Gratitude and Trust

As parents, Josh and I want to give the kids every opportunity we can. Above all else, we want them to be happy. We are always looking for fun things for Dylan to experience, places to take him, and we let him participate in things that we think he will enjoy. We always joke that he's been to more Cardinal games and goes to the movies more often than 75% of the people we know. I hate using the word "spoiled" because it's so negative. To me, when you start expecting things like that instead of appreciating them, that is when you become spoiled. I don't have a problem with spending the time/money on things that he likes or wants as long as he is grateful for them. So here's the dilemma. Lately Dylan has been getting an attitude and sounding really unappreciative. Just a few examples: I got him some stuff he likes at the grocery store and he said "um, is this ALL?, well I'm not going to eat this jello because after dinner I won't be starving." And when I asked him if he had fun at the 4th of July celebration he said "no, fireworks are boring". After that comment I decided we needed to have a long talk about being grateful. I told him if that's how he felt then we don't need to go anywhere anymore. He can be bored at home. Especially with Josh gone, it takes a lot of effort to get him and Sophia ready and out of the house to go to t-ball, swimming, movies, shopping, or even just a trip to play with other kids. This isn't the first time I've mentioned this stuff to him, but this time I had to figure out how to really make it click in his head. The idea seems easy, but explaining concepts like gratitude, appreciation, truth, and trust to a child is pretty tricky. He would get that being ungrateful was bad but he wasn't comprehending much more than that. Finally as we continued the conversation he said "being grateful means I have a lot of toys and there are kids that don't have toys, so I should like my toys." Yes! He's getting it! Obviously it goes beyond toys, but he grasps the basic concept and that's all I wanted for now. To build off of that, he went through all of his toys and decided that he could afford to give some toys to the kids that have none. I was so proud of him. We've also had conversations about being honest, and how if you want to be trusted you shouldn't tell lies. I try to keep it pretty light but he knows this is important stuff. Last week he wanted to help me clean, so he started wiping off the island with a washcloth. I looked over and he was smacking the washcloth against the wall. I asked what he was doing and he said that was what you had to do to make it clean. I told him I wasn't sure about that. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me and said "well I hope you trust me". Yup, I do buddy, and you are doing a really good job.

I know this isn't the end of these conversations, but I have hope that he won't grow up to be a spoiled kid that has no idea how great his life is. I refuse to have a tiny boy version of Veruca Salt in my house. I'm so glad I didn't have to take it to the extreme and start cancelling everything we have planned. If I did that, we wouldn't have cute pictures like this: