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    How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World
    How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World
    How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World
    Ebook125 pages4 hours

    How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World

    By Dave Stone

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    About this ebook

    Dave Stone shares creative ideas, real-life stories, and scriptural guidance about how to be a family that puts others first. 

    In this third book from the Faithful Families series, How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World, Dave Stone continues to share his practical, conversational, and humorous approach to the challenges of building a strong spiritual foundation for the family. He equips parents with what they need to raise kids whose focus is not always on themselves. Some topics include: Becoming Others Focused, Service, Generosity, Forgiveness, and much more. 

    Preaching is his gift, but Pastor Dave Stone’s family is his life’s blessing. And after raising three kids of his own, as well as shepherding the diverse families of his twenty-thousand-member congregation, his heart and passion for building strong families rings louder than ever. He knows that raising faithful families is a vital key to continued growth of the church.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateApr 8, 2013
    ISBN9781400321391
    How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World
    Author

    Dave Stone

    Dave Stone is Senior Pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where he preaches Truth to more than 21,000 people each weekend. He and his wife, Beth, have three children: Savannah, Sadie, and Sam, and a son-in-law, Patrick. Dave believes the most practical way to spread the gospel is through moms and dads who model a genuine faith for their children.

    Read more from Dave Stone

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      Book preview

      How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World - Dave Stone

      Dedication

      To Mom and Dad,

      Individually and collectively you have

      blessed my life immeasurably.

      As parents you’ve modeled well the qualities

      taught in this book: servanthood, generosity,

      forgiveness, character, prayer, encouraging

      the less fortunate, and loving your enemies.

      Your constant focus on others is inspiring.

      Thanks for raising me by the Book.

      A very grateful son,

      Dave

      Table of Contents

      1. Taking Aim

      2. Playing Second Fiddle

      3. Shine

      4. The Heart of the Matter

      5. Open Heart, Open Hand

      6. Be Our Guest

      7. Radical Grace

      8. Pride, Prejudice, and Position

      9. Lifting Others Up

      10. Redirecting Your Focus

      Endnotes

      Acknowledgments

      Books take on a life of their own. The name on the front cover is simply an individual representation of a slew of others who have toiled to see the project completed.

      Topping my list is a very patient and prayerful wife who has put up with a distracted husband for a few months. Thanks, Beth, for the way you honor others and for being my number one encourager!

      Thanks to our kids, Savannah, Sadie, Sam, and son-in-law Patrick, who have graciously allowed me to share both highlights and lowlights from their childhoods.

      These chapters have been sharpened and read by a team of great parents:

      Sara Burke, Tish Cordrey, Lance and Kisa Hoeltke, Shannon Bramer, Jill Turner, Carl and Lindsay Kuhl, Nicole Smith, and Mary Cummins. Your insights were invaluable.

      Thanks to the dozens of parents who were kind enough to fill out surveys and allowed me to glean from their parenting habits and ideas. Penny Stokes, thank you for being a gifted teammate and coach. Thanks to Cary Meyer, Tommy Dunn, and Ben Cross for your great help throughout this project.

      Thanks to the Thomas Nelson team for believing in the Faithful Families series. Laura Minchew, Lisa Stilwell, Jack Countryman, Jennifer Deshler, Mike Aulisio, Amy Kerr, Katie Powell, and Jordie Deshler—thanks for your ongoing encouragement and friendship.

      1

      Taking Aim

      Be devoted to one another in love.

      ROMANS 12:10

      Matt Emmons was one shot away from claiming victory in the 2004 Olympics.

      It was the 50-meter three-position rifle event. He didn’t even need a bull’s-eye to win. He just needed to hit the target. A slam dunk. A piece of cake. An expert marksman like Emmons could do it blindfolded, with one hand tied behind his back.

      His shot should have scored an 8.1, more than enough for a gold medal. But in what was described as an extremely rare mistake in elite competition,¹ Emmons fired at the wrong target. Standing in lane two, he fired at the target in lane three.

      His score for a good shot at the wrong target? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Instead of a medal, Emmons ended up with an eighth-place finish and a permanent position on the list of The Top 10 Most Embarrassing Olympic Moments.

