From The Mailbag - Teaching Children to Give Back
October 29, 2007
Our mailbag question comes to us from Mara B. She asks:
In a day and age where it seems that kids are given everything they want, and not always by their parents, how do you help them to learn to give instead of expect to get all the time? With the holidays coming up, I would like to do a service project, but the kids don’t seem to interested. I think they need to give back. Any ideas?
This is such a great question and a very timely one as well. Teaching our children the gift of giving is very important and you can start teaching your child about being charitable simply by letting them see you being charitable.
Try having them help you sort through their clothing, toy, old books, unwanted items…etc and donate them to charity. Take your children with you and explain to them what you are doing when you are dropping off your gifts to others that may not be as fortunate. Explain to them how there are people who may be less fortunate and cant afford these things and how good it is of Them to help by sharing items that they no longer need.
When cleaning up the home take a large box or bag and label it *FOR OTHERS* or *TO DONATE* and be sure that your children understand what it means and have them help you fill the box up. This may be one way to get the children involved in the Act of giving and in the process it helps to clean up the home from clutter.
I am unaware of the age of your children but I have taken all 3 of my children to a homeless shelters here in D.C. to drop off blankets, food, clothing and also served them on Thanksgiving morning. I alway explained to the children that it is a blessing to be able to bless others and it just really caught on.
Also let your children catch you in the act of giving by helping others. Perhaps there is a street clean project in your area up or an elderly family you can help rake leaves for. One thing I do here is to bake Pies and deliver them to neighbors, the schools and homeless shelters. Usually the children are the deliver persons and they grin with pride. Now when my 7yo grows out of his clothes he piles them up because he knows that they will bless another little boy :)
Hopefully some of my tips have helped you. Do you think you can try one or more of the suggestions above? What about others here, are there things that you do to promote giving?
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Great question and of course awesome answer! I struggle with teaching my son about giving and stuff too! He is totally spoiled and the boy has everything he wants and then some! It’s hard trying to get him to go through his toys and give stuff away because he always seems to come up with some excuse as to why he needs it. He can be really selfish. But then I remember back to when hurricane Katrina hit and he went around and rounded up all the extra blankets we had so we could give those to people that were taking donations for the victims.
It’s hard trying to explain to him that some kids don’t even have food to eat or toys or clothes - he is so used to his way of living that he doesn’t seem to understand there are those around him that are very unfortunate.
Thank you so much, Aurelia, for the suggestions! My boys, 10 and 6, are kind of like Tishia’s. When I ask them to go through their toys so we can clear out some before bringing more in, they give me every excuse in the world in order to keep them. It does not make Mama happy. :(
There have been a few times when they’ve received money that they have wanted to give all of it as a tithe at church, so I’m proud of them then. Those times are few and far between though.
I will try a couple of the suggestions. Thank you, again, for making them. I don’t think we have a shelter nearby (without driving over an hour to get there), but I will look for something we can do this holiday season.
Happy to hear the suggestions have giving you a few extra idea’s. I would suggest trying to get them into it slowly :) perhaps when you get a new toy a VERY old one can go into a donate box.
Good Luck
Hi, Aurelia,
I like the suggestions that make kids actually face a different lifestyle.
I think kids today just don’t “get” that they are blessed. Your idea of taking them to the shelters is great, if they can actually see with their own eyes people that have nothing. It’s even more powerful if they see kids their own age who have nothing - especially in their own city!
We are going to be taking our kids on a missions trip this year, hopefully, so they can serve in a third-world country and actually experience the poverty themselves in a small way.
If you sponsor a child through Compassion, you are also able to go visit them and see exactly where those kids have come from, and what you’ve done to help them.
Our kids have also been encouraged to volunteer their time for others. Right now on a Saturday night at our church, my husband does the sound, my daughter does the lights, and my son does the camera. I’m often on stage doing the music somewhere. It requires a time commitment and responsibility, but it also gives them a sense of pride about the joy of giving of their time and talents.
Anything you can do to make it “concrete” is really important. Just giving away stuff that they don’t want anymore doesn’t always do the trick - at least not in our case!
Just my .02
Darlene
the Mom-Defrazzler
That’s a great post Aurelia, I think it’s so important to teach kids these things early on. I’ve held back from taking my children (4 and 5) to the shelters or anything like that because I think they’re still a tad young but we do talk about charities and they take their clothes and toys that don’t fit to donation places.
We’re also going to do one of the Oxfam gifts this year like providing water for a village in Africa or buying a few goats and that sort of thing… they really enjoyed that last year.