Personal Story From My Day Today and a Challenge For Parents Everywhere

Posted by Christie in Daily Life on Thursday, September 11th, 2008

I had planned an entirely different post today, but as often happens with children, they threw me a curve ball. I would like to share with all of you a personal story from my day today and a challenge for parents everywhere. 

This morning I found my middle son, Bryson, in his bedroom crying.  I went in to comfort him and ask him what was wrong and nothing in the world could have prepared me for his response. He looked at me with huge blue eyes and said, “Mommy there are so many people in this world that need help and I can’t help them all.” 

I was so stunned by both the passion he had for others and the hurt that he was feeling on their behalf, that I had trouble responding. Before I could really say anything he continued and said, “How many people can I help with this?” He handed me a sweaty fistful of loose change that added up to about 39 cents.  My eyes immediately filled with tears. 

We have been talking about good deeds this week at our house after a lesson at church that challenged us to help others. I was unaware at how deeply my son had been considering ways to help others around him.

I quickly explained to him that we can help people in lots of ways, not just giving our money. We can give our time, we can give items that they need, we can offer to help them do something. He processed this information for a moment and then said, “Can I help all of the charities in the world?” 

I smiled, and told him that we should probably start with one. I asked him who he wanted to help and he said he wanted to help the animals first and then the people in the world.  So we went to the computer and looked up our local Humane Society. I told Bryson that it said they were in need of some items and I read him the list.  Immediately, he formulated a plan to help collect these items. 

On his own, he came up with a plan to write a letter and give it out to family and friends that asked for their old towels and blankets.  He wanted to know if I would type it for him and then he could hand it out.  I typed as he dictated the following words:

“Hi, my name is Bryson. I want to help all the animals that don’t have a home and need help. Mommy said we can get old towels and blankets and stuff to send to the Humane Society for animals to use.

I wanted to see if anyone else wanted to help me collect these things. If you have old towels or blankets would you bring them to work and I will collect them to take to the animals next Friday. Thank you for helping me and the animals!”

All by himself, my five year old created a towel and blanket drive for our local Humane Society. I even allowed him to call my sister for permission to email it to her to send to her employees, our pastor to see if the church would help, and his teacher to see if his preschool could help.

I could not have been more shocked or proud today… I think way too often parents forget that our children are capable of huge things! They have big hearts and they have a strong desire to help others. 

I have been inspired by my son’s thoughtfulness and want to share with you a challenge. Get your kids involved too. It could be in the community you live or the school or church you attend. It could be something large or small… it does not matter the size what matters is the lesson. 

Just imagine if we could raise up an entire generation of thoughtful children who want to make the world a better place… what a difference that could make! 

In the next few days I am going to be researching a list of ways that children can get more involved and I will be sharing it with you as soon as it is completed. I can promise you that my family will be trying to do better, Bryson will make sure of that!



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