      It doesn’t matter how accurate you are if you’re aiming at the wrong goal.

      Keeping Your Eye on the Target

      No parent leaves the maternity wing with the stated goal of raising that little bundle of joy to become a self-absorbed, spoiled brat who is oblivious to the needs of others. But even well-intentioned parents can lose their focus, and when they do, it affects their aim.

      It’s easy to let our focus be drawn away, to get caught up in the details and stresses of life, to give up or give in. We don’t mean to let this happen any more than Matt Emmons intentionally shot at the wrong target. It just happens when we get distracted, when we’re not paying attention, when we run out of time and energy and intentionality. When too many demands clamor for our attention.

      We lose sight of the mark. We hit the wrong target. And we lose a whole lot more than a gold medal and a place in sports history.

      If you want to hit the right target, you have to know what you’re aiming at.

      That sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

      It is simple. But it’s not popular. It’s not the way of modern American society. It’s not even the way most Christians live in the world. The target is not success or happiness or financial security or personal fulfillment. It’s not adulation or appreciation or applause. It’s nothing more—and nothing less—than living out the example that Jesus gave us.

      The target is raising children who are others-oriented.

      And I assure you that you won’t hit this goal by accident.

      Husband, dad, and pastor Craig Groeschel says, If you don’t want your family to turn out like every other family, then you will need to raise them differently than everyone else.² In other words, don’t expect this to be easy. If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

      Being others-oriented is about as countercultural as it gets. Self-centeredness is so prevalent in our world that we don’t even recognize it anymore. We are a society of the entitled; we think we deserve whatever we have—and then some. It was true in Jesus’ day, and it’s still true in our own time: what matters most in this world are money, power, and self-exaltation.

      How did we become such a spoiled, self-absorbed, entitled people? Well, think about it. We want the best of everything—the best house, the best car, the best job. If we can’t afford it, we charge it because, after all, we deserve it.

      Even if we haven’t lived that way ourselves, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap once we become parents. We treat our children as if they are the center of the universe. We want to give them everything we had—and more.

      Before Children (BC), we all subscribed to the belief that we wouldn’t call attention to the amazing feats of our offspring. But that vow goes out the window as soon as Junior smiles, rolls over, passes gas, or takes his first step. The universe screeches to a halt while two-year-old Amy spells her last name; everyone waits with unbridled anticipation to hear Jimmy burp his way through the alphabet. All eyes and ears turn to the precious, precocious offspring; friends and family take note and feign amazement.

      While it’s doubtful that any of these earth-shattering skills will appear on future résumés or win anyone a slot on America’s Got Talent, she’s your child, and therefore she’s nothing short of spectacular. And spectacular, of course, deserves spectators.

      Pavlov’s Puppies

      Remember studying Pavlov’s experiments in psychology class? Ring the bell, put out the food. Ring the bell, put out the food. Doesn’t take long before the dog starts salivating at the first ring of the bell whether or not the food is there. It’s called conditioning.

      And we condition our children. We teach our sons and daughters what to expect by the way we treat them. If they’re constantly surrounded by a gushing audience, constantly told how wonderful they are, how will they learn to put others first? If everything they want magically appears on a silver platter, how are they going to learn the value of work and sharing and generosity?

      No wonder American children grow up with an egodriven worldview where everything centers around their selfish desires. No wonder your four-year-old throws tantrums, and your fourteen-year-old thinks the universe revolves around him.

      Maybe your puppies are salivating because you keep ringing the bell.

      A Society of Selfishness

      Consider for a moment the evolution of America’s most popular magazines of the past sixty years:

      Time

      Life

      People

      Us

      Self

      Me

      Pretty revealing, isn’t it?

      If our kids are growing up selfish and self-centered, it’s because they are merely the by-product of us—of you and me. They observe our priorities and adopt our values. They sense that we lack both the backbone to say no to them and the resolve to teach them to care about others. So they take advantage of our permissiveness, our indulgence. Their attitudes reflect the way they’ve been conditioned.

      The Jesus Target

      Maybe it’s time we took a step back and reevaluated. Maybe it’s time to look beyond the selfishness of our culture and turn our focus back to Jesus. Maybe it’s time to aim at a different set of values, to

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