With the holidays around the corner, why not enlist the grandparents’s help to pass along truth, like respect for sacrifice? For the older generations, teaching youngsters respect for sacrifice plays a crucial in preserving freedom. Anna offers some practical ideas about how to teach future generations of patriots a respect for sacrifice.
Last week, we started out talking about Veterans Day, but Anna often surprises me with too many ideas for one blog! With all she shared, this week I wanted to focus on ways grandparents—or anyone—can help instill a respect of sacrifice in kids’ hearts. How? By using family and travel time with intentional wisdom!
Respect for Sacrifice: Respect Ripples Out
Today in America, we enjoy a beautiful variety of people, religions, and perspectives coming together. From the beginning, Christian values allowed American values to blossom. (For more on religious liberty, check out the 2 Part series we did with First Liberty’s Lathan Watts: Liberty Loving Kids, Plus Lathan Watt’s Top Books for Fostering Religious Liberty, Part 1, Securing Religious Liberty: Recent Victories with Lathan Watts, Part 2)
Cultivating a respect for sacrifice, respecting free will and mutually respectful conversations ensures our freedom. If we teach our kids to respect each other at home, respect ripples out from families to impact whole communities.
With so much strife in the public arena, Americans may not always get it right even now. (Read more about our upcoming book release to help families have better conversations, here.) But we can cultivate true freedom by creating a healthy culture in our own families. Then, together we can pray respect for sacrifice spreads.
“If each of us embrace the idea that our goal is to serve our neighbor well, to love them where they are, then it will be true of us today. It will be true in our household, in our city, in our state, and in our country,” Anna explains.
Passing Respect for Sacrifice to the Next Generation
Here are Anna’s ideas for incorporating respect for sacrifice into your family life as you go along. As you can see, these ideas mesh well with grandparents visits during the holidays. (For more thoughts on respecting free will, click here!)
Airports and Airshows
We know one grandfather who took his young grandson across the country to attend an airshow. Any day of the year, traveling with grandchildren is a great way to instill a love of country.
“Don’t be afraid to travel to a small town,” Anna reminds us. “It’s amazing what happens in a small town.” You might even find an old timey drug store to pack a picnic for your family, whether you visit local attractions or travel across our country.
Stop at Historical Markers
Stopping at historical markers honors the history of the people. It teaches children to appreciate local places where everyday people made sacrifices for freedom.
“It’s a place you can go and visualize being one of those people who sacrificed for freedom,” Anna says. Imagination is such a crucial way kids learn values.
She says it’s especially important to honor places where people died for freedom. Local historic sites might memorialize the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or even history as local as the Alamo. (Yep, Texans never miss a chance to remember the Alamo!).
Pause at Local Cemeteries
Paying your respects at cemeteries can be enlightening for young people. For instance, Arlington Cemetery gives a big view of sacrifice in the sheer acres of headstones marking the graves of fallen heroes.
“I remember when you (Cathy) took us to the cemetery in Austin to find our relatives’ graves. I didn’t understand all the nuances at the time, but it gave me a sense of permanence and history for my own context,” Anna says.
Consider making a solemn visit to a local cemetery. It may seem odd, but I’ve even packed a picnic to eat a quiet meal with my kids in cemeteries. Clearly, it’s challenging to get energetic little kids to pause long enough to consider and respect sacrifice made by those who went before us. One solution involves bowing your heads together before food. Of course, always respect the rules and traditions in each cemetery which might prohibit picnics or snacks.
Visit Great Museums
Speaking of small town treasures, the American Freedom Museum, in Bullard Texas, is an amazing place. If you are in east Texas, help inform your kids and grandkids about sacrifices for freedom, not to mention danger, by sitting in a real helicopter. One of my favorite exhibits is the collection of recordings of each modern President’s voice. What a unifying treat for oldsters and youngsters alike to hear recordings of past Presidents speaking some of their most famous quotes!
“They really honored the artifacts they’ve collected in a lovely way. It is a perfect size to see everything and expose your kids to history without getting overwhelmed,” Anna adds.
Community Events
Community events, for instance like the recent Red, White, and Blue Festival in Bullard, Texas, make it easy for families to join together in honoring sacrifice. Cudos to Bullard civic leader for fostering community respect for sacrifice and history. Not only does their community festival honor the U.S. Armed Services, but they managed to attract a gem of a museum! Plus, they host a civic museum celebrating local history.
Search Out Veterans’ Stories
Anna loves the way veterans’ stories are available on the internet these days. She remembers how participating in the American History Project transformed her understanding of the sacrifices made by modern Americans in uniform. (To get started finding videos for your family, click here.)
“They were collecting veteran stories at Tyler Junior College for the Library of Congress. I got to interview some of the WWII vets from east Texas,” Anna reports, still awestruck at the tales about their experiences in Japan or Europe in boats or in the trenches. “I got to interview some of the Vietnam veterans too. All those guys had crazy snakes stories about being in the jungle.” (For a teacher’s toolkit about the Vietnam War, click here.)
Family Heroes Videos
While your family is gathered, be sure and record any heroes in your family answering your children’s questions. How have you overcome hardships? What were some of the trials young people faced in your day? Who was your favorite past president and why?
Not only will you help instill your family values for another generation, you pass along a love of history, too! Plus, you create a video about family values and respect for sacrifice to treasure for generations! What a perfect Christmas gift for someone in your family!
Happy Thanksgiving to Your Family
Holiday travel and family time create perfect moments for grandparents to pass along a respect for sacrifice. Especially as we count our blessings at Thanksgiving, we can rejoice to live in a country rich in freedom, protected by sacrifice. May your family enjoy all the blessings of the season with grateful hearts!
In honor of family fun at the holidays, I’ll be sharing pie recipes. Yum! Watch for author Sandra Merville Hart’s famous Pumpkin Pie recipe here. It’s her mom’s recipe and I am so grateful she shared it with YOU! (Since we needed pictures for the blog, I had the perfect excuse to make it already and David gobbled it up!)
Book Giving and Author Interviews Ahead!
Stay tuned as I highlight some of my favorite books this year just in time gift giving season. If like me, you’d rather snuggle up at home with a good book than fight the holiday traffic, you’ll love our next few blogs. Coming soon, there’s a book for everyone on your list; men, women and kids, history buffs, devo divas, dinosaur aficionados, you name it! Order a book and download our matching podcast interview with our many author friends to make a really thoughtful, personalized gift! (Nobody pays me to do this, I just know you love to read as much as I do!)
May we pray together?
Dear Father in heaven, You are the One who provides and establishes true justice for all. You sent your Son to be the ultimate sacrifice for us. Through Him, we have a relationship with you. Imagine! Who, but you, could envision such a triumph of pure sacrificial power! We praise you! Now, we ask, O Lord, help us cherish the sacrifices we know others have made on our behalf. Let us teach our children and grandchildren to respect sacrificial love. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
We LOVE to hear from YOU!
When has someone else made a sacrifice for you? What did your own grandparents teach you about sacrifice? How are you passing along your family’s values to future generations?
Cathy Krafve, Columnist, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and Christian Writer, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.
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