Giving Children Giving Skills

"The kids are proud!" my husband, Brian, commented, "I told them where you were." We were vacationing in the Caribbean, and I had been engaged in one of my quirky travel pastimes--buying children's books and dropping them at a local library. Brian looked pleased with himself, our daughters hugged me, and I squirmed at having been outed.

I was raised on a Bible story in which Jesus is watching Pharisees loudly drop coins into a tithe box at the temple door. Then a poor widow comes along and discretely puts in a mite--a small coin of little value. Jesus says that the widow has given more than any of them, because she gave what little she had while they gave out of their surplus. He also says that the Pharisees will get no reward in heaven; their reward is the attention that they have sought and received. I'm no longer worried about gaining or losing rewards in heaven. But the sense has stuck that public eyes somehow diminish a gift, even if those "public eyes" belong to two small girls.

For several reasons, parents who were raised on similar stories need to push past the discomfort of giving in front of their kids. New research from the University of British Columbia reports that giving makes people happier. In fact, how we spend our money, whether we use it to help others has more effect on happiness than the total in the bank. Other kinds of giving matter, too: time, for example, or knowledge. The important thing is that children learn giving skills.

One time, I sat in my psychology office with a high schooler who had just returned from a Habitat for Humanity trip in Peru. He poured out an exuberant mix of images and ideas. "Where did you get this from?!" I asked him, surprised by his intensity. "How did this stuff come to be a part of who you are?" "From my mother," he answered immediately

I realized there was a part of his family experience that I didn't know. He was in my office because his parents had gone through a difficult divorce and each family member was, in his or her own way, struggling. We had been focused on declining grades, behavior problems and conflicts. Pain makes us self absorbed, and he and his sister and parents hadn't been very focused on the well-being of the world in the months since they had first come in to see me. It was all they could do to muddle their way through the emotional upheaval.

"From your mother," I repeated. "How so?" "Oh," he responded, "She used to take us to serve dinners for homeless people, and she raised money for the animal shelter, and we were involved in our neighborhood clean-up. . . " By the time he finished describing the many ways that his mother had involved him in her service and giving, I had learned an important lesson. Giving was second nature for him, like brushing his teeth. It was part of his normal equilibrium. As soon as he began emerging from the divorce process, it was there waiting, pulling him back into a healthier, happier part of himself.

If we want our children to make their beds, we show them how it's done, we coach them through it, and we nudge them along. If we want them to be readers, we read to them; we tell them it is important; we read together so that reading becomes part of our bond. If we want them to be kind to animals, we teach them how to pick up a cat and we remind them what it feels like for an unfed pet to be hungry. We talk to animals in peculiar ways, pet them, and invite the children to join us. In all of these we model, explain, and encourage the desired habits and then provide opportunities for supervised practice. But if we want them to be civic minded or charitable, we expect them to pick it up by osmosis.

Let me tell you what happened as a result of my husband exposing my library adventure. Not long afterward, back home, our then six-year-old picked up a book about manatees. She has always been fascinated with marine mammals. In fact, at one point her stated goal in life was to become an Orca whale. This time, she came down stairs crying, saying, "Mommy, I want to send money to the manatees. I don't want them to be extinct."

She painstakingly dictated a letter to her aunt in Florida, asking about how to help manatees. She drew pictures of manatees being hit by boats, with a big circle and slash around them. And she set about raising money by pulling weeds, picking up messes, and making a one-box garage sale in which she sold--this is the bonus part--her only Barbie.

When she was still at it two months later, I helped her to sell drinks and brownies at a local parade. By then she had involved our next door neighbor girl and her little sister. A friend of ours dropped by, and as he was leaving, he drew five dollars out of his pocket. "This is for Brynnie's manatee fund," he said. "Our boys pulled weeds in our back yard because they wanted to contribute."

Now, I've never really focused before on helping manatees, but I'll confess, I love it. I get that in-love-with-my-kid feeling whenever I think of her quest. "She's becoming a regular mooch," my husband said when he came home from work to find an elaborately decorated 'Change for Manatees' box on top of our drier. "No," I reminded him. "It's not mooching, it's fundraising." My husband hates begging favors as much as I hate the public eye. But if we both have to squirm a bit so that the girls can grow their helping instinct into a giving habit, so be it.

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Comments

[Jude2004]

jdevienne has a good point. But something is better than nothing. I first volunteered at the age of 4, licking and sealing Easter Seal envelopes. Even though I work 70 hours a week, I still volunteer whenever I can, e.g. leading cemetery tours, making websites--whatever. This is the one positive thing that my mother modeled in my life.

[jdevienne]

Instead of buying books and donating them to libraries, you might consider simply donating the money and letting the libraries buy the books they need.

[ValerieT]

You are right. A very cool organization called roomtoread.org is building libraries in Asia, Nepal, etc. --groups of parents in small communities request the libraries, provide materials and volunteer labor, etc.