Ever wonder if you’re a good parent and your kids will turn out okay? I sometimes, I mean, I always wonder about this. Especially, when you look outside and see this…
Well, this week I got a glimpse of what some of my parenting has accomplished so far and I had to write about it.
My husband and I want our kids to know the value of a dollar and what to do with that dollar, so I’ve been teaching my son about money through an awesome program that Dave Ramsey has for kids. You learn about how to save, spend and give. “Give” being something that he was NOT too fond about at first. For over a month, we have been giving our son chores to do. With the money he earns, we put 10% in an envelope for church. They have a cool coin machine the kids can put their change in called “Pennies from Heaven.” He just loves doing this! With giving in mind, I always mention things we could do like helping sick kids by taking them activities and toys. Sending drawings to our troops. Things you say that you really don’t think is sinking in to your 5 year old’s mushy, Batman obsessed brain, but you say it anyway!
A few days ago, we drove by a new children’s hospital that is almost finished being built near our home and my son said, “Now we can go cheer up the sick kids!!” I guess it’s not as mushy as I thought…
Then, today he came home from Vacation Bible School telling me that the zebra is dead and we need to help the kids in Africa. Huh??? After I wrapped my head around what that meant, I remembered our church is trying to raise money to send to Nigeria for a water filtration system. Okay, they must have shown a video with a dead zebra that drank the dirty water??? (Any of you VBS volunteers out there fill me in please:-) Well, whatever they did worked because my son actually gave up his highly anticipated Chick-Fil-A dinner money so he could put it in the bucket at church! Any of you with kids know that this is a major deal to give up anything fried that comes with a toy!!
The verdict is still out on whether my kids will turn out to be the well rounded, loving, highly motivated, giving, happy, smart adults that I hope and pray for them to be… but at least for now something is sinking in.
**Update on the money given by the kids:
By the end of the week, they raised close to $7,000 to build a new well and more for our Nigeria friends!! Wow!! Isn’t that great? I’m so excited my son was involved. Our church rocks!
