by Pat Lamb Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book

Train up a child…

Children Need to Give

       At Christmas time each year, thoughts turn to what we can give children to make them happy and excited.  The emphasis is often simply on what toys or other things we can give children. Actually, one of the best things we can give a child is the understanding of the joy of giving itself. Children are often only recipients of gifts, but they need to learn that it is more blessed to give than to receive; otherwise, they will grow up selfishly thinking only of self pleasure.

         I learned the lesson of letting someone give, no matter how meager their means, when we lived on the Navajo reservation.  Just as we often think that children can’t give, many of us often think that grownups of meager means can’t give.  We forget the value of giving.  

Several years ago, when our two older boys were small, we worked with the Navajo Indian people.  On one occasion, we were in Gallup, NM, when a Navajo gentleman from Ramah, NM, saw us and asked us for a ride back to Ramah.  We gladly told him we would give him a ride.  As we went down the road, he said, “Lamb, stop. Get pop.”  In his broken English he was telling us to stop and buy him some soda.  My husband, Keith, said, “You buying, McDaniel??”  I was shocked!  To think that my husband would expect this poor Indian man to buy pop for us!  McDaniel was taken by surprise as well.  He grinned and kind of chuckled under his breath, and finally said, “OK”.  My husband pulled up to the trading post, McDaniel got out and went inside.  When he returned, he had soda for Keith, himself, and me and had even bought ice cream bars for our boys!  He had a big broad grin on his face of complete satisfaction!  He had bought something for those “rich” white people.  I almost choked as I drank the pop, but realized as we drove on down the road what a wonderful thing had happened.  McDaniel had changed from a dependent person to making us dependent on him.  He had found real worth and felt real pleasure in being able to give to someone else.

         It is the same way with children.  As long as they are unable to give, they have less self worth.  When children can give, they feel a real sense of accomplishment and worth in making someone else happy. There is no feeling that compares.

         Children do not have to give big, expensive gifts, but the gifts do need to be from them personally.  It is not the same for parents to give money to children to buy gifts, for then the gifts are actually from the parents.  The gifts should be something that the child has an active part in.  There are many things that children can make.  Some of them take a little help from parents, but the rewards are worth the effort.  For my birthday, I received a handmade card from our grandson.  As his mom was getting it ready to mail, he said, “Wait!”  He ran and got a quarter, a dime, and some pennies.  “I want to send these to Nana”, he said.  When I received the card, there was a little baggie stapled to the top with the change in it.  He was giving me all he had at the moment because he loved me.  I still have it in a plastic bag and will probably keep it for a long time.

         The Bible says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. (Acts 20:35)  The best way to teach this fact is to help children experience the real joy of giving. Doing so proves the point!