When you look at the landscape of our nation today, along with other places around the world, there seems to be a lot of division, anger, insecurity and confusion. Sadly, this is also impacting our children, who are facing challenges unique to their generation. So what can we do to help as parents? How do you bring about change for the good, and how do we help our children take ownership of changing their generation for the greater good? That may sound like a daunting task, and it is. However, if we reduce that challenge to one individual in our world, suddenly changing the world doesn’t seem so far out of reach if we begin changing the world one person at a time. As Paul Shane Spear once said, “As one person, I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person.”
How do we help our kids change their world? By teaching them to change one person’s world in their circle of influence. How? By learning how to add value to others. Here are five things to teach your kids that they can apply to their lives every day.
1. Value People
How we view things is how we do things. Your child’s perspective toward others determines their attitude toward them. When we teach our children to value everyone, it gives them the posture of a servant to serve the needs of those around them. Teaching our children to place value and worth on others regardless of their differences will help our children to learn to treat everyone around them with dignity and respect. For example, if I see you as weak, I’ll help you. If I see you as broken, I’ll fix you. If I see you as valuable, I’ll serve you. Notice the first two, I’m still on top (superior), but when I see you as valuable, I’m beneath you. By learning to value people, I take on the posture of a servant committed to serving the needs of those around me.
2. Think of Ways to Add Value to Others
It is not easy to ask our kids to take the focus off of themselves and place it on others. Typically, kids are pretty self-absorbed. However, challenging them to “think” about someone they know who is going through a difficult time or who needs encouragement shifts their focus off of themselves to thinking of ways they can add value to someone else.
3. Look for Ways to Add Value to Others
As we teach our kids to value everyone around them, they start living with intentionality. Thinking of ways to add value to others will naturally lead to opportunities to add value to others.
4. Do Things That Add Value to Others
Putting this into action might look something like this: helping a friend study for a test or sitting with someone during lunch who is eating alone in the cafeteria. Doing things around the house or cleaning up their room without being told can make all the difference in the world.
5. Encourage Others to Add Value to People
Imagine if everyone lived by the Golden Rule, “Do for others what you would want them to do for you,” our world would be different. Let me encourage you to pass these five action steps on to your children. As a family, spend some time discussing these statements over a family dinner. Allow your kids to give input and provide their ideas on how they can start living with greater intention by learning to add value to others. See, it’s not so hard after all to change our world!
Rodney Gage is a family coach, author, speaker and the founding pastor of ReThink Life Church, which meets at Lake Nona High School. His passion is to help families win at home and in life. To receive a FREE copy of one of his books, go to thedoublewinclub.com. To learn more about his marriage and parenting mentoring, check out thewinningfamily.com and rethinklife.com.
