When you turn on the TV news or pull up the latest news on your phone, it’s likely a negative report or story of others’ hardships. Maybe a family lost everything in a tornado, or someone fell victim to a crime. Our basic human instinct tells us to empathize and stress for a moment about those who are having a rough time.
Kids are born with the ability to empathize to an extent, but selflessness and caring for others is a learned, modeled behavior. The best and most important thing parents can do to raise a selfless kids is to give them opportunities to help others. Expose them to activities that promote selflessness.
For us adults, putting others before ourselves can sometimes be a hard thing, so teaching our kids may be hard, too. Yet teaching children that the world does not just revolve around them is an important lesson. Here are a few ways to encourage selflessness in your kiddos.
Read about it
Don’t be afraid to check out a few books on the subject, like How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World, Raising Uncommon Kids or Here Come the Helpers.
Be kind to strangers
Even if you’re just out at the grocery store with your kids, let them see you treat strangers with love and respect. Let someone in front of you in the checkout line. Tell people “excuse me” when you walk past them. Your kids will pick up on these subtle gestures.
Find volunteer opportunities
You don’t necessarily have to take your kids to an open-door food kitchen but try to find little ways to help out in your community. Take them with you to drop off a bag of gently used items at a second-hand store. Pick up pieces of trash at the park (with gloves, of course, and making sure you safely wash and sanitize hands afterwards). Adopt a puppy at the animal shelter together (if a new pet happens to be on your radar).
Do chores together
Have your kids help you load the dishwasher a few times a week. Vacuum the living room floor together. Ask your son or daughter to walk with you to grab the mail. Let kids know their assistance to you is a big help and that you appreciate it. This might motivate them to take initiative later in helping if they know it makes you happy. They’ll want to help others, too.
Model selflessness
If you’ve got a full cart of groceries but see an elderly couple standing behind you in the checkout line, let them ahead of you. Tell your kids later that even though it’s hard to wait our turn sometimes, patience is a virtue, and it makes others happy if we can put them first once in a while.
Help them care for others
Teach big brother that little sister is so happy when he invites her to play race cars or dinosaurs with him. Even if he wants to play alone sometimes, she likes to feel included, and including her means he cares for her.
Recognize their selfless acts
Most importantly, if you see your children exhibiting a positive, helpful behavior you’ve modeled, let them know. Tell them you’re so proud and thank them for taking out the trash or helping a sibling with homework or feeding the dog. Acknowledge that you see their actions and appreciate them.
Emily Morrison is a freelance writer, former copy editor, full-time mommy and Disney fanatic who lives in Independence wither husband, 5-year old son and dog.
If you want to delve even deeper into this topic with your kids, Scholastic offers a great list of children’s books about helping and empathy. Here are just a few to add to your list.
- Clark the Shark Dares to Share
- Llama Llama Time to Share
- Bear Feels Sick
- Be Fair and Share!
- One Love
- Little Blue Truck
- How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends?
- The Berenstain Bears: Kindness Counts
- What Does it Mean to Be Kind?
- The Story of Ferdinand
- Do Unto Otters
- Clifford’s Good Deeds
- The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade
- How Full Is Your Bucket?
- Last Stop on Market Street
- Kindness and Generosity: It Starts with Me!
- A Chair for My Mother
- The Three Questions