Monthly Experiments
As with most parenting, if you want your kids to learn something, it often takes hearing and doing it more than once. In 2008 when I started researching entitlement, I would share these insights with my children but I could tell what I was saying was “in one ear and out the other.” After a year or so, I realized that not only would we have to say it, we would have to live it.
Since selling our house and living up in a cave in the mountains was NOT an option, I had to come up with something else. In 2010, I found some middle ground that my family could buy into: monthly experiments. Every year since then, we have tried to be intentional with a few months of the year rearranging our family life to get our minds a bit more straight when it comes not getting sucked into the entitled culture that permeates everything around us. I don’t log all of our experiments on this website, but below are links to a good handful from throughout the years. Expect more to come!
One question I am asked periodically is “Do these monthly experiments you make your family go through really do anything?” That’s an excellent question, and the real proof will be as the years progress, and they move out into the world, they learn to live in it, but not be “of” it (1 John 2:15-17, Romans 12:22, John 17:16). So far, their actions are on the right track, and we have seen them take stands against the entitlement culture (stay tuned for a future article regarding that)!
Our experiments include lots of struggle, failure, and a trying of our patience. But they also hold much humor, joy, and success. I hope you enjoy reading about them!