How Can We Help Our Kids Identify Service/Giving Opportunities?
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Teaching our children to give back and teaching them to IDENTIFY service/giving opportunities are different things. What kinds of opportunities do you take advantage of with your children?
On a local level?
Beyond your local community?
On a weekly basis?
For the holidays?
How do you instill in your children the trait to always be on the outlook for ways in which to give back?
On a local level?
Beyond your local community?
On a weekly basis?
For the holidays?
How do you instill in your children the trait to always be on the outlook for ways in which to give back?
Tags: conscience, giving, kids, opportunities, raising, service, with
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ECHOage on -
There are so many opportunities. Taking books from our library and delivering them to a library in an underserviced area is a great one. I take my kids to volunteer at a retirement home for bingo night. My son calls out the numbers for bingo. Or, he helps the elderly residents identify the number being called out on their bingo card.
Once we started this practice my kids actually look for ways to extend themselves to others, care for others and be compassionate. It is a learned behavior. Fascinating. I am so happy i discovered the power of this while my kids are young.
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Permalink Reply by Candace McLane on -
On a local level, consider volunteering and getting your kids involved in scouting. Values of service and citizenship are primary components of the scouting program. When you volunteer with scouts, you are modeling how to access a volunteer role, how to follow through on a volunteer commitment, and your children have an opportunity to see you in action, as they themselves learn about citizenship and how to identify and do service. Scouting troops provides year around opportunities to do service, everything from serving food in a soup kitchen to repairing foot bridges in a local park. As a large family, managing ADHD and its side effect of poor follow though, having built-in opportunities to serve, that we don't have to personally organize allow us to teach our kids to volunteer for their community.
In an effort to help kids identify service opportunities and be more mindful of the people around them, we set a weekly family goal of individually doing 3 acts of anonymous service. At our weekly meeting we recount or confess to each other what we have done. The kids are thrilled to discover who cleaned up their legos for them (and it wasn't their mom) or who made their bed. The surprise factor has served to motivate participation, even from the teenager!
And finally every Christmas season, the kids identify a charity they want to support in the coming year. The kids were initially excited to do research on the charities, and make their presentations on their ideas at dinner, but do not think this enthusiasm continued when they wanted to purchase something else with their earned money. Kids with ADHD enjoy novel ideas but struggle with follow-through and want immediate gratification, especially when it comes to money. We had to make it clear there was no limited or opt-out participation option. Once they started to give regularly, and began experiencing a sense of pride and good done through sacrifice, they overcame their resistance to donating their money and wanted to give in larger ways. The kids have done everything from donating to Habitat for Humanity to buying water wells for families in Africa thru World Vision.
http://donation.worldvision.org/site/c.drKMI3PFIoE/b.2282587/k.BF4D...
adhdpowermom
www.powermomsunite.com
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Permalink Reply by ECHOage on
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As a new member of the ECHOage team, I thought I might share my thoughts about teaching kids about giving back. I think kids will almost always follow the lead of their parents.
I have given alot of thought to this as I spend my Mondays working at a soup kitchen here in Toronto. The hours I spend at The STOP (the name of the food security operation) are my way of giving back and they are also a means by which my kids can hear about the difficulties facing others who are less fortunate than themselves. Every once in a while, however, school will be closed, but The STOP will be open (as we know - poverty doesn't take a holiday) and I have often thought of brining my kids in to help out. Then, I realized that at this point in time, my kids (7 & 10) aren't ready to actually work at the front line of a food security establishment. They aren't yet capable of hiding their curiosity, they stare and they ask questions. Its not their fault, they'll learn, but at this point they will just have to hear the stories. Instead of working at the soup kitchen, we decided to take the kids to the food sorting station. This is a great place for families to volunteer together, sorting foods to be redistributed by various food banks. Remember the food needs to be sorted all year long, not just during the holidays.
Some food for thought (or not!)
Roz
ECHOage Ambassador
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