Teaching Children Stewardship

Part 3 of my series on stewardship:

What stewardships do our children have? They are responsible for intangible things such as:
Time, Talents, Testimony, Relationships, Service, Education, Life Mission...
and physical things like:
Money, Possessions, Bodies, etc.

Brigham Young said, “Temporal and spiritual things are inseparably connected, and ever will be.” Hence it follows that we must learn to take care of our temporal things here on earth in order to fulfill our stewardships and for our spiritual well-being.

How do we teach stewardship to children?
First we must acknowledge that God has given us everything. We do not own anything. We must know that the Lord is the author of this principle and have the faith to follow it. We need to study the scriptures and to learn about effective stewardships in the Lord’s way.

One thing that the Lord encourages us to do is to have a plan. In Luke 14:28, it says, “ For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?”
We should prayerfully write down specific things that we must teach our children before they leave our home.

Joseph Smith said, “I teach correct principles and they govern themselves” What does that really mean? Teach them faith, repentance and listening to the Holy Ghost. Teach them love, service, and work. It doesn’t mean that you teach them something just once or tell it to them a couple of times and then let them run with it. On the flip side, it also doesn’t mean that you are a “helicopter” parent, hovering over them - making sure they choose the right. The principle of stewardship teaches us that we must allow our children agency. We hold them accountable, and we allow them to fail as the case may be. We should be very careful with bailing kids out.

How do we teach correct principles? The best way is through our own example. D&C 88:119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” If we want our children to keep their stewardships, we must follow through on ours. We must live the principles of the gospel. The good news is that the Lord understands that we cannot perfectly fufill our stewardships here on earth, he only expects us to try our best. We need to keep that in mind with our children as well!

Heavenly father’s plan, of course, was perfect. The family is central to the creator’s plan, and for many good reasons. The home is a perfect training ground for teaching obedience. We are here on earth to learn to obey our Father’s will. In the home, children learn to obey their parents as a precursor obeying heavenly Father’s will. We should expect our children to obey, but allow our children to disagree appropriately. Obviously there is a difference between obeying prophets/gospel and obeying mom and dad. Children may disagree with their parents, and their parents may decide to change their request; whereas if we may choose to disagree with the prophet’s counsel but the prophet will not change God’s word. Children have agency to choose whether to obey, they also have agency to choose the attitude with which they obey.

As we are teaching children, we must set our best example of gospel living. We make our children aware of their stewardships; we can even assign stewardships as we feel prompted to do so. A steward's job is to help those under their stewardship to fulfill their stewardships in any way that they can. Russell M. Nelson said, “Every parent could say “I want you to know that I love you and want to help you in any way that I can.”" We must hold our children accountable, they should learn to “return and report.” The priesthood manual emphasizes that when we are holding our children accountable, we should evaluate their performance, offer help and encouragement, express appreciation and sincere praise for efforts made, and express love. We should never criticize or shame them. We may help them with accomplishments as it says in D&C 121:41-42 “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile."

A parent-steward is a teacher, a good example, a facilitator, a guide, a mentor.