This is the third in a three part series addressing the issue of raising generous children. To read the first two posts go to my blog HERE and HERE.

7. Model healthy personal choices between needs and wants.

I think we teach our children to value the need more than the want by first modeling it for them. We cannot ask children to do something we are not willing to do ourselves. Children are smarter than that. Today’s generation is far more interested in truth and integrity than earlier generations. This generation despises hypocrisy. If children see parents saying one thing and doing another, they will reject that as being truth. We need to model and teach our children the proper concepts concerning money; ultimately that we are to be responsible with what God has allowed us to have. Children need to see their parents giving sacrificially of their time and resources. Volunteering at a soup kitchen may be a better activity for an upcoming special occasion than opening a bunch of gifts.

8. Keep children properly grounded in a material world.

Children need to know that the universe does not revolve around them. Our world as their parents may revolve around them, but the rest of the world thinks otherwise. Children need to have created times in their life where they have to wait for something they want. Teach and model for children a life that puts others needs and wants ahead of their own.

9. Don’t give children everything; even if you can afford it.

If children are encouraged by example to have a love of money…a love of stuff…chances are they will never have enough possessions in this world to be satisfied. Plant within them a love of God, a love of people and a love of life and they will want to bless others; and the joy of their life will be much greater. Regardless of how wealthy a family is children should not be so “privileged” that there are no longer any items on their “want” list. When this happens the child has a hard time developing a heart of giving, because they are often too consumed with acquiring more “stuff”.

We have to model simple living sometimes for our children. IT IS OKAY TO SAY NO TO YOUR CHILD! In fact, that may sometimes be the exact thing we need to say. Every trip to the mall should not produce a new toy!  (Okay, I know number 9 hurts!)

10. Teach and model a love for God above everything in life.

Perhaps the greatest thing a parent can do to help children succeed in life is to help them desire the things of God more than the things of this world. That is God’s heart for us as His children and it is the heart He desires for us to pass on to the children He’s placed in our homes.

If you have questions, comments or suggestions on this aspect of parenting, please leave comment on this post.

Yesterday I began this series on how to raise generous children.  Read yesterday’s post HERE.  Today I continue those principles.

3.    Provide needs. Bless with wants.

It is important that parents consider their system of meeting needs verses wants.  Consider this question: Which gets more attention in your home?  Does having the latest technology in a TV take a bigger role than teaching children to be good citizens and to generously love others?  If so, that may not be the best plan for parenting.  Sometimes we set children up for success or failure in life by how we treat them in this whole area of providing for their needs and their wants and by what we give the most attention.

4.    Help children make wise choices with their own money.

One of the primary reasons children should have access to their own money is so they can learn the value of it.  My children are always more careful spending “their” money than they are spending mine.  Talk with them about how they should spend their allowance, birthday, or even money they have earned on their own.  They ultimately should give some to God, save some, and spend some for things they need or want (based on the system you have for meeting these in your home.)

5.    Consider the “big picture” of your child’s life.

As a parent, we are the primary molder of our children’s chooser of things in life.
Their desires in life will be greatly shaped by the life they live in our home. I heard a statistic recently that children today get 90% of everything they want in life. That doesn’t seem like the statistic for most of our adult want lists, does it?  Somewhere children are going to face a stark reality crash as they reach adulthood. We have all heard the Hollywood stories of children of privilege who got everything they wanted in life, but who cannot seem to stay out of trouble as adults.  They have no real sense of direction; no set of values to guide them, because they got everything they wanted in life, but nothing that they really needed!

6.    Spend more time, energy and attention meeting needs than wants.

At Christmas time, birthdays, and other special occasions we ask children what they “want”.  There is nothing wrong with that, but most of the time we already know what they need.  We don’t have to ask them if they need to be honest people.  We don’t have to ask them if they need to have character, love others or be generous. We do not need to ask them if they need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  We know they need those things.

We need to ask ourselves if we are spending as much time and energy helping them get what they need as we are trying to buy them what they want.   Providing wants is more fun sometimes, but we must be willing to sacrifice in order to give them what they need.  It’s much more fun to give them wants, but it is much more valuable to give them needs.

I will share more principles in tomorrow’s post. Please feel free to add your own suggestions along the way or ask questions or comments as a comment to each post.

This Sunday night is the last Cross Street Live for this school year. Make plans now to attend an exciting night of worship and laughter for children of all ages.  Cross Street Live is a high impact, professionally done environment designed for elementary-aged children and their parents.

