“What we need to teach our kids is the truth of contentment; being happy no matter our situation, no matter our circumstances. We find our joy in the Lord.”
Author and mom Kristen Welch shares helpful advice on teaching our kids the value of contentment from her book Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World.
As parents, we know that it’s not realistic to experience happiness every moment of the day.
“Who doesn’t want to be happy all of the time? It’s a common dream and desire. Of course, as adults we know that it’s not possible. As parents, we know it isn’t possible.”
Children struggle with their own sinful natures too and they need our grace and understanding.
“We’re raising children who have sin natures and they have selfish tendencies; they’re really replicas of us. Our job is to discipline them, to direct them and to love them in grace, but also with authority.”
Kristen shares her personal experience on coming to terms with the fact that good parenting does not equate to happy parenting.
“When I really started just telling myself, ‘It’s okay that there is someone in our house that is unhappy right now,’ it really made me just take a deep breath and not beat myself up so much.”
Throughout life we all struggle with moments of despair and unhappiness.
“In reality, we all know as adults we can’t be happy all the time. We don’t want to go to work every day, we don’t want to do laundry, we don’t always want to cook dinner, but we have responsibilities and commitments.”
Kristen says that families are negatively affected if they aren’t allowed to experience a healthy range of human emotions.
“In our culture, we have bought in to this lie that we deserve happiness all the time. It’s really a disservice to our families when we try to make our kids happy all the time because life isn’t always positive and there are hard, hard things that we go through.”
By raising grateful children who are content with what they have, they will know how to find gratitude no matter what circumstances arise.
“We need to prepare kids and help them to dig deep and to realize, ‘even when I’m happy, even when things aren’t going my way, I can still find something to be grateful for.’
