Good Old Fashioned Work

See yesterday's blog and know that it can be done. (The third youngster is a cousin. We put him to work too...)

Entitlement Out of Control?

I wonder sometimes if we’ve taken this whole childhood thing too far. A hundred years ago, the concept of childhood didn’t even exist the way we know it today. Children were not particularly celebrated for being in their wonder years. There was no magic about being a child. They climbed out of bed in the darkness, milked the cows, fed the chickens, then worked all day in the fields -- just like the adults.
There were no movies just for children, no cartoon networks. There was no music made for them; no specialized fashion; no amusement parks. They were not considered a gold mine in marketing. Today, childhood is a multi-billion-dollar industry and we parents are paying through the nose to propagate it.
When we were kids, my parents didn’t spend every waking moment trying to entertain us. We got up and went outside and were gone all day. Our folks didn’t try to keep us perpetually happy.
Nowadays, it seems the inmates are running the asylum. We parents spend every free moment and last dollar keeping our kids entertained. We don’t want to tell our kids no because that might hurt their self-esteem, and we don’t want to let them down because we want to encourage them to succeed.
This has caused a sense of entitlement that is spinning out of control. My cousin bought a new boat and we all got to ride. It didn’t even occur to me to want to operate it, I just wanted to ride in it. But he patiently stood by as each one of the neophyte captains steered the craft. It wasn’t enough for them to go out in the boat, they all wanted to drive it. My folks bought a two-person land roving vehicle. I would have been happy with a free ride when I was a kid, but today’s kids fight over who gets to drive it next. I finished mowing the lawn just before I wrote this. I really needed some help raking the grass, but the kids wanted to drive the mower instead.
Children today go from their own television channels, to video games, to their own web sites, to their own cell phones. Is this bad? Not necessarily, but my concern is that they are going to take this culture of entitlement right through their lives. We had to wait until Christmas or a birthday for a gift, but it’s always Christmas for kids these days. We had to wait until we got married before we went on some exotic honeymoon to paradise. Now, young people pack up and take off without benefit of clergy. Then, they just keep upping the ante, trying to be entitled and entertained every waking moment. Careful, or it will be candy and soft drinks today, then drugs and diabetes tomorrow.
At some point, kids have to learn that the best life is one that is under control. It has limits. The best life is not spoiled, but thankful. It appreciates the rewards of a job well done.
I know a lot of this problem comes from our desire to keep our children happy. We want them to have more than we did -- to be better off than we were. I understand this and want my kids to be just as happy as anyone, but sometimes I wonder if the pendulum doesn’t need to swing back a little. I wonder if we’re not hurting them in the long run by celebrating them in excess now.
Tomorrow, there’s some grass that needs raking and I know just the right youngsters to do it.

Finished the Puzzle

We completed the puzzle Saturday night. Here's a picture of it. This is a good project for a family to work on together.

We're Rich in Friends

It's been said that no one is poor who has friends. Friends literally make life worth living. I don't know what I would do without the friends God has blessed me with. Just as an example, Thursday, Jodi and I went out to eat to celebrate our 16th anniversary. The couple that took us, Michael and Stacy Bennett, drove us, then paid for our meals. They wouldn't have it any other way no matter how much we protested. Then, Friday, a belt came off of the mower while I was trying mow the yard. My brother-in-law, Rodney Furnish, came over, laid on the grass beside the lawn tractor, and put the belt back on (it's a two-person job).

Then, today, our friend Julia Poff from church came and sweated bullets with us working on the flower bed in front of our house. She went and bought pine mulch and a garden tarp that keeps weeds from growing around the plants. We all worked hard for several hours on this project. She had her own house to take care of, but she wanted to do this for us for the simple reason that she loves us. That's true friendship. That's the spice of life.

Michael Giles has been to our place a several times to mow our field since my lawnmower can't cut it. He'll show up with a work crew and say, "What do we need to do?" How cool is that? And Larry Jones has brought his tractor a couple of times to help me move dirt around.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty for letting people come to my place and help me, but that's part of being a minister. You have to let people show their love for God by sharing blessings with you. I could let my pride stop them, but I would be robbing them and me of the blessing if I did. I've always had people in my life who come to my rescue. God never intended us to live solitary lives, but to be connected to one other. I'm thankful for that -- and to all of our friends who help us out and keep us going.

Puzzling Past-time

Savannah got this underwater picture puzzle for her birthday last week. We've all been enjoying putting the pieces in place. It's beginning to look like a picture!

More Vacation Bible School Pics

We had another great day at Vacation Bible School at our church. I led the singing to get things started.

Vacation Bible School

We had a great time at Vacation Bible School at our church this morning. We took a hay ride over to a real cowboy ranch where the kids rode horses, petted calves, and threw horse shoes. You can see more pictures at my church link to the left. More pictures tomorrow.

Six Flags!

