Augustus Gloop: Self-Control

We live in a day and age now were we are blessed with so much. So much food, entertainment, money. We have so much we are so blessed! This should be great news for our kids, but is it? The down side to all this blessing is that kids now days have to be taught self-control more than ever. This is huge. They have so many options.

We live in a society that says yes, yes, yes to everything. We need teach our kids as parents and children’s works to not stick our heads in the sand and say no, but to say enough. I think as a church while the world is saying yes we have been saying no (because it is easier in the short term. We should be saying enough not no.) I believe saying no to everything doesn’t teach self-control. I think saying enough does. Are secular movies bad? Is secular music? Are Trans-Fat’s? Let me say that the enough line is a very personal and God defined thing. We need to guard against the onslaught of choice so our kids learn that even to much of a good thing is a bad thing.

If we as parents don’t jealously guard those options from a young age we are training them to be gluttons. Left to ourselves we always overindulge. Areas were I feel kids are gluttons: Food, Entertainment, Fashion.

I will end today’s post with a couple of practical suggestions on instilling self-control in your kids at an early age.

1. Instead of asking you kids what they want to eat and giving it to them. Ask do you want carrots or peas? Give them a choice between two healthy items.
2. Teach your kids to enjoy their food but stop when they feel full or right before then.
3. Come up with creative alternatives to TV watching. Kids sit and watch sit and play video games way to much.
4. Kids need to learn from a young age to have friends of the opposite sex and how to treat them appropriately.
5. When your kids become fashion aware. Give your kids the money you would have paid to buy them a pair of jeans and let them pay the extra for the designer jeans of their choice.
6. Fight the urge to buy them everything on their list for Christmas and birthdays.

Proverbs 25:28 Like a city whose walls are broken down
is a man who lacks self-control.

Enjoy the following clip of Augustus falling in the chocolate river.

I was going to write some blog posts about family but went back into my archives and found a series I did on family skills illustrated in the movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” I thought they were worth revisiting hope you do too.

Importance of Family.

As a children’s pastor you see the good the bad and the ugly of family. I have come to realize that great churches, youth churches and children’s ministries are just as much a reflection of great parenting as they are great pastoring.

This week I want to take a parabolic look at the importance of being a great parent and how we as children’s pastor’s can help partner with parents.

I recently watched Charlie and the chocolate factory. I remember the first time I watched this movie, I was a bit creeped out by Jonhy Depp’s character who I felt resembled Michael Jackson with a better Plastic surgeon but by the end of the movie I was impacted by the powerful theme of the importance of family. I was struck by the mistakes that parents made in the movie. I found them to be a caricature of real life. There were many times I was laughing. For something to be funny it needs two things…. timing …… and must be relate able. (Perhaps one of reasons I found the movie funny is as a children’s pastor at times you feel like Willy Wonka.)

I want to talk this week about the relate able aspect of these characters. Sometimes I think we can say “Thank God I am not like that parent.” But I can see how I could be every one of those parents in the movie if I am not careful.

In the next few days I will talk about how to ruin your kids.

Augustus Gloop – No self-control
Violet Beauregarde – Wrong Priorities
Veruca Salt – Give your kids whatever they want
Mike Teavee – No Boundaries