We love to give to others....Right?

The other day I told the girls we were going to go through their toys and get rid of the ones they don't play with. Hallie looked at me and then tears just started flowing. "Why would you get rid of our toys mom? We love all of them." So I tried to explain to them that we would not be getting rid of the ones they play with, just the ones that never are touched anymore. Also, that we wouldn't get rid of them but we would give them to kids who don't have toys. Hallie was not giving up and started crying even harder. She didn't care that other kids needed toys. These were her toys and she wouldn't give them away.
So being the mean mom that I am, I made them go down to the playroom and put all the toys in the middle that they never played with anymore. A few minutes later they came up and said they were done. These are Hallies words "Mom, it was so hard for me to give up the toys, but my heart kept telling me that other kids needed them."

Want to see all the toys they gave away? The ones in the middle are what they decided on!
Do you think we need to work on teaching our kids to give to others? After a lot more "teaching" them to give, I told them we had to give more than what they had, so I went down with them and went through all the toys together. My girls love stuffed animals and play with them a lot. Hallie at one point brought her stuffed zebra over to me and said "Here Mom, I really want to give this to a little kid who will love it like I do." then she started giggling and smiling a lot and said "Wow, I can't stop laughing, my heart is so happy that I am giving this zebra away!"

Lesson Learned!