Talking About Cancer With the Willy Kids

Corbin and Quincy came home from school asking about cancer, on Monday. They told me they watched, "Why Charlie Brown, Why?" and had questions, so I pulled it up on YouTube and we watched it again, together. What a great way to teach children empathy, acceptance, and support, and help them understand that sometimes bad things happen and are not anyone's fault. One of the Peanuts characters has Lukemia and loses her hair during chemotherapy. Quincy had a lot of comments about that, and pondered that there must be something we can do. Corbin was upset that there was a bully in the episode, then scrounged up every bit of loose change he could find and put it in the little collection box he'd brought home from school. 

Corbin was feeling a little left out yesterday when he was out playing with the neighbor kids. It's hard to be the odd man out when the neighbor friends on both sides of your house are best friends with each other. I can relate. 

Service always picks me up when I am down, so I tried this approach with Corbin. A few of our oak trees are having a mast year and are dumping acorns by the trunk-load into the yard. I thought it might be a good distraction for him to earn some cash, so I offered him $1 to pick up a bucketful of acorns from the lawn. It took him about 45 minutes, but he did it! 

Guess what?  He put his dollar right into his change box to take to school and donate. I love his heart. 

As a mother I can easily admit that from the many accomplishments, talents, and qualities my children will acquire, what I want most for them is to develop  kindness. 

I don't care if they are a star athlete, the best singer, the lead in the school play, earliest reader, top of the class scholar student or fastest swimmer. I just want them to be nice kids. I hope my children know they are special because they are gifted at helping others to feel special, too.