5 Ways To Encourage Your Children To Give To Charity This Christmas

Photo by martinak15

Children pick up their core values from their parents. If you don’t teach your children to be conscientious and charitable, they will never learn. As a parent, you act as a moral compass for your kids. They will come to you and ask what to do all the time. You need to have sound advice ready for them when they ask you big questions. This Christmas, teaching your children to be charitable is the best gift you can give them. Here are five ways you can do just that.

1. Volunteer at a soup kitchen

Throughout the year, community centers and churches host soup kitchens for homeless people. For people on the streets, a meal in a soup kitchen might be the only hot food they get all week. It is always important to help people less fortunate than yourself. You need to teach your children the value of giving back to the greater society. See whether you can volunteer at a local church, such as Harvest Family Church, to help feed the homeless. On Christmas day, you could give just an hour of your time to give hot food to someone who needs it.

2. Make Christmas shoeboxes

You likely buy your children a whole host of fabulous Christmas presents. Why wouldn’t you? Christmas is the one time of year when you have a free pass to spoil your kids just a little. Teaching your children how fortunate they are is vital to their self-development. Tell your children about other young people who don’t have as much as they have. Together with your kids, you can create shoeboxes to give to needy children. You should fill the boxes with toys and gifts for kids. There are many charities that accept shoebox donations during the festive season.

3. Give the gift of sponsorship

Among the gifts that you give your children, why not include something a little different? You can buy sponsorship gift cards for people as presents. That means that you are giving money to someone who needs it as a gift for your kid. Your child will get regular updates about the sponsorship and what it means to the charity. For example, if you sponsor an endangered animal, your child will get cards and letters from the company. The letters will explain how they are protecting the animals.

4. Give food to a food bank

For some families, Christmas is a genuine struggle. People on low incomes and unemployed people will find the festive season hard. Some people will even struggle to feed their family this year. Explain the facts to your children so that they understand how lucky they are. You likely have loads of spare tins in your cupboards. With your children, go through your cupboards and see whether there is anything you can donate to people. Take your spare tins down to your local food bank and donate them. People who can’t afford food will go to the food bank to pick up something for their family to eat.

5. Sacrifice one present

When you give things to charity, you have to be willing to make a few sacrifices yourself. Children, usually, write a long list of presen to Santa and get just what they asked for from their parents. This year, make things a little different. When your children have written their lists, ask them to choose one present to discard. Tell them that Santa (you) will donate the money for the present to people who need it. Teaching your children to give things up for the sake of others is important and will make them better people.