This afternoon, I was pouring (special) drinks into glasses for me and the girls. All three were gathered around me with much interest and excitement. From the oldest came this statement:
“Mom, you’re cheating us. Look how much bigger your glass is.”
As this comment may suggest, Casey and I have noticed a trend in the entitled direction with regard to our children (and, I don’t deny the possibility that it may be happening with us as well—easier to see in others. :) We’re looking into ways to curtail such things.
As a family (at the dinner table, for instance), we often list things for which we are thankful. At the moment, nothing else comes to mind as to what we already do to help foster gratefulness.
Does your family have a plan of action in this area? Know any good ideas? Please share!
3 comments:
Hey Sarah!
Totally hear ya on this one! Unfortunately I don't have some brilliant or wise answer. We kind of do the same thing. Whenever there are brief, and I mean brief moments of "thinking of others before ourselves" I try to really praise it. But that is about it.
The part of parenting that I find very challenging as they get older are the attitudes or the concept that I so want them to grasp, and not necessarily the black and white "you disobeyed, therefore you will receive punishment." That part seems simpler now with Ellie and Luke.
For us it is the constant battling over the seat in the middle by Andrew. They feel so cheated if one of them gets to sit there twice in a row. We do not allow the words "no fair". Hate those two words.
If you figure it out let me know :)
This will show up as Elizabeth, because I am on my mom's computer, but it is Ann:)
Didn't feel like logging out and retyping all of this.
Hey Sarah,
We really enjoyed the posts about the things the children said.
We didn't practice this idea, but i read about a family that deliberately gave different size servings, alternating family members who received more or less. If someone complained, the serving was removed and the complainer did with out. No second chances. Wish mine were young enough to try it out.
Jimmie
Thanks, Jimmie! We tried a version of that this morning: usually, I will divy the first waffle out of the iron among the three girls so they can all start eating at once. Today, we decided to give the whole first waffle to the youngest so we'd have another opportunity to discuss gratefulness (not that we need to search for these ops!). As it was, the older two hardly noticed this time.
It's hard for me to think of no second chances, but maybe that's part of our problem!
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