Teach Your Kids to Give Using the Once-a-Month Strategy (October)

(Inside: Teaching your kids to give from the heart using the once-a-month strategy.)
 
Month one of our “Once-a-Month” adventure was supposed to start in November, but a couple of all-the-stars-aligned moments occurred spurring us to start early. (We’re challenging ourselves to give as a family once-a-month. If you missed the introduction to why and how: read here.)
  
First, we arrived at church early enough to both find a good sit and read through the bulletin before the service started. (Star-alignment number one.) My husband nudged me to look at an excerpt from the bulletin outlining information on supporting orphans.
 
“We could start here,” my husband said.
 
Yes.
 
We had an actual starting point for challenging ourselves and our family to do a better job of being the living church “out there.” 
 
After the church service, we usually zip past the tables set up in the foyer to pick up our 3-year-old, who finds Sunday School unbearable. Well, unless we are his teachers, which we are every other week…enough to tease him with our presence, but not enough to give him the assurance that we’re always there like he’s wanting. So we forced our 3-year-old to cowboy-up a bit longer while we – ready for this? – browsed leisurely through the giving tables and gathered all the info we could about this organization. (Star-alignment number two.) 
 
 
Later at home, we spread the pamphlets out on the floor and dug in. What could we do to help?  Scanning the list of 10 ideas, our two oldest sons took charge. 
 
“We could pray,”  one son said. 
 
“We could give money,” said our other son.  He then thought for a minute and added,  “…and jewels.“ 
 
Done.  That’s what we are doing.  Minus that jewels because we aren’t the Royal Winsor Family and I’m a little bit attached to my wedding ring. 
 
How We Were Moved
We’re supposed to be helping others, but I find myself with moments of feeling completely moved. For example, one night during our bedtime prayers, my oldest piped up at the end, “We didn’t remember to pray for the orphans too.” There’s something incredibly touching about seeing my boys – whose favorite activity is to dogpile each other like little puppies during the day, pray so tenderly for orphans.  
 
What’s also moving is as I’m talking about this with my friends, I find out they’re doing all sorts of world-changing stuff too. They just aren’t wearing it on their sleeve. (They must have read that bible passage about doing good things but…discretely.) It’s exciting to notice the community, the living church “out there” meeting needs in loving, tangible ways. 

And honestly, I was worried about finding places to give. Geez. I only need to look up from my life because there was an easy opportunity right in front of me.

We are off to a good start – I’m excited about next month. 

Our Family’s Once-a-Month Giving/Service Projects was featured on parenting.com. (This blog’s original name was Since I Became a Mom before it became Empowered Moms and Kids.)

Update:
The year is over and you can see what we did each month here…

If you decide to take use this giving strategy, remember this is YOUR THING. Do what God places on YOUR HEART. Whatever works, big or little. Your family will be moved by however you decide to extend your hand. And hopefully, so will the people you give to.

 

Read what parenting.com says about the benefits of teaching kids to give:

“The benefits of actively fostering children’s charitable impulses are enormous. Besides helping counter the overdeveloped ‘gimme’ impulse, it gives kids a powerful boost in self-esteem to realize they can make a difference in someone’s life. ‘And as corny as it sounds,’ says Patricia Schiff Estess, a New York City writer and the author of Kids, Money & Values, ‘when you help a child help others, you are helping to create a better world.'”  

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Favorite eye-opening books that nudged me to see the amazing part of God’s work that we can do daily. Exciting stuff we get to be a part of.


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