Here are some things you may not know about Cross Street Live:

Everyone can attend.  You do not have to have children to enjoy the fun.
You do not have to attend Grace Community Church to attend.  In fact, we love having visitors from other churches and the community at everything we do as a church.  This is actually geared for the community.
It’s free!
It’s an incredibly good time for children and adults!

Where:  Rossview High School off Exit 8
When:    May 17th   5:30 PM

For more information click HERE

I’ve had conflict most of my life between what I think I want and what I really need.  Most people share this conflict with me.  That conflict also appears in our children as well. We don’t have to teach them to struggle with determining between wants and needs, because they will do this naturally and, if not, they will learn it from us.  As parents we are the primary shapers of our children’s attitudes towards money, things, and desires.  Our children will either be “givers” or “takers” in society and that will be greatly influenced by the life they live in our home. How do we raise generous children?  How do we help our children (and ultimately ourselves) be people who genuinely enjoy giving to others as the Bible commands us to do?

(When I write about this subject it is important to understand that I’m writing out of good and bad experiences I have had as a dad.  I like to put things in lists to make them easy to understand.  In a similar post I wrote about How to Raise Godly Children.)

Over the next few posts I will share ten tips which are things I have tried to practice in my own home.  It has been amazing to watch as my boys, ages 17 and 20, have developed generous hearts towards others.

1.    Have fun and be generous parents.  (Within reason, of course.)

The story is told of Jesus and the disciples attending a wedding.  The party had been going for a while when something tragic happened.  They ran out of wine.  That was serious business to the host of the party.  It was a cultural “no-no”; a huge embarrassment to run out of food or wine. Jesus took some big barrels of water and turned them into the best wine the people had that night. The people were surprised and said that normally people put the best wine out first and saved the cheap wine for the later part of the party.  The Bible says that was the very first miracle Jesus ever did.  As culturally important as weddings were in those days, it still sounds like God met a want, rather than a need.

It is very clear that God is not trying to keep us from having what we want or from having fun in life.  God is not opposed to blessing us with things we want, but may not even need.  We should not be afraid to do the same with our children.  If we can afford to, and if our children are living within the boundaries set for our home, we should not be afraid to give them gifts they simply want, but may not even need.  (I thought I would start with an easy one first.)

2.    Help children understand the difference between a need and a want.

As much as God wants to bless us with wants, if we study the Bible, God seems far more interested in helping fulfill our needs than He does in giving us everything we want.  In fact, God never promises to provide our want list, yet He does promise to meet all our needs. (Philippians 4:19)  Granted there are some that take verses out of context and teach that God gives us everything we ask for, but that doesn’t line up with the rest of Scripture in my opinion.  The problem from a Biblical perspective is that we have a messed up system of determining need verses want.  That thing inside us that chooses good over evil, better or best, need verses wants; is broken.  Adam and Eve entered a perfect world.  They could have had anything they “wanted” except for one tree and yet that was the tree they chose to eat from.  (We shouldn’t be too surprised at their decision, because we make choices like that every day.)  That sin of rebellion brought about the world in which we live where there are actually things that are harmful for us, yet, because we are in a messed up world, we often want most the things that are not the best for us and we certainly have a hard time determining the difference between a need and a want.

In an eternal sense, at least, an actual need goes beyond just enjoyment for today or even just for me.  For something to fall into the category of need, according to the Bible, it would need to provide some lasting value to society or at least to my own character.  We can even ask ourselves, does this “thing” benefit someone more than just me?  Does it add value to someone’s life or to my own character?  For a thing to be a true need in this context it almost becomes something that money cannot buy.

It is understandable why it is difficult to raise children who understand the difference between a need and a want and are generous people when we as parents struggle with the same issues.

I will share more principles in tomorrow’s post. Please feel free to add your own suggestions along the way or ask questions or comments as a comment to each post.

We have good friends who adopted their two daughters from China years ago.  Thousands of American parents adopt from China every year, but that statistic is changing rapidly. According to the U.S. State Department, adoptions have dropped 50% in recent years.  I saw this article first in a Twitter update from World Vision. Read it HERE.

Knowing so many people that desperately desire to be parents, reading that adoption is being made more difficult saddens me. At the same time, however, apparently much of the change in the adoption rate from China is due to cultural changes there. With the growing economy in China more Chinese people can afford to adopt children.  Even more encouraging, people seem to be valuing children (life) more and they are more accepting of adoption.   As one who does value life and adoption, I can’t help but see this change as good.

Sometimes things that are not good for us personally are good for the overall.  That principle plays out in many aspects of life.