Remember what I've said about families being deliberate in their fun? Well, we went to Six Flags Over Texas Wednesday for Savannah's birthday. We got there when it opened and had a great time. It was hotter than blazes, but as you can see, it was not crowded and we got to ride all we wanted. We even stayed on some rides and went again. We rode the Titan 4 times! Notice the kids are in the front car (and the lack of crowd behind them...)

That's me right after riding "Mr. Freeze". Now, that's cool! It shoots you from zero to seventy in about 3 seconds. You loop around and shoot strait up this tower, then do it all backward. Great 47 seconds of fun! You see that I'm sitting alone... the wife chickened out, but the kids and I rode it twice.

I think the "Superman" ride is the closest thing I'll ever feel to taking off on a space shuttle.

Squirrel-Proof Feeders!

Be sure to get one of these twenty-dollar, squirrel-proof, bird feeders for your little feathered friends. Available at fine stores everywhere.

We've actually bought several different types and they all work about the same -- like this one!

We had a plastic tub out on the patio in which to keep the sunflower seeds, but not only did the squirrels chew through it to eat the seeds, a raccoon came up at night to help polish them off.

When we scare off the squirrels, we enjoy watching a variety of birds. Carolina chickadees, tufted titmouse, red-headed and downy woodpeckers, nut hatches, and a couple of families of cardinals. We also have house wrens, blue jays, eastern bluebirds, and hummingbirds. You can barely see this male ruby throat. I'll try to get some better pictures.

Striking a Balance in Self-Esteem

Few things are more important to a child’s personal growth than having a healthy self-esteem. When a young person feels good about himself, he can say yes to good choices and no to the bad ones. He can resist peer pressure. He can stand up for himself. He can look his teachers and friends in the eye. He will generally choose better friends and mates, and make better career and education choices. He will try to succeed with confidence that he will. And when he fails, he is able to pick himself up, brush off his pants, and try again.
No doubt about it; self-esteem is very important and all parents want their children to possess it in healthy measure. We help our children have a strong sense of self by confirming their emotions. If we dismiss their feelings, that hurts their sense of self-worth, but if we encourage them to express how they feel, that builds them up.
Stopping what you are doing and looking your children in the eye will confirm them as a person and encourage them. Complimenting their appearance will boost their self-assurance. Praising a child also builds his confidence. When he excels at something, we notice it and reward him with admiration. Some parents are never satisfied with their children’s efforts and that can crush them. Children will feast on praise and work hard to get more and more of it. This is a wonderful, upward spiral of success and applause.
But there may just be a down side to all of this self-esteem building. It may be that the pendulem needs to swing back a bit. It may just be that we are so concerned that we build up our children, we neglect to allow them to experience failure at all. That’s no good. It is not doing our children any favor to praise them for mediocrity. Maybe we need to simply say, “nice try”, instead of “very good” when the effort clearly was not there. Maybe we shouldn’t call our children Michelangelo every time they draw a stick man standing by a stick house.
Children are smarter than we sometimes give them credit. They know when they really deserve our acclaim. If we give it too liberally, we make ourselves out to be either liars or fools.
Should we stop praising their efforts, then? No, not at all. Again, we want them to have a healthy self-esteem, but healthy means they see themselves in a correct light. If they think they are the next Beethoven simply because they’ve mastered Chopsticks, their self-esteem may be a little out of whack. That’s no more healthy than a low esteem. Instead, we encourage them to keep trying and to realize that no one can be the best at everything.
What we really want, then, is for our children to be balanced, well rounded, and with a healthy self-concept. We don’t want them to be spoiled or over-confident to the point no one can stand them. We want them to be appreciative and humble, but with the confidence to storm through life with their heads high. They know the sting of failure and understand the concept of guilt and shame, but they use that to move forward and become better.
We want our children to know that they will fail if they do not work hard or study. That’s the reality of life. We don’t just want our kids to have a good self-esteem, we want them to have a healthy one. We want them confident, balanced, humble and ready to face the challenges each day brings.

D-Day

Just wanted to remind us that today is D-Day. No matter what we face today, it likely pales in comparison to what the young men faced 63 years ago when they stormed the beaches at Normandy. I'm thankful for everyone who gave his life, or was wounded that day, to protect the freedoms we enjoy.

Power Outage

A storm blew in this morning while we were at church. We had an impromptu candle-light service when the electricity went out. When we got home, the power was also out at our house. We saw a lot of limbs down but no damage.

Fortunately, the storm that knocked out the power brought in cooler temperatures, so we didn't even get hot. It was kind of nice. We did a lot of sitting around talking.

I was on the patio teaching my son a new worship song on the guitar (see picture) when it came back on. We are all a little disappointed, because it was a really pleasant afternoon together.

Balloon Festival

We have a balloon festival in Palestine every year. We went out there tonight to see the sights. This is called a "balloon glow", when they light up the hot air balloons with their propane gas burners. I got a few good pictures and hope to get some more tomorrow.

I've often said that families must be deliberate in spending quality time with each other. This is how we make memories, and how we earn the right to pass our values on to our children.