The Importance of Teaching Your Children to Help Others

While I am not a believer in the idea that it "takes a village," I do believe that each and every one of us can, and should, help others. In a society that is so disconnected from one another, now is the time, more than ever, to teach your children the importance of helping others.

There are a number of ways to teach children how to help other people. They can help the people in their neighborhood or they can help a community across the nation or in Africa. Depending on your child's age, the possibilities are endless, but they need to understand the importance of their work and actions first. Here are a couple of ways that parents can teach their children how to be charitable.

Assist the elderly. No matter what age your child is, it is never too early or too late to teach them to help and to respect the elderly in your community. There are a number of ways to help the elderly. First, visit your parents, or their grandparents, and ask if there is anything that your child(ren) can do to help them. If your grandparents do not live nearby, then suggest to your children that they offer to help the older neighbors on your street.

Fall is a great time to help clean up leaves out of a person's yard. Gather your child and their friends and it will turn into a fun and rewarding experience. Another option is to visit a nursing home, especially during the holidays. Just taking the time to talk to people who may not get many visitors will brighten the spirits of everyone involved.

Give away old clothes and toys. This might seem easy enough for a parent to do, but the idea is to teach your child that there are other children who would enjoy playing with toys that they no longer want to use. These items could be for children in your neighborhood or you could donate them to a local charity. Either way, let them go through and pick out items first. Then, sift through the items and make sure that they are items that should really be donated and not ones the child just wants to get rid of for whatever reason.

Save money for charities or school fundraisers. There use to be a time when fundraisers were only a couple of times a year. But more recently, it is "fundraiser time" all school year long. If your child gets an allowance, teach them the importance of using some of their money for other people. Then, when the school is collecting loose change to buy books for their classroom, your child can use their own money to participate in the fundraiser. Or, you can teach them to give to a church or other organization. No matter how small the amount, it truly is the thought that counts.

Get involved with church or youth groups/organizations. When you teach children to get together and do something for the good of others, it really is an amazing site to see. One way to get a group of children together is to join a church group. If you do not belong to a church, no problem; there are still a number of organizations that your child can join that will help you teach them about charity and helping others, such as Girls Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H programs, and a number of others.

As a parent, teaching your child to help others does not mean that you should take the family to the soup kitchen every weekend. But, if you do see someone that needs help, remember that you are your child's role model. How they behave is a clear reflection of how they see you act toward others. If everyone were to take a little bit of time to help others, a lot more people would be getting the help and attention they needed, and we would not need to worry about the future of our society quite as much.