When I thought about my kids before they were even born, I
had ideas, like most moms-to-be that my kids would be good kids, loving and
caring. I knew I wanted them to be warm and be able to feel deeply into the
lives of those less fortunate. I wanted my kids to
want to be do-ers and givers. My husband and I wanted our kids to
be
compassionate and charitable.
Like all moms, I had idealized notions of both motherhood
and my future children. The dreams were easy; it was the manifestation into
reality that proved the tougher challenge. How do you teach children to be
giving?
Here is my list of what helps instill charitable habits in our
children.
1. Nurture their natural charitable instinct
Kids start early seeing the suffering of those smaller, weaker,
and in need of our help. I remember my not yet one-year-old crushed a pill
bug/roly poly with his little fingers in front of his older brother who was
maybe just over three-years-old. My older son howled in pain for the roly
poly, now reduced to mush. He was nearly traumatized by the ruthless and
insensitive behavior of his little brother. His pain and anger led him to
become the family roly poly crossing guard and to this day (well into his
teens) he points out roly polys that have put themselves in harm's way on the path that leads us from the front door to the car, making sure no one
accidentally steps on one while rushing to the car en route to carpool pick up.
This may not seem like it relates to developing charitable
behaviors, but I believe that was a seed to the very plant of charity I wished
to nurture in my boys. It would have been easy to laugh off his initial concern
for the small little hard-shelled bug as nothing more than a little kid's fancy.
I chose to see it as an expression of his compassion and compassion was (and
is) an emotion I wish to see cultivated. After that afternoon in our veggie
garden, I chose to take seriously every roly poly crossing guard action my son made. When he stood on the path pointing out potential victims of my too-large shoes, I stepped carefully and slowly, even when we were late.
2. Let kids give, even
when you disagree with their choices
There are many of us who don’t want to give to panhandlers
out of principle, choosing instead to donate to local shelters, halfway houses,
and other charities designed to help in organized and thoughtful ways. Kids,
however, see people on the streets and feel either repulsed or drawn in by their suffering. Young kids often have questions and
want to know why that person looks (and maybe smells) like THAT. They craved understanding. When our kids asked these questions they almost always followed it
up with a desire to do something to
help. Even as little kids they wanted to drop some money into the cup or hat,
hoping to make a difference. We not only let them, we encouraged them to do so.
At the main intersection of our hometown, there are almost
always people holding signs requesting help. You know the ones: They walk up and
down the line of stopped cars at long lights, making you want to
look away. Since our kids were really little they have seen people struggling
and asking for help in this way. I started carrying granola bars, protein bars,
bags of nuts, and other quick power-punching snacks, not just for my hungry
cranky kids who in a pinch might need something to tide them over, but so I would always have something to give out at the
stoplight when my kids had the desire to do something. I would ask them, “I
have some nuts and protein bars here. Do you think we should give them some of
those?” Again, my main purpose was to
create the feeling of doing something and nurturing the charitable impulse.
3. Help your kids
build a charitable account
From the time our kids were old enough to receive allowance,
they received it in three different chunks. My husband is a financial planner and works with people and their relationship to money as a core aspect of
his career, he even wrote a
book about it. Working with people around their
money has taught him a lot about the importance of developing a healthy, responsible relationship to money.
Here is what we did:
The amount of allowance was determined by our child’s age. At 3 our son got $3 a week, at 5 he got
$5 and so on, now at 14 and 12 they
get $14 and $12 respectively. This allowance was divided equally into three
different jars; spending, savings, and giving. Our boys were encouraged to
spend the money in the Spending Jar on whatever they wanted, savings was not
allowed to be touched and earned interest (that’s for a different blog), and
giving was to be given away as they wanted.
Our boys’ Giving Jar would be pulled out when they had a "jump rope for heart health" event at school, or given to World Wildlife
Federation when my older son wanted to save the polar bears, his favorite
animal. From an early age we, as a
family, were very involved in one particular charity due to our older son’s
health condition. Each year when the Walk would come around, our younger son
would get his Giving Jar and want to donate all of it to the Walk, hoping it
would help his brother. Our boys have had complete control over how the money
in their Giving Jar is allocated and it has been deeply touching to see just
how they choose to do so. It has had the added bonus of teaching me more about my boys and what is important
to them.
