The molding of a heart is God’s business, and a prompting toward radical generosity is the work of the Holy Spirit. But there are certain steps parents can take to help in the process of raising generous kids. Learn about some generous kids, how they got this way, and how you can cultivate the generous work of the Spirit in your kids’ hearts, too.
Meet Jesse, age 12, a go-getter with a large paper route. Each weekday morning, he wakes up at 6:00 and delivered newspapers to 50 homes before school. At Christmastime, his customers were generous, and his tips totaled nearly $100. He thought about baseball cards or new equipment he could buy for his after-school lawn care business.
But he also had Jesus’ words from Matthew 6:19-21 on his heart. One Sunday at church (the tip money still in a box at home), he was drawn in by the story of a ministry raising money to buy livestock for needy families in third-world countries. He decided to give all of his tip money.
Next, meet Rachel. By age six, she had $32 saved up, a remarkable achievement given her allowance was just $1 per week and she’d been diligently giving a portion to church each Sunday. Whatever plans she had for her savings changed when a colleague of her father lost his house and all his possessions in a fire. At a church potluck dinner/fundraiser event for this man and his family, Rachel donated all the money she’d saved.
Meet Courtney. When she and her sister, Rachel, were just three and five years old, they were dreaming about (and diligently saving for) a trampoline. But when a missionary spoke at their church one weekend, their hearts broke for the people he ministered to. They decided to give most of their trampoline money to support his work.
What creates such compassion in young children and motivates them to act on it?
As soon as children have any money flowing into their lives, it’s time to encourage a habit of giving. Get them a piggy bank with three slots – one for giving, one for saving, and one for spending (or use three jars or envelopes). Keep this somewhere prominent.
If you give them an allowance or compensate them for chores, pay them in coins so they can easily divide the money, first putting at least 10 percent in the giving slot, then a portion for saving, and the rest for spending. This will help establish giving as the first priority for all money they receive.
Then explain why.
Why explain when they’re so young?
I had coffee one morning with a small group of 20-something young men. All had been raised in Christian homes. All saw their parents giving to the churches they attended.
None of them knew why.
“I knew that my parents tithed,” Matt said. “But it seemed like something they did just to check a box.” Will agreed: “I remember seeing my parents give, and they would give me a dollar to put in. But as far as understanding why … I don’t think I ever made a connection.”
Teaching kids to give is great, but if we don’t explain why, we’re missing a critical component of that education at a critical point in our child’s life.
So, how do you explain to your kids why Christians give? You can start by explaining that giving is an act of gratitude, a way of expressing thanks to God for his daily gifts – your home, the food your family eats, the sunrise and the sunset. You can teach them that everything belongs to God and that God taught his earliest followers to start at 10 percent (Leviticus 27:30).
If they’re a little older, you can share with them how King David modeled giving in 1 Chronicles 29 as an acknowledgment that, when we give, we’re simply giving back to God a portion of what is his. Tell them the whole story, and explain what happened after King David was so generous.
And teach them that giving is an act of worship. It’s a wonderful, joyful opportunity to partner with Jesus in addressing some of the issues he cares about, like helping the poor, spreading the gospel, and supporting those who teach God’s Word.
The importance of your example
Of course, kids will learn the most about generosity by watching and listening to what we say and do. Especially now that so much giving is done online, it’s important for your kids to know when you’re giving. Share the joy it brings you. Pray with them when you give, thanking God for his provision and asking him to use your gift to further his work.
One of the ways my wife and I have tried to help our kids make the connection between giving and the people it’s impacting is by supporting children through Compassion International. We know their names, we have their pictures, and we exchange letters with them. One evening over dinner, we talked about Aziz, a young boy from Burkina Faso we support. We’d just sent him some money for his birthday, and he’d sent us a picture in response, showing rice and soap he bought for his family with the money.
The next morning, our son Jonathan (about six years old) wandered into the kitchen. Being the loving father that I am, I hit him with a pop quiz about money: “Hey, Jonathan, do you remember the three things you can do with money?” He thought for a minute and, after a big yawn, said, “You can spend it, you can save it, and, . . . you can give it to Aziz.” I loved that answer!
Resist the urge to rescue
When your five-year-old spends all of her allowance and then sees something else she desperately wants, it’s easy to want to swoop in and save the day. But it’s an opportunity to explain why she has to wait for what she wants.
While it might be tempting to intervene when your child wants to give away all of his savings, doing so may rob her of an opportunity to grow in generosity and faith, and it can rob God of an opportunity to bless her.
When Rachel and Courtney gave most of their trampoline money to a missionary, their parents, Leo and Natalie, didn’t stand in the way, and what happened next was remarkable. Not long after the girls gave to the missionary, their aunt called. She knew they’d been saving for a trampoline. She was calling to let them know the store where she worked had a trampoline on clearance. With her employee discount, the money Rachel and Courtney had left over turned out to be more than enough to pay for the trampoline.
“That was such a God thing – a great lesson of God providing, seemingly in response to their giving,” Leo said.
Whole-life generosity
I hear from generous people often about the importance of getting kids involved with giving as early as possible. I also hear about the importance of cultivating what some describe as “a lifestyle of generosity.”
For Dick and Sibyl, that meant their boys shared a bedroom. They encouraged their kids regularly to contribute to family conversations and taught them how to welcome visitors warmly into their home. When writing sympathy or get-well cards, the boys also participated.
Not far from their home in Cincinnati, OH, there was a bus stop that served a poor community. When the family noticed that the grass by the bus stop often was overgrown and littered with trash, they adopted the bus stop, regularly cutting the grass and picking up the trash.“We taught the whole give-some, save-some, spend-the-rest thing, but I think the more important lessons were in how we lived.”
For John and Joan, a book called Just Courage helped change their hopes for their kids. “[The author] talked about how common it is for parents to pray for their kids to be happy, healthy, and safe,” Joan said. “He challenged readers that it would be more powerful if we prayed differently for our kids. So, I started praying they would be brave, courageous, and dangerous young men and women of God.” John and Joan encouraged their kids to look for needs they could meet, even if it might feel uncomfortable, like joining a kid who is sitting all alone in the school cafeteria.
Immeasurably more
Raising generous children is a multi-faceted adventure. It’s important to teach them the basics about giving first, proportionally, and about tithes and offerings. But let’s make sure they don’t grow up thinking of generosity as a bill to be paid or a box to be checked.
Let’s raise kids who live for others by nurturing their compassion and equipping them to partner with Jesus. Compounding is a great financial principle, but it applies to generosity, too. Imagine how God could come alongside through the process to enrich our children’s giving with profound meaning and joy. The possibilities transcend imagination.
