Willy Wonka has RAD

If you haven’t seen WIlly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I would recommend it because of a two or three minute clip towards the end that can give real insight into the RAD child.

Willy offers Charlie the opportunity to come with him and run the factory. Charlie says, “Only if I can bring my family” to which Willy replies, “Well, then I guess I’ll have to go now.” He offers again and Charlie declines again. He looks at him with the most shocked look on his face and says, “Now that is just WEIRD!”

Unfortunately, WE have at least two kids that would have the same look on their faces. These are are boys who do not feel guilty at all receiving birthday and Christmas gifts when they don’t give them. They are kids whose attachment to us is only based on what we can provide for them and if we chose not to keep giving, they might walk away.

If they were offered Charlie’s Chocolate Factory they would hop in the glass elevator and disappear from our lives forever in a heartbeat. No second thought. And if they saw people choose their family over the factory, they would have the same look as Johnny Depp and say, “Now that is just WEIRD.” RAD makes a kid see life so differently than we do that it is hard to even figure it out. As Cindy says, “my daughter with RAD thinks no more highly of me than she does a cockroach.”

I won’t tell you the “rest of the story” in case you haven’t seen it, but it really hit me tonight that some of my kids really don’t get it. They do not understand that people are more important than things. And they may never get it.

B. J. Thomas back in the early eighties, made a Christian record album.... and on it there was a little ditty that I still have memorized:

“Using things and loving people
That's the way it's got to be
Using things and loving people
Look around and you can see
That loving things and using people
Only leads to misery
Using things and loving people
That's the way it's got to be.“
Using things and loving people -- that’s RAD.....
Willy Wonka has it. So do some of my kids. And if you haven’t lived with it, it’s hard to believe it exists.