Practicing Selflessness

The kids have been spending a lot of time fighting, bossing others around, and not getting their regular chores completed.  Jeff has assigned them to learn Philippians 2:3-4 which says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

This morning Kaomi asked both Kent and Katy to get the milk out of the fridge for her so she could have breakfast.  I was upstairs.  They refused.  Then, when Katy did decide to try to help she pushed the milk back where she couldn't reach it.  Kent knew he could get it with a chair, but he still refused to help.  They cost us our trip to the library for a special program by our Public Works Department and Digging. 

So I decided that they would have to practice doing what Kaomi likes/wanted to do.  I made a list of 8 things that Kaomi likes to do and wrote them out out so that there were four slips of paper with one activity on each side.  Then they had to help her practice the verse she is trying to learn and do the activities on the paper that Kaomi picked out.  They were also given extra responsibilities between activities with Kaomi since they didn't do a good job (Kent) or complete their chores in a timely manner (Katy) this morning.

First Kaomi chose Katy to play with her.  So Katy helped Kaomi work on her verse.  Then Katy had to sing a Christmas song with Kaomi that Kaomi wanted to sing.  Katy thought it was silly, but she sang Joy to the World with Kaomi.  Then she had to play dollhouse with Kaomi, playing with the dolls that Kaomi said she could play with and playing the way Kaomi wanted her to play with the dolls.  They said they had fun after they were done playing Kaomi's way.  While they were doing this Kent was to straighten part of the gameroom.  He didn't follow directions and started causing a fight with the girls over the dollhouse stuff, so he received an extra floor sweeping job.

Next, Kent helped Kaomi work on her verse.  Then he had to play with the "American Girl" doll that she wanted him to play with and he had to play the way she wanted him to play.  Kent said it wasn't much fun because it was "girlish", but Kaomi said he played that way she asked him to play.  Then they had to color a picture together.  Kaomi chose a horse picture to color.  Kent had to color the things that Kaomi said to color and Kaomi could even pick the colors she wanted him to use for the part he was coloring.  For the coloring, Kent had to practice asking Kaomi to move her arm off the spot he needed to color.  Kaomi said he asked nicely.  While they were doing this Katy was picking up books and straightening her room.

After a short break it was Katy's turn again.  She helped Kaomi work on her verse again.  Then they played Candyland.  Katy had to play following Kaomi's directions.  Felicity wanted to play too and Kaomi said she could.  While they were doing this Kent was to play with Clark in Clark's room.   Then Katy had to read a story of Kaomi's choice. 

After lunch it was Kent's turn again.  He had to read a story of Kaomi's choice from our Bible storybook.  Then he had to play Clever Castle with Kaomi by following her directions.  He had a hard time letting her be in charge of this game, but they still had fun.

Lastly, Kent and Katy both had to write a letter of apology to a friend who they let down this morning.  They had to apologize for not finishing their chores on time to go to the library.  Kent invited her to go with us yesterday and he didn't tell me he had invited her, so he also had to apologize for not letting me know or we might have tried harder to make sure we could've gone.


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