How to Raise a Kind and Helpful Kid?
A straightforward way to teach kids to be kind is to encourage them to be helpers. To be people who see others struggling and take action. It takes empathy, compassion, and genuine kindness to realize others shouldn’t have to work when it’s within our ability to lessen their struggle. And it’s the kind of thing that can change the world. Because for that moment, that one act of helpfulness can improve that person’s world. It’ll make their life easier, better, simpler, or more comfortable.
And for our kids, it will bring an infinite amount of pride, joy, and peacefulness to know they changed that one person’s day for the better. Those are the kind of people we need more of to make the world a better place.
How to Encourage Kids to Be Helpers:
1. Model being a helper.
Often show them how simple it is to make someone else’s day a little easier.
2. Expect them to help
Teach them to help in a way they can handle based on their age like helping to unload the car. The youngest can carry in a box of cereal, while older kids carry in bags. Then they help unload and put food away.
3. Ask them to help siblings
To purposefully build positive sibling relationships, asked your kids to help their siblings with tasks. When they take the time to help each other, they feel more connected with each other.
5. Praise helper behavior when you see it
It lets our kids associate good feelings with the helpful actions and choices they make which will intrinsically motivate them to continue these valued behaviors in the future.
5. Remind them to ask if they can help
Getting someone’s consent before we jump in to help is common courtesy.
6. Assign chores
There’s a myriad of reasons why kids need chores, but one of them is they practice helping without complaining, doing things around a home that need to be done. Then, when they’re at a friend’s house, they’ll know how to clear a table and help with the dishes and clean up after themselves.
7. Sign older kids up for a volunteer “job”
Older kids can benefit greatly for a number of reasons when they have a volunteer “job.” They’re learning how to hold a real job, but they’re also learning how to be helpers in the community at large when we’re not standing over them, walking them through it, telling them how to help.
8. Volunteer as a family
You can expose your kids to more big acts of kindness. Big opportunities to serve community, help those who need it, and volunteer with organizations who are short on money, supplies and people with extra time.
Encouraging our kids to be helpers when they’re young raises them to be adults who offer help to others. Being a helper empowers our children to realize they can make a difference in this world by reaching out and offering a simple fix to the people around them. Our kids need to know they can make a difference for the people around them.
© 2024 Benjamin Mizrahi. All rights reserved.
