From The Mailbag – Teaching Children to Give Back

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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