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Friday, March 15, 2013

Teaching children generosity

I feel like one of my most important jobs as a mother is not only to raise my children to WANT to make the world a better place, but to have the resources and knowledge HOW to make it a better place. Being generous is one of the traits i instill in them daily. We certainly don't have a lot of disposable income by any means, but I feel like if you are a generous person and give to others, God will always make sure you have what you need.

One example of this is when we go grocery shopping. We go to 2 or three different stores. (Yes, I know about price matching at Walmart, I try to stay away from there as much as I can.) Our first stop is always Aldi's. Over the week the kids collect quarters. One of the joys of their week is to see how many people they can help at Aldi's. If you have never been to Aldi's or don't have one locally, you have to put a quarter in the cart to get it to disconnect from the other ones. Keeps the carts out of the parking lot. So every time we go the kids fill the carts with as many quarters as we have. One instance a couple of weeks ago I had 4 kids with me- my 2 and my best friends 2 little girls. 3 girls and 1 boy between 4 and 8. So they all scramble around the cart corrall pushing in the quarters and disconnecting carts. A middle aged lady walks up to me and rolls her eyes and says "They ALL have to have a cart?!" I can tell she is just thinking "Ugh that store's going to be so crazy with this lady and her 4 kids each with a cart". Then we walked away with one cart. She goes to get her own and stops and says "Hey! There's a bunch of quarters in these!" I turned around and said "Yes it was intentional" and smiled at her. The kids were excited. I explained to them that, while a quarter may not be much to us, it is a lot to other people who are on a very small budget. That extra quarter you helped them with may make sure they can buy an extra yogurt or canned vegetable to feed their family. They truly don't miss their quarters and have, on more than one occasion, used their OWN quarters when i only had a few.

There is a song they play during the holidays called Christmas All Year Long by Sawyer Brown. Here's a sample of the lyrics-

If people smile even when it's against their nature
When the news hunts down something nice to say
And they even get along in the legislature
You know it's not just any old holiday

It's Christmas, it could only be Christmas
Perfect strangers on the sidewalk, singing songs
Giving is such a part of living
Oh, I wish it could be Christmas all year long



Think about how much nicer people are during the holidays. It is like they feel God only during that time of year. Today, vow to take a minute to smile at a stranger. When an elderly person is trying to cross a parking lot, don't sit in your car while you wait for them to pass and feel grumpy because they're going so slow. And bring an extra quarter or two when you go grocery shopping. If you aren't an Aldi shopper, then just leave it on top of the quarter candy machines on the way out. Or tape it to a soda machine. It's the little acts of generosity that add up!
 

Thanks for stopping by!

:))

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