Teaching Contentment with the Complaining Game

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Hebrews 13:5

I have become passionate about helping parents develop character in their children. This week, I am teaching contentment with the complaining game. If you want, you could call it the contentment game too. The whole point of the game is to try and weed out the complaining and teach kids to be content in their circumstances. If you haven’t been following along with my character development series, I’d love you to look under the character development tab to see a bunch of the words we’ve tackled. You’ll find 7-8 activities under each character trait, and I’m encouraging you to work on one trait a week with your own kids. Today we tackle contentment. Life’s circumstances are rarely consistent. Despite the ups and down in life, it is great to try and learn to be content despite the waves that crash around us. It has to be grounded on knowing there is a bigger, powerful God who has things under control and loves us deeply. It takes faith because we can’t always see or understand how God works. However, trusting in the faithfulness I have studied and seen in my own life, is a way for me to try and remain content. Therefore, I need to choose to “rejoice in my sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character and character hope.” Romans 5:3 Notice I say, “I need to…” This is easier said than done, and I think I need to play this game right along with my children. We can all find a lot of reasons to complain, but it is better to learn to be content despite the challenges in life.

The first step was to make bracelets that say, “Be content.” Now, that’s the fancy route. You can use bracelets you have on hand. You can use beads you have on hand. You can use necklaces. You can use rubber bands. They don’t need to necessarily say “Be Content,” or you could just write it on with a Sharpie. Basically, you just want something that your kids can wear as a reminder and then take off easily. I had all this stuff on hand, so it made it  free and easy. The string you see is stretchy string found in the jewelry section so it can be tight on their wrists and easily removed.

The kids helped me pick out the letters we would need.

The girls then got to work at putting their bracelets together.

Once they are done, they can put on their bracelets and play the game. The game can continue all day. It can continue all week. It can continue until habits are broken and complaining stops. The goal is to keep your bracelet on. However, if you complain, off comes the bracelet. Today was day one and and the bracelets were confiscated within an hour. The goal is for everyone in the family to have a day without complaining. I’ll need to get something for my husband and myself as well. If we reach our goal, we’ll do a family fun night doing something special.