Ways to Teach Your Kids About Generosity

After the last two years of pandemic living, many of us have learned to have an appreciation and gratitude for the simple things in life. With that attitude of gratitude often comes a tendency to be generous with our time, money, or other resources. When we approach our life circumstances with an intentional focus on the abundance and blessings around us, our hearts are perfectly positioned to recognize hardship in others and be prepared to generously stand in the gap for those who need us. 

The problem is, how do we teach this generosity to our kids? After two years of non-traditional schooling, crash courses in computer-based education, and social interactions with strict mask-wearing and social distancing enforced? With young children in the house, it can be hard to teach generosity when we’ve spent two years worrying about ourselves and how to exclude others from our “safe” inner circles. 

Here are four of our favorite ways to teach our children about generosity as we re-enter life, post-pandemic: 

1. Model behavior. The simplest (and yet hardest) way to teach our children about generosity is to model it ourselves. We can show generosity toward our children and others when we share our time, our resources, kind speech, or even acts of kindness. Children mimic what they see, so it’s important to act like the type of person we want them to imitate. 
2. Recognize privilege. This is the starting point for that attitude of gratitude. When we are able to recognize our own abundance, even in non-traditional ways, we are able to show our children their blessings as well as recognize the needs of others who may not be as fortunate. To help teach our children about privilege it is important to not ignore “taboo” topics that make us uncomfortable. By allowing conversations about privilege, blessings, and our community, we are able to start establishing a sense of purpose and belonging for our children. 
3. Give without receiving. One of the most popular times to teach our children about giving and generosity is during the holidays. However, holiday-themed giving lessons can be tricky since our children already know that their gifts and efforts will likely be reciprocated. Of course, it’s easy to give the teacher/ friend/ family member a gift when we know lots of gifts are also coming our own way. This approach could lead to entitlement, aka the opposite of generosity. To combat this, we should teach our children to give without receiving, even in the most mundane circumstances. Maybe it’s giving away our dessert, knowing another family member can’t trade with us. Maybe it’s picking up a special something for a friend or family member outside of the birthday/ holiday season- a “just because” gift. Maybe it’s donating our abundant goods instead of second-hand selling it for money. Maybe it’s simply letting a sibling have the last fruit snack in the box. These are all simple, non-scary ways to teach our children about generosity through unreciprocated giving.
4. Choose a cause. One easy way to teach children about generosity is by choosing a cause to serve, together. Perhaps it’s local horse stables where we can volunteer to care for the stables. Sometimes we choose simple tasks like taking old towels to the dog rescue. Sometimes we can choose opportunities to serve other people, like a soup kitchen or habitat for humanity build. Sometimes, it’s something more intimate like a letter-writing campaign to veterans that allow our children to practice writing. Sometimes we can even serve for “far away” causes like national level fundraisers or service projects for an organization we believe in. No matter how we choose to serve, it is important to ask our children to choose a cause with us, and to serve alongside us during our commitment. Ways to find a place to serve include social media, friends, schools, non-profits, and organizations affiliated with support for a specific cause. There’s no wrong way to serve, the most important thing is that we open our relationships with our children for conversations about what cause we are serving, who/what benefits, when & how we will contribute, and ultimately why it matters to us.

This list is not all-inclusive, but these four ideas might help spark an idea within our families of how to re-enter society with an attitude of gratitude and a heart positioned for generosity. As we continue to move forward and raise the next generation of leaders, we have a chance to intentionally mold them to be better than we were. After all, “when you know better you do better,” Maya Angelou.

Did you enjoy reading this article? Visit our blog page to read other similar articles.