Mrs. High Heels recently wrote a great post about the importance of fighting against entitlement in our children. Entitlement is an issue that irks me to no end and it is one that I will absolutely fight against in my children. While it is something that definitely takes effort and requires some hard parenting decisions, my hope is that it will truly pay off, because I’m sure we’ve all seen entitlement rear its ugly head time and time again, and it sure ain’t pretty.
One of the ways that we try to battle entitlement in our family is by thinking of and helping others as we can. We support several different charities and try to have Lil’ CB as involved as he can be at age 5. We talk to him about the different organizations and when special events that are more conducive to a 5 year-old’s help, like Operation Christmas Child, occur, we make sure Lil’ CB is right there with us, picking gifts and packing boxes. It’s helped Lil’ CB understand that there others in the in the world that we can and should care for in whatever ways we can. Now, he’s definitely still an egocentric, cognitively preoperational 5 year-old, so while I think he has a good understanding of the importance of giving and helping others, it still takes some reminding and some repeated conversations.
When Lil’ CB turned 5 in September, he decided that he wanted to have a sports-themed birthday party and his guest list just kept growing longer and longer and longer. Lil’ CB is quite a social little guy and he reeeeeeally wanted all of his friends to celebrate with him at his birthday party. Mr. Cowboy and I were happy to have a big party for him, but the thought of all of the gifts that come with all of the guests was a bit daunting! So, after some thought, I talked with Lil’ CB about the idea of collecting gifts from his guests not for him, but for others in need.
Lil’ CB was immediately agreeable to the idea of helping others in need, especially when he was told that he could have a choice as to what was collected. I told him that we could either collect money to give to Charity: Water; food to give to a local food pantry; or children’s books to give to a local homeless shelter for families. Lil’ CB decided that he wanted to help collect food (which didn’t surprise me considering that food is the way to his heart!) and in the invitation to his party, we asked with his guests to bring canned or nonperishable food items in lieu of gifts.
Now, before you think our five year-old was deprived of gifts all together, he still received plenty of presents from our family which really was more than enough and further affirmed our decision to not receive presents from his friends!
On the day of his party, Lil’ CB excitedly showed his guests the laundry baskets where they could place their food items and happily watched the donations piled up. The sports-themed party was a blast and a great way to emphasize that giving was a team effort!
The week after his party, Lil’ CB and I headed over to a local food pantry with our donations. This food pantry is one that our school often partners with, so it was extra special to be donating to an organization with which we already had a relationship. The woman that took in our donations was wonderful with Lil’ CB, letting him help her weigh the items and giving him a paper receipt that he could keep marked with the amount of the donations received. She let us tour the food pantry and gladly answered any questions Lil’ CB had about who the food would go to. It was a very neat and eye-opening experience!
In the end, we donated over 60 pounds of food donated by Lil’ CB’s party guests! It was such a gift to be able to help our little guy experience the joy of giving and we are thinking this will continue to be a tradition for birthdays to come. In fact, Lil’ CB has already talked about collecting toys for children at his party next year. He might be a stinker at times, but I am proud to see that his little heart for giving is definitely growing!
blogger / persimmon / 1231 posts
Love this! You are raising a very sweet and thoughtful young man.
blogger / pomegranate / 3044 posts
That’s so great! Yay little CB
I quietly donated 80% of the kids Christmas and birthday gifts to the hospital D was at the 2nd time. They have a generous policy where any kid admitted at Xmas gets multiple presents and books (also for their siblings). I hope to try involving them in donating this coming season! I always say no gifts and have felt uneasy about requesting donations, but I think that’s the best way to do it. Kudos to you guys
pomegranate / 3225 posts
What a wonderful idea! I love it.
blogger / cherry / 204 posts
love love love this.
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
love this idea. totally going to do it for charlie’s birthday, though we will probably have a really small one at home this year.
pear / 1696 posts
This is so wonderful, LOVE the idea. Tucking it away in my brain for when LO is old enough to understand!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
Love love love this idea, and I’m so glad you wrote a detailed blog post about it!!! I’d love to try this with the kids when they get older!
blogger / apricot / 378 posts
I love this post so much – can’t wait to do stuff like this with Jack once he’s older!
kiwi / 511 posts
I have a dissenting opinion on this subject. I certainly appreciate and support the goal of battling the feelings of entitlement and growing the idea of supporting others and charity, I am so strongly opposed to the idea of doing it on a child’s birthday. While I do not what them to become little ego monsters their birthday is a celebration of them and it should focus on them because THEY ARE WORTHY of it. There are well over 300 days in a year to help them learn the importance of giving to others, and how it benefits others as well as themselves. The whole concept just smacks me as telling the child yes you are important but look at all these other people/kids that need help so really they are more important than you. I also think that by focusing on giving for most of the year it allows it to become a natural act and it doesn’t become oh great it is my birthday more forced giving.
My son is the little mayor of daycare, I swear everyone (meaning more than those just in his room our daycare is infant – school age kids) including parents know him. He has asked for a lot of people at his parties but (1) I want to limit toys/gifts so we limit it to a family celebration right now (he is 4) (2) when we do transition to more friend centric parties he needs to learn that you cannot invite everyone you want, he is not entitled to have a huge blow out every year. There may be exceptions along the way for milestones but as a general rule it is not gonna happen.
To help with learning about giving to others, we participate in daycare sponsored food drives, school supply drives, Toys for Tots so we are part of a secular community helping out our neighbors. We also participate in various “drives” with our church, so we will do the Angel Tree which has tags for all ages (infants through the elderly in nursing homes), food drives, collections for new mothers, hats/gloves/etc for the homeless shelter. These are all spread out over the year so that is a yearly thing not just something that happens around the holidays and it shows that giving is important in both the religious and secular worlds, the two complement each other.
Even though giving back is important to me, yes I get charity fatigue. And quite frankly while I know intellectually what you (and others that do this type of thing) are doing is not wagging a finger saying that you don’t think that any invitee is not doing their part, it certainly feels that way. And when you get hit up for a dollar more at the grocery store, or just your spare change for this thing, and the phone calls, and the office workers that come by, the last place I really want to be hit up for charity is a party invitation. And lastly my charity dollars and time are allocated to what I want to support and quite frankly not everyone is going to feel the need/desire to support the charity that you chose for whatever reason. Inviting a person to go to party and support something that they may not want to support is also kind of rude and puts the person in a bind. Do they decline because they don’t support the charity or do they go and feel pressured to give to something they don’t support? It is a party not a fundraiser. If you want a fundraiser have one.
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
@Mrs.Maven: Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I respect your option and know that it comes from much thought and knowing what is best for your family. Please know that mine does, too.
As I mentioned, Lil’ CB got lots and lots of presents from our extended family (we’re talking grandparents, aunts, uncles, multiple great aunts and uncles, our cousins, etc.), so he definitely felt showered with love and gifts. It came down to a decision about whether he wanted a larger party with donation gifts or a smaller party with gifts for him. He chose the former and was very happy with they way everything turned out, as were our guests. We also purposely chose more neutral charities to support, 2 of them being ones that serve our own community.
We also support all of the organizations and charities you mentioned, so we are also thinking about giving throughout the year. This just came about as another opportunity and it’s one we were very excited about.
Again, I certainly respect your opinion and thank you for sharing it; I just thought I would address some of the concerns you had. Thanks again.
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
@Mrs. High Heels: @Mrs. Garland: @lady grey: @Mrs. Bee: @Mrs. Pom Pom: @kml636: @Mrs. Tiger: @Mrs. Deer: thanks so much!