it. I already think of all the things I am going to tell my children to make their lives easier, knowing all the while that they won't listen until they have learned it for themselves. So goes the circle of life!

I was thinking today about how once you become a mom life changes in so many more ways then anyone tells you. Well, had I listened to my mom while growing up I would know, but as previously mentioned I was incapable with my stupid teenage mind. So it all feels like brand new to me. Like, I knew I wouldn't get much sleep, my time wouldn't be my own, my priorities would change. This I knew going into it. I didn't fully get it, but I knew. What I didn't really realize is that as a mom, and a wife actually, you lose the ability to give in to whatever you are feeling. Sure some moms do, but I'm talking about if you actually want things to go smoothly.

For example: lately I have not been able to sleep through an entire night. I would say in the last 6 weeks I slept completely through the night once. A big contributing factor is that I am now 22 weeks pregnant and having to pee several times. But another factor is my children. My 2 year old has taken to waking up crying once or twice in the middle of the night and requiring my attention. Then my 3 year old is up by 5:45 like clockwork each day. Now he gets brother up too and they cause all kinds of nonsense so I can't really sleep too soundly once they are up. Anyone who has gone for periods of time with low quality sleep knows that it begins to wear on you. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I am at the point where I get up in the morning and want to cry because I am so tired. Then I am faced with whatever mess my children have already made at that early hour. The day continues with two little people demanding constant attention usually communicating this by whining and flailing themselves around like a fish out of water (what is that about anyway?). Not only that but this tired cranky combination makes it hard to find any motivation to get the stuff around the house done like I should. So guilt starts to creep in. I feel like a crazy mess!

This brings me to the part of not being able to give into your feelings if you want the household to go smoothly. See my brain tells me "these children are the reason you are so tired and cranky, of course you are going to be a little more short with them then usual, of course housework can wait when you feel like a walking zombie." In my mind I know I am justified. My kids act in whatever manner suits their current emotional state. For that matter, so does my husband. But if I do, if I give in to that urge to act in the way I feel like I should, things would fall apart. As these last few days have gotten the best of me I see my children start to fall apart too. My crankiness has warn off on them and they are beginning to whine and fight on a nearly constant basis. And neglecting housework only means there is more for me to face tomorrow, which makes me even crankier. So the only real solution is to suck it up. To dig down deep and find that patience with my children that makes the day go smoothly and allows me to be around them without wanting to strangle them. To trudge through the housework, even if at a slower pace, so that it doesn't become unbearable at the end of the week. This way of thinking, this is not me. Not the me I grew up being. This is the mom in me. Because you see as soon as those little people entered the world they took a piece of me with them. The piece that is allowed to act on whatever I am feeling. That was replaced with a never ending quest to make life peaceful at all costs.  It may not be fair, but it's life. My life anyway. And as I have come to realize now that I am actually capable of listening, this is the life my mom and many other moms know too.

In a way it makes me proud. I have joined the club...that club that most women become a part of. I guess the true triumph will be when I learn to do it happily and not out of obligation. The ultimate goal is to not let it make me bitter but to let it make me stronger. I also hold onto the hope that one day it will all be worth it and I will hear my children say, "you were so right!" and "now I get it!".  I have a feeling that with all boys this day may not come as soon as it would with girls. Men always take longer to get it. But still I will pray that it comes!