Do your kids complain a lot? They have so much but they are always looking at what they don’t have? Or looking at what their friends have?
“But all my friends have it!”
“You never let me do anything ever!”
“Why do I have to do my homework? I’ll never use this stuff ever!”
“I don’t want to eat that! It’s gross!”
What would you write down here? Do you join in the complaints, or do you complain back to your kids because they are complaining? “Stop complaining! You are so ungrateful! Look at all you have in life!”
Want to know one thing you can do every day that will help your kids stop complaining? Ready for it?
We CELEBRATE!
Want to know a great definition of celebration? Paying attention and calling attention to the goodness of God in my life.
We are a Christian home, so our celebrations will include the elements of our faith. We believe the goodness of God is greater than the brokenness of the world.
It’s not that we ignore problems. But celebration does change our focus. What if we made a habit of calling out the goodness of God around us?
“Wow! We are children of the King! We are loved and cared for by our Creator!”
“Wow! We are grateful to God and the work we do so that we have food on the table and a roof over our heads.”
Even get a little crazy with your celebration. “Wait a minute! Everyone stop! Can you see that we are breathing? Praise God that He gives us a new breath every few seconds!”
Other examples:
“Today we are going to celebrate a beautiful day of sunshine (or love the rain or the snow)!”
“You made an A on your test! Woo hoo! You get to choose where we are going to eat!”
Celebration is the opposite of grumbling and complaining. When we learn to celebrate, we push out grumbling and complaining in our lives.
And the more we celebrate in the easy times, the easier it is to celebrate in the hard times. For example, in basketball we do drills when no one is guarding us so we can train our minds and bodies to execute the right move in the heat of the game when someone is guarding us, and the pressure is on.
We do the same with celebration. First, we work on becoming a person of celebration. Honestly, it may feel weird at first because most of us are not trained in celebration. And we may think our family will think we are crazy. But do it anyway!
Here’s a motivation: Do you like being around people who celebrate or people who complain? Do you think your family is any different? Do you think your kids come in the house saying, “Wow! I can’t wait to hear what Mom and Dad are going to complain about today! Let’s go find them so we can hear it!”
What do you think it does for your relationship with your spouse or your children if you become more of a celebration person and less of a complaining person? Think about it.
And as we put celebration into our lives, we teach our kids to celebrate instead of complaining. Celebration becomes normal, a part of the fabric of our home. Instead of complaining being normal, what if celebration was normal?
Then when times get tough and we still call out the goodness of God, it is not a weird thing. It’s just what we do as a family. We believe in and call out the goodness of God.
And remember, parents, your example is more important than your instruction. You can tell your kids not to complain all day, but if you show them the opposite of complaining by celebrating, they will want to follow your example and stop complaining!
So you want to stop complaining in your home? Start celebrating!
