Learning Through Giving

In my first blog post, I mentioned how I made up a list of values, beliefs, and traits I wanted to nurture in my children. One of the character traits I hope they develop is compassion towards others and a desire to help those in need. When Jacob was around four years old, he started learning how different people live around the world through books we read. We shared with him how many adults and children do not have enough food, clothing, or a home to live in.

When I was a young girl, my family sponsored a child in Bolivia through Christian Children's Fund. Our sponsored child's name was Alex and he became an extended part of our family. We would write letters to him and get letters in return. Alex's mother even sent our family a couple of gifts from Bolivia. One gift was a card with a picture of birds made out of feathers and the other gifts was a small woven wall hanging. Sponsoring Alex made a big impression on me and when I turned 13 years old I decided to use some of my babysitting money to sponsor my own child. I chose to sponsor a child through Children's International because the monthly sponsorship fees were more affordable. My first sponsored child was from India and her name was Marufa. She was five years old when I started sponsoring her. I ended up sponsoring her until she graduated from school and got married. Since then my husband and I have sponsored several other children through Children's International and I have shared with my own two children the letters and pictures we receive from them. The pictures to the left and right are pictures of my first sponsored child, Marufa.

Over the years, my son Jacob has become more and more interested in helping children around the world. We have read stories about children who live in other countries and I have shared stories from our sponsorship newsletters. A wonderful organization we learned about a couple years ago is Heifer International. Through this organization you can purchase farm animals which are then donated to families in need around the world. The families are taught how to care for the animals and they must donate the first offspring of their animal to another family in need. The animals provide the family with food and a source of income which can make a big difference in their lives. Some of the animals you can donate are chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, cows, and more. Jacob really enjoyed helping buy chickens for a family by doing extra chores around the house to earn money. Heifer International has a wonderful children's book called Beatrice's Goat which is an excellent teaching tool.

We now have a new favorite charitable organization called Love Without Boundaries. Our own family has actually benefited from the work of this organization in a very big way. When we were matched to adopt our daughter Rosa, we found out that her medical and foster care were provided through Love Without Boundaries (LWB). An individual sponsor through LWB donated the monthly funds needed for her to live with a foster family after she turned two and others had donated money so she could receive treatment for her eye condition. We are so grateful for what LWB has done for our daughter and so many other children in China. LWB provides help in the areas of medical care, nutrition, foster care, education, and special projects. Up until this year, they were an organization run solely by volunteers.

Besides the fact that Love Without Boundaries helped our daughter, it is now our favorite charitable organization because it provides a wonderful way for our children to experience the joys of giving and learn while doing so. Love Without Boundaries allows contributors to donate any amount toward the medical care or surgery for individual children listed on their Medical page. This has allowed Jacob and Rosa to donate a couple of dollars which they have earned or received to help a child. They have been able to personally pick a child from a list of photos on the medical site. Each child who needs medical help or surgery has a photo posted as well as information about their medical needs.

Last year, Jacob donated some money that he won when he caught a pig at our Fair's pig scramble. He decided to use the money to help a little boy around his age who had lived in the same orphanage as our daughter. This little boy had a blood condition and needed regular blood transfusions. Jacob was so excited when he found out a number of months ago that the little boy had been matched to be adopted by a family here in the U.S.

Jacob and Rosa have donated money to help several children on the Love Without Boundaries medical page. I subscribe to the LWB Blog Posts and we have been able to read updates on one of the babies my children chose to help. LWB also has a Kids for Kids Newsletter which shares stories of children who have helped other children through LWB. The stories in this newsletter are very inspiring and they have been a great learning tool. Reading the stories has shown Jacob and Rosa that you do not need to be an adult to make a big difference in the world. We have been greatly blessed by Love Without Boundaries through the help they provided our daughter while she lived in China and now through the opportunity our children have to give back. Jacob and Rosa have been able to see how their donations (no matter how small) can make a difference for children on the other side of the world.

Our family now sponsors a child through Love Without Boundaries and we receive updates on our child every few months. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please visit the LWB Sponsorship Page.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a term I learned about a few years ago. According to Harvard Psychologist Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence is a combination of five characteristics:

·self-awareness (the ability to recognize and identify a feeling)
·managing one's emotions (handling fear, anxiety, anger, sadness and worry in an appropriate and proportional way)
·self-motivation (involves emotional control, the ability to delay gratification,and the ability to keep working toward a goal, expecting success)
·empathy (recognition of and sensitivity to the emotions of others)
·handling relationships (learning to handle conflict constructively and getting along well with others)

Experts have found that a child’s future success in life is influenced 20% by IQ and 80% by their level of emotional intelligence. I’m sure that most of us have known people who are very intelligent in a cognitive sense but just can’t relate well to others. A child’s level of emotional intelligence will obviously play a huge role in the quality of relationships they are able to have with other people. This will affect their family, social, education and work lives in a significant way. So how do we go about teaching our children to be more emotionally intelligent? The characteristics above can be modeled by parents at home but we may need some extra help as well. I have come across some great children’s books which can help with teaching emotional intelligence.

Feelings by Aliki
Manners by Aliki
Old Henry by Joan W. Blos
Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis
Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs by Tommie dePaola
Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
How Are You Peeling? by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers
You Are Special by Max Lucado
Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier

I would also like to add a craft idea to help with teaching younger children emotional awareness. In the photo above you will see the feelings magnets we made. Each of my children has their own set and the magnets have helped to open up dialogue about their feelings during the day. The magnets are easy to make out of sheets of craft foam and self-adhesive magnets. You can copy the feelings faces I made with a permanent marker or come up with your own. The feelings faces from left to right and top to bottom are: happy, silly, surprised, angry, sick, scared, tired, and sad.

When Rosa came home from China a year ago, she quickly picked up the English words to describe her feelings. I wrote this entry in Rosa’s journal after she had been home for only six months. Rosa, you are already very good at expressing your feelings (sad, scared, angry, silly, etc.). When you are upset you like to say “angry, angry, angry”. I have told you that we are now your family, forever and ever and ever. You obviously picked up on the importance of the word “ever” because one day you were angry at Daddy because of something that had happened at church. He had left your Sunday school room to copy something for the teacher and did not bring you with him. You started to cry because you didn’t know where he had gone and on the way home from church you told me about what happened and said “angry, angry, angry, ever”. I guess you were really upset about that!

This incident really demonstrated to me how some children are just born more emotionally aware than other children. I can tell you from what we know of our daughter’s first four years, her feelings were not usually taken into much consideration. It has been amazing to see how quickly she has learned to express her feelings in a new language and how she relishes telling us exactly how she feels about things.

Daniel Goleman mentioned above who wrote the book “Emotional Intelligence” has his own blog where you can learn more about emotional intelligence at:
http://www.danielgoleman.info/blog/

● Zundel, Irene H. “How Reading Improves a Child’s Emotional Intelligence” EduGuide 22 Oct. 2009. http://www.eduguide.org/Parents-Articles/How-Reading-Improves-a-Childs-Emotional-Intelligence-1220.aspx