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Martin Luther King Day and Service Starts at Home

africn american family and the words Martin Luther King Day and Service Starts at Home
africn american family and the words Martin Luther King Day and Service Starts at Home

It is fantastic to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. by celebrating the service your children do for the family. In January of each year, attention turns to thoughts of Martin Luther King Jr and community service. Conversations take place in real life and in cyberspace about the importance of being of service to others. Mothers happily share stories of the wonderful service projects their children create or complete.

This year, we are continuing to teach our children the importance of service by explaining that service should be a way of life. We want our children to realize that service should be something they do every day and not something they do just for special occasions or because it is a certain time of year.  We have been stressing this idea and connecting it with lessons on the Golden Rule.

Each of our children serves in a different way. My eldest daughter, my Simmie is working on a Masters degree in social work on her way to a Ph.D. in public health. Service to others is part of her life.

My son, aka my Golden One once only talked about wanting to be paid for each nice thing he did in the family. Over time, as we have talked to him about community, family and shared visions, his thinking has changed. Now Golden One understands that he has responsibilities as a member of our family to work towards making our little community, our home a better place for us all.

Twin Z and Twin C volunteer with our church. They help stock the pantry. The work to make sandwiches for the homeless. Each year they work to make care packages for people living in a local shelter. They look forward to each of these service opportunities and see them as part of their duty as people living in America.

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Additionally, our children provide service in our home. My Simmie makes dinner twice each week and does the family laundry. My Golden One takes out the trash, gets things off high shelves, and protects the twins. Twin Z gives me a semi-frozen fruit juice each morning. She does this because I like frozen fruit juice and she wants to make me smile. Twin C takes the dust pan and broom from me when she sees me weeping so I don’t have to bend over to clean up. I am older and my back prefers not bending over for certain tasks. So, she helps me. These acts of service a big deal in our family. they help make life better for us all.

It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen after just one or two conversations. Instead, it took place gradually as a result of conversations, lessons taught while watching movies and praises for things well done. Our children are people of service and I am proud to call them my own.

Now all these things may not sound much to a person whose service project is building a school in Haiti or who works at a soup kitchen once a year. But in our family, in our world, the service that my our children provide is a treasure beyond measure. Because service is a lifestyle for them, not a project the will be a good people.  Those our things our family can celebrate all year-long.

[Tweet “Service, like charity, should start at home. Teach your children to serve their family members.”]

It is fantastic to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King by celebrating the service your children do for the family. So, the question for you this fantastic day is how do your family members serve one another?

If you would like to read more articles about family, please check out the following.

The Family That Learns Together Stays Together

When my husband and son discovered the Google Chrome game Little Alchemy, our family spent an entire weekend combining fire, water, earth and other elements to create things. [Read More . . . ]

Spring into Family Improvements with Compliment Day

Human beings are social creatures who need to be loved, cared for and appreciated for who they are. When a person is the recipient of kind words, true words, genuine compliments, that person cannot help but feel good. [Read More . . . ]

Out of Work – Get Optimistic and Improve Family Relationships

It is wonderful to have an attitude of optimism while out of work and use that optimism to improve family relationships. It is important for us to work on a regular basis in order to earn income. [Read More . . . ]

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15 thoughts on “Martin Luther King Day and Service Starts at Home”
  1. Yes it is really important to teach kids about Dr Martin Luther King. He did lot of sacrfice for the country. Great human being.

  2. This is a really important reminder. I agree with you that we service starts at home. It’s a very strong foundation.

  3. I have no kids yet but I want to do the same to my future kids just like you. I want them to be mature enough and learn how to help at home and to others. I want to impart to them about being responsible as early as being a kid.

  4. I agree to all your points. And glad that your kids are matured to understand the value of service.

  5. It seems like you’ve done a great job with your kids! It is important to have those conversations and set an example for our kids.

  6. Love this post! Great job mom for instilling service skills in your kids! My teens help with cooking, setting table, laundry, and dishes nightly.

  7. I agree that service is such an important part of life and society. It’s something I’m working on instilling in my young children and Martin Luther Kind day is a great reminder.

  8. I couldn’t agree more that service should be a way of life. It shouldn’t be a one-day thing, it should be an every day thing.

  9. I really love this post. I’ve always taught my kids that service begins at home. When they learn it in these walls, they’ll take it outside of them.

  10. I love MLK day and talking about how inspiring he was, how kind and helpful he was. Such a timeless great example for us all to follow.

  11. This is such an important time to focus on learning more about people like Martin Luther King. I will be doing some learning activities with the kids.

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