(I have no clue why the font is supersize…and wordpress is not user friendly, so I have no idea how to change it…!)
After several epic battles with the girls this morning, I am left perplexed.
The first of the battles started when I poured 2 bowls of cereal, one into a purple bowl and one into a seafoam green bowl of the exact same size. The child with the green bowl threw a fit and refused to eat because she didn’t like the color of the bowl. (which by the way, she picked out at the store… but I digress)
I responded to her by explaining that there are millions of kids in the world that don’t have any breakfast to eat at all, and if they had been given her green bowl full of cereal and organic milk, they would have been overcome with thankfulness for the gift just given to them.
So, she didn’t have to eat at all.
I explained that when her stomach growled later because she was hungry, that she was to remember the kids who go hungry every day because they don’t have any food.
Not 10 minutes later, the other child threw a fit because she didn’t want to wear any of her shoes. She had at least 4 pairs to choose from and none were good enough. Earlier we had the same fit about a dress…from her FULL closet, she didn’t like any of her clothes and wouldn’t wear any of them.
We had the talk again… Kids everywhere don’t have clothes to choose from, much less a clean outfit to wear every day, and that shoes are a luxury that so many people don’t have.
They don’t get it… how can they?
I am reading the book Kisses from Katie to Grace right now, but it’s still almost impossible for her to understand the gravity of the situations that kids live in around the world… and luxury that is theirs, every day.
What should I do…?? I’ve debated taking all but 5 dresses out of their closet, boxing them up and putting them away; taking all but one pair of shoes out of the house….reducing their toys, books and stuffed animals down to single digits….but not sure that will solve the problem.
How can we raise kids that are overwhelmingly THANKFUL, content and ready to bless others?? How can we expose them to the things going on with other kids in the world without actually going to another country to see it first hand? Periodically we do box things up, give them to charities, or others who are in greater need, we give money to the church and do not give in to every whim that the kids have. We talk about people less fortunate and how we need to help them…
We are still drowning in stuff compared to the rest of the world…
Oh, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a lot of stuff…
Ahhh….what do we do? How do we help them learn? Ideas, advice…?
I am just praying about how best to handle this situation!
