Today's guest post is from Victoria Candland, and discusses ways to raise children who care about the world around them. It's never too early to start, either - your toddler may not understand why you always put cans and newspapers in the recycle bin, but they will certainly get into the habit through your example!
Teaching your child to care about the community, the environment, and about people is difficult these days with so many technological distractions. You’re lucky to get two words out of your kid while she’s busy watching cat videos on YouTube with her older sister or while he’s playing video games with the neighbor boy.
In order to instill compassion, love, and respect for the world and for others, we need to eliminate some of these distractions in the home before taking additional steps. As you’re teaching your children, teach by example. Be the person you want your children to become and show them how to be compassionate, informed, and kind through your actions. Show them how you focus on what matters most.
In order to instill compassion, love, and respect for the world and for others, we need to eliminate some of these distractions in the home before taking additional steps. As you’re teaching your children, teach by example. Be the person you want your children to become and show them how to be compassionate, informed, and kind through your actions. Show them how you focus on what matters most.
With yourself as the example, you can also teach them in other ways. Here are five techniques to help teach your children to care:
1. Learning About Cultures
To raise children who are empathetic and tolerant of other cultures, you don’t have to travel to every country. Instead, teach them about other cultures at home through making authentic meals from different countries and incorporating little facts about the people in those countries into your dinner.
Celebrate the traditions of other religious holidays like Passover or Rosh Hashanah. Go to a Hindu festival. Attend a friend’s confirmation at a Catholic cathedral.
You could even promote these kinds of activities in your children’s schools. Do you have a friend who emigrated from another country? Ask if he or she would be willing to visit your child’s school and teach the class about the country’s culture.
Learning about other cultures will make your children curious about the world around them and will allow them to make friends easier—especially with people who are very different from themselves.
To raise children who are empathetic and tolerant of other cultures, you don’t have to travel to every country. Instead, teach them about other cultures at home through making authentic meals from different countries and incorporating little facts about the people in those countries into your dinner.
Celebrate the traditions of other religious holidays like Passover or Rosh Hashanah. Go to a Hindu festival. Attend a friend’s confirmation at a Catholic cathedral.
You could even promote these kinds of activities in your children’s schools. Do you have a friend who emigrated from another country? Ask if he or she would be willing to visit your child’s school and teach the class about the country’s culture.
Learning about other cultures will make your children curious about the world around them and will allow them to make friends easier—especially with people who are very different from themselves.
2. Volunteering
Make volunteering a regular occurrence in your household. As a family, you can volunteer at soup kitchens, animal shelters, retirement homes, and more. Helping people who are less fortunate will instill empathy, gratitude, and understanding into the minds of your children. You can volunteer locally now and even volunteer internationally when your children are older.
Make volunteering a regular occurrence in your household. As a family, you can volunteer at soup kitchens, animal shelters, retirement homes, and more. Helping people who are less fortunate will instill empathy, gratitude, and understanding into the minds of your children. You can volunteer locally now and even volunteer internationally when your children are older.
3. Recycling and Reusing
Introduce these habits into your kids’ lives by trading trash cans for recycling bins and leftover food in the garbage for the compost pile. Teach your kids that the pants they don’t want any more can be donated instead of thrown away. Use rags instead of paper towels and teach them to recycle all paper, plastic, and metal. Teaching our kids concern for the environment and good habits of conservation will increase respect for the earth.
Introduce these habits into your kids’ lives by trading trash cans for recycling bins and leftover food in the garbage for the compost pile. Teach your kids that the pants they don’t want any more can be donated instead of thrown away. Use rags instead of paper towels and teach them to recycle all paper, plastic, and metal. Teaching our kids concern for the environment and good habits of conservation will increase respect for the earth.
You can learn about fun and creative ways to teach your kids to reduce and reuse here.
4. Focus on Caring
A recent Harvard study from the Graduate School of Education surveyed 10,000 students across the nation and asked what was most important to them. Their choices were between achieving at a high level, being a happy person (by feeling good most of the time), or caring for others. About 80 perfect of the students picked high achievement or happiness as the most important priority. When the students were asked what they think their parents’ main priority was with raising them, only 19 percent of the students saw teaching caring as the top priority. This shows that the students found their parents put more emphasis on raising happy, successful people rather than empathetic, kind people.
While we all want our children to be successful and happy, their likelihood of being such is vastly improved when they are kind and loving toward others. Research shows that an altruistic view can actually increase well-being and boost longevity.
As parents, maybe we should redefine happiness for our children. It’s not just about instant gratification and focusing on “feeling good” all the time—it’s more about living outwardly and forgetting one’s problems every now and again. It’s about respecting other cultures and traditions and expanding our minds to accept them. It’s about caring for the environment and loving our neighbors. In short, true happiness is never just about us.