4. Volunteer
There are not as many organized volunteer opportunities for
kids as I wish there were. It took a while for my husband to find a homeless
shelter that allowed kids to be involved in helping cook a meal, which we did,
but there are lots of other ways, even small ways, to volunteer. Eliminating hunger is an important value for my husband so cooking a meal for the homeless was what led him to find an organized way to put action behind his
compassion. We’ve also done a number of walks and while this may not be
volunteering exactly, I can say that as a family who has been walking and
raising money toward a cure to my son’s disease, when friends show up to our
walk, it makes a difference not just to the disease, but to my son who sees all
his friends supporting him and his efforts.
Lastly, we make volunteering a part
of our annual holiday tradition, spending the morning of Christmas Eve every
year giving away hygiene kits, blankets, toys, and warm coats to those living
on the streets in downtown Los Angeles. We have been a part of this event since
the kids were too young to even go down there as babes in arms. But since the age of
five they have been every year and having it a set tradition since before they can remember makes it an unquestioned and highly-anticipated part
of our holidays.
5. Be a role model
This one is pretty obvious, but not to be overlooked
either. Our kids do what we do, not what we tell them to do. For my husband and me, being charitable both with our money
and our time is important. We believe in giving away a significant amount of
our income and doing what we can to give to causes we believe in. This isn’t
something we’ve done as a show for our kids; it is built into our values. That
said, we do let our kids know when we are doing something for others, be it
volunteering, going to a fundraiser, or sending a check. As much as possible we
live this part of our lives visibly for our kids to see, even for things like
supporting the fundraising events for the public elementary school they attended.
6. Include them in
your family’s charitable giving
Now that our kids are a bit older, we include them in
discussions and decisions about how we allocate the money we give away as a
family. My husband uses some very clever ways to help families figure out where
they wish to give when there are many different people helping to make those
decisions. Just this past weekend we sat down as a family over breakfast to
make decisions about our end-of-year-giving.
My husband brought home 400 coins,
giving each of us a stack of 100. We brainstormed all the different areas where
we would like to make a difference in the world and at home. Each of us had a
paper in front of us with several different general categories. We divided up
our 100 coins on our individual paper, feeling into how we wanted our ¼ of the family
charitable money allocated according to our particular beliefs.
Once we had our
personal stacks, we then subdivided the categories into actual charities and
put the subdivided categories in the center of the table where each of us got
to take the coins from the area of our personal paper, say “Human Rights” and divide those coins into specific charities/areas where we would like
our money to go.
In the end the number
of coins in each box represented the percentage of the total 400 coins and the
percentage that represented of our total charitable amount to give away. For
example, if one charity had 50 coins in the square at the end, they would get
1/8
th of our total amount to be given away. Each of us had the same
power to decide where and to whom we give. Each of us also left out ten coins,
keeping 10% of our money for more impulse giving throughout the year.
Does this all work and make a difference? Are our adolescent
boys perfect? No, but neither are we as parents or as people. We’re fallible,
all of us, but we’re doing the best we can and I do believe our kids are
growing into adults who value being charitable...we're not completely there! But we are on our way.
My hope is that as all of us help nurture the charitable spirit in our children the world will be a more loving and compassionate place for everyone. Let me know what works for you and your family. I'm still learning and like all moms, welcome new, good ideas on this path toward raising children into healthy adults.
Part of our New Year's Eve involved packing up the holiday decorations. As we only had a very small artificial tree this year due to location, I had to be highly selective about which decorations I brought. I didn't go for fancy or beautiful or the most expensive, I chose the photo ornaments the kids painted each year when they were little and the ones they selected each year that hold memories (like the monkey ornament that's missing a foot because my youngest, who selected it while shopping at Cost Plus Market, thought the foot of said monkey tasted great!). 
I also brought the Star of David tree topper that I made out of cardboard, tinfoil, a chopstick and some ribbon the first year in our new home to honor my traditions and as well as my husband's. It was meant to be a temporary fix until we could find or make a better one, but now, 18 years later, we tenderly keep this homemade tree topper alive for another year...and hopefully another after that. When I asked my boys if we should bring the tree topper this year due to its fragile state, they exclaimed, "Of course!" As if the idea of NOT having it was blasphemy! This is how ordinary stuff becomes treasure. And the treasures are the only things that made the journey with us this year. 
