A purpose driven kid

Yo, what up?

I have to tell you that being with my kids is like a constant comedy show.
Yesterday was a classic.
My son and daughter are in this thing at school to raise money. Yeah a school that cost $9000 a year per kid has about 4 money drives during the year....but I digress.
The organization that was brought in to help raise the money gives the kids prizes for reaching certain plateaus.
So the prize my daughter got was a wrist band with a watch in it.
So she is in the front seat and my 5 year old Noah is in the back seat.
So Madison says, "I wonder what this thing is", looking at her wrist band.
I said, "It is to wipe your brow."
So she says, "What is a brow?"
So Noah from the back seat says, "It is what girls wear to hold up their boobies."

I am not making this stuff up. I have been laughing on and off all day thinking of this.

Its these kids I want to talk about today.
This blog started on my way to Chicago on Feb 19. I was flying out of Orlando.
You know that where ever you from Orlando there is going to be kids. Either they are coming to Disney World or leaving Disney World.
I always travel with movies. I always travel with something to do. I can't sleep for the life of me.
Anyway we were blessed to sit directly in front of the Tasmanian Devil. She was about 4 years old and she was making everyone in a five row vicinity miserable.
The plane was situated that there was three seats on one side of the row and two seat on the other. The family of four sat on both sides of the aisle. Mom and Dad, the Tasmanian Devil and her little sister. The father and TD sat behind me.
She screamed and kicked and screamed some more.
Most of the trip I am occupied by my movie and these headphones that are so awesome that you can't hear much but the movie.
But when you are being rocked by the kicking it is hard to ignore and when you can hear the father tell the 4 year old to "Shut up!!!"
Then he is yelling at her through his teeth, "please shut up!"
This poor couple were so inept. I mean it is bad parenting 101.

The parents bent to her every whim.
When she yelled (and I mean yelled), "I want MOMMY!"
Every got up and changed seating arrangements.
Now you may be thinking that I was upset with the kid. But really I was more upset with the parents. I felt sorry for them in a way.
It is the parents responsibility to teach this young person how to act. It is their responsibility to teach this kid that she will NOT get EVERYTHING she wants.
And when the answer is "No" then she has to be okay with this.
So because the parents, who were I am sure were tired from giving this kid everything she wanted at Disney World for 5 straight days, didn't have any more to give.
By the end of the flight the dad was so annoyed (and with his own ineptitude with his daughter it was hard to watch.

But a couple weeks ago I was driving my 9 year old home from baseball practice and we were listening to the news on the radio.
And it was one of those news days. There was a governmental take over in Lithuania, there was a murder, and a kidnapping and couple of other really bad things.
I said, "Luke this world is going to pot, I am telling you." Sounding more and more like my dad every day.
So later on that night I thought of a teaching moment. I brought the news up to him.
I started with, "Hey Luke the news today was pretty bad.
"There is so much crap going on in the world. What do you think our role is? Yeah, me John and you Luke Gammichia, what is our role?"
"How can we make a difference?"
Now I have debated this for the last couple of weeks. Is this conversation too much for a nine year old to handle? I don't know...but it is now too late.
I want to start the broadening of the mind thing. I want him to see a world that is more than just Luke.
Of course his answer was, "Idunno."
This maybe a little early but I started in on him, "What are you going to do with your life?"
But my angle was different than the movies when they say, "What are you going to do with your life, you degenerate?!"
No, this was more kingdom focused. Kind of like...What are you going to do to make this world better?
"What do you mean, Dad?"
"Well, I want you to start thinking about how you are going to impact this world."
I said, "I am a dentist. You wouldn't think that a guy that fills cavities can impact the world. But I think in my job I think I have a skill that people need.
I have the ability to help people. It might be one person a week. It might be on a mission trip. It might be after you kids are off at college opening up a free clinic. I don't quite know how I am going to impact the world quite yet. It is something I am still trying to figure out."

Is everyone called to change the world? I think yes, but not everyone is equipped the same way.
Some people make the money to fund the ones equipped to serve.
(So I am talking half the time to him and going over these things in my head the other time).
Then I say, "You can be a lawyer. You can be a doctor. You can be a vet. You can be an electrician. But remember whatever you are going to do, it has to be for the greater good.
It is not about Luke Gammichia. It is about Luke Gammichia and how he is going to impact the world.

Now you have to remember I am totally making this stuff up as I am going along with him.
I never had this conversation with my parents.
We never talked about anything but grades and moving on. There was no purpose talk.
Like questions about motive.
I did have a chance to sit around a circle with some buddies this weekend and drink some beer and smokes cigars and we had a great talk about purpose. Our own purpose and our kids purpose.
There were about 7 dads there and the ages of kids ranged from 2-20.
So it was great.
Let's talk about this talk about this on Friday.

What do you think?
Have you had this talk with your kids?
I would like to know,
john