Last week I had a wee insight into the challenges of parenting. A big part of me wants to provide everything for my kids, make sure they have every opportunity to live their life to the fullest, never need for anything. Something similar and fairly common to other parents we know. Having some awareness around Abundance and having an abundant mentality certainly helps to honour that intention. However, how does that alighn with not wanting to spoil them?. Well I guess we need to distinguish and have an understanding of what a spoilt kid is. To me a spoilt kid is one who recieves something from someone for pleasure and enjoyment, but has no appreciation, gratitude, thanks, or respect. So the question is this. How can we raise kids with an abundance mentality, a mentality that there is more than enough of everything for everyone to enjoy? How can we provide for them so they can flourish and at the same time have virtues of Gratitude, Kindness, Generosity, Humility, and Respect.?. Have you ever said to your kids….you can’t have that, we can’t afford it. You can’t have that you havn’t earnt it. What do those message send…..Does it mean money is hard to get? Does it imply a scarcity mentality? what questions can we ask before passing off a default reply or comment?

Today Ella asked if she could have a Nintendo gizmo, she said all her friends had one….you know how it goes. Rather than replying straight away with one of the above I asked "So how do you think you could raise the money to pay for it?" Well that kicked the mind into gear…….She thought she could go through all her old toys and things and maybe sell them on Trade Me, that way she could pay for them…I added, yes and maybe there are some items you could donate and give to other kids that don’t have them….Now there’s probably a whole lot of other ways to handle things and we can evolve this further , but now that we have awareness we can work on other strategies.