Parents,
Well the end of school is here and that also means the start of summer is here too!! Praise the Lord!! This is one of the last "quiet" weeks that we will have for a while so let me get you caught up on all the info you need to know:
1. IGNITE is tonight....we'll meet in The Attic @5:45 and finish up our conversation on our identity in Christ. Tonight we're gonna walk through what our purpose is from a Biblical foundation...we'll also play some Charades...gonna be a good night!
2. This coming Sunday is Memorial Day....we'll have Sunday School and Sunday morning worship and then we'll take the evening off so there will be no Bible studies!
3. Coming up the first week of June (June 4-8) we will be hosting VBS and GFUGE hear at FBC. If your student has not already signed up to work VBS they can still come and hang out. We also have our GFUGE sign-up link up and live on the church website (fbcgoodlettsville.com/gfuge.com). Students can begin signing up and also I will be sending a letter out that you will receive at the end of this week with all the info that you will need!
The cost for the entire week is $80 which covers a t-shirt, lunch all week long, expenses for materials for the work week, our fantastic speaker that's coming in and also a lock-in to beat all lock-ins on Friday night!! It's gonna be a great week!!
That's all I'm gonna give you this week...please let me know if you have any questions! Have a great week!
Here's some food for thought for you this week:
5 Ways to Fight Entitlement in Your Kids
Like most parents, you feel this terrible tug.
On the one hand, you want to provide your child with every advantage. On the other hand, sometimes it feels like when you do that, you're feeding an incredibly unhealthy characteristic in our culture.
For whatever reason, we're living in the midst of an entitlement epidemic. Probably more than any other generation before us, our generation feels as though we have a right to things that used to be defined as wants, or even privileges.
Here's how the cycle starts:
On the day your child is born, it's easy to decide as a parent that you need to give your child every advantage.
So you compete. You made sure he had bright colors in his nursery and exactly the right kind of mobile to stimulate his brain, but now it's an all out frenzy to ensure your preschooler can swim, skate, hit a ball, paint frame able art, read, write, and speak classical Greek before his 4th birthday.
And don't worry, because by the time you're done with the race to kindergarten, the culture has taken over feeding the frenzy. Your child has now seen enough advertisements and made enough friends to believe that his or her every desire not only can be met, but should be met. The boots that every other stylish kid is wearing are not a privilege, they are a right. Or so you've been told.
And then other inalienable rights emerge: the right to a phone for texting, iPhones, Facebook and so much more.
Somewhere in the mix, you found yourself realizing that you are tempted to pay your kids every "act of service" rendered in the house, from emptying the trash to picking up each sock.
And you realize something is desperately wrong. And you would be correct in that.
So, what do you do to fight entitlement in yourself and in your kids? Here are five suggestions:
1. Be clear on wants and needs. Shelter, Food, Clothes...Take time to explain what is actually a need and what a want is. Culture will never explain it to them. You need to.
2. Reclaim special occasions. There is nothing wrong with not buying wants for your kids in every day life. Save the special things for special occasions like birthdays, Christmas and the like. You don't need to indulge for no reason. In fact, you probably shouldn't.
3. Set a budget and let them choose. With back to school shopping and seasonal purchases, start setting a budget with your kids early and let them choose how they would spend it. They become much more frugal shoppers when all of a sudden they realize that money is limited and they can get more if they shop around.
4. Establish an allowance and expectations. An allowance is a great way for kids to learn responsibility. My father encouraged me and my sister to give 10 percent of every thing we earned, to save 10 percent, and live off the rest. Explain what gets covered and not covered out of that allowance.
5. Be clear about what you will never pay them for. There are some things that you do because you are part of the family. You can decide where that lands in your home. Make a list of responsibilities that no one gets paid for that you do because you are part of the family. To help with this, why not ask your kids what a reasonable list looks like. Involving them will help them own the decision. Second, make sure you follow up. And hold them responsible for what you all agreed to do. Otherwise you will be tempted to pay for everything or just roll your eyes daily and do it yourself.
Approaches like these can help you to raise kids who see life as a series of privileges, who live gratefully, and realize their responsibility to others.
How is our entitlement culture impacting your family? And how have you learned to battle it?
Jeff
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