\n<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s no secret that I believe one of the important characteristics shared by truly successful people is a commitment to giving. \u00a0Most of the people I’ve interviewed on the topic get as excited about sharing the results of their efforts as they do by the actual accomplishments that put them in a position to share.<\/p>\n

One of the ways to teach our kids about giving is to model it. \u00a0Another, to notice and talk about the ways that others who give. \u00a0This can lead to great conversations about the ‘hows’ and the ‘whats’ of giving. \u00a0For example, if you liked the\u00a0recent baseball pos<\/a>t,\u00a0\u00a0you might have a conversation about Galarraga giving<\/em> Joyce the benefit of the doubt. \u00a0Or Joyce giving his honesty. \u00a0We can give our time, our money, our awareness, our support, our best effort, our full attention…. \u00a0the list long. \u00a0And a long list helps bring giving ‘into the now’ rather than making it a ‘someday, far-away’ goal.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago I was intrigued by a headline reading “Unemployed Man Gives Away $10 Every Day.” \u00a0Reading on I discovered that Reed Sandridge had lost his job at a DC non-profit and decided to explore the concept of ‘giving’ in this manner. \u00a0Known by close friends as a ‘sometimes skeptic’ I delayed sharing the story, waiting to see if he would follow through.<\/p>\n

Reed is almost halfway through his ‘Year of Giving’ <\/a>and has been blogging about it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It looks like he is about halfway through his experiment and has been faithful to his commitment. \u00a0It also seems that he has, from time-to-time, had a little trouble keeping his blog updated. \u00a0I think there are lots of people who can relate to that!<\/p>\n

As I read through some of the comments, the ‘sometimes skeptic’ softened a bit as a number of people questioned his motives. \u00a0The comments led me to a question of my own: \u00a0Do motives matter? \u00a0When teaching our kids to be givers, does it matter why<\/em> they give?<\/p>\n

How about giving<\/em> us your thoughts on the subject?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, when the economy adds to the pressure on day-to-day family life, we forget to focus on our values. Sometimes we forget that we have more to give than money. But, when teaching our kids about giving, does motive matter?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[128,153,194,533],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-four-foundations","tag-economy","tag-family-life","tag-giving","tag-teaching-our-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}