Those of you who follow along with us on our Facebook page know that we involve our kiddos in giving - and a few of you have asked for some tips on introducing giving to young children.  I am by no means an expert - but I am happy to share with you all how we approach it in our family.  I think the gift of giving is a powerful thing - it is a source of great pride for our little girl that she is able to help others.

First, let's talk about what age is best.  I think right around 3 years old children have enough understanding to learn about others who are less fortunate than themselves.  Each child is different - some may be old enough to understand this at 2 and half, others may be closer to 4.  You know your child best.

I think the first part of talking about giving with young children is expanding their world view.  

I think in order for young children to understand WHY we give, they need to understand that many people/children lead VERY different lives than they do.

We first spoke with S about this when she was getting ready to turn 3.  Because our children are very fortunate, we use their birthdays each year to raise money for a charity (instead of getting more gifts).  For her previous birthdays, S was too little to really understand what was going on, so we made the choice for her.  When she was about to turn 3, we felt she was old enough to understand what she was doing with her birthday and why.  Charity:Water is a fabulous charity (it has the highest Charity Navigator rating - four stars) and they have a fantastic interface for raising money for any event - including birthdays.  Luckily they have fantastic resources - videos AND photos - both of which we used to explain to S the differences between her life and those of the people who didn't even have access to clean water.  Do I think she had a 100% clear understanding of everything at 3?  No.  But I do think she understood enough to feel invested in her charity and to feel proud of what she was doing.  Here's a video of her a month before she turned 3 talking about her birthday fundraiser.

I think the second part of talking about giving is allowing your child the freedom to choose.

With her birthday each year, S can choose to give all her birthday presents (money) to Charity:Water, or to give some.  For the past two years she has chosen to get presents from her family (us and her grandparents), but to have her friends and our family friends donate to her charity in lieu of gifts.

When it comes to donating toys, she can choose to have me go through the house myself or she can help me.  When she was younger, at least once, she opted to have me do it myself because it was going to be too hard for her.  Since then she's really come to enjoy selecting toys for other children and now she has a lot of fun with it (see goofy faced photo below for reference).

The first time or two it can be hard to let go of old toys.  I found that a great compromise was to round up what we thought we wanted to donate and then keep it in the garage for two weeks.  If she'd forgotten about it in two weeks, I had the green light to donate.  Another way to make it a bit gentler is to donate right before a birthday or Christmas, that way you can remind your child that they have new toys coming soon that they need to make room for.

When it comes to buying new toys for something like Toys for Tots your child can choose to accompany you or not; they can choose to buy duplicates of toys they have or to buy new toys - there are many ways to incorporate choices into giving.

I think the third piece of talking about giving is acknowledging that it's hard sometimes!

Every year after Thanksgiving we have a family tradition of shopping for Toys for Tots.  At three (below), S was very excited to collect a bunch of fun toys.  As we went to leave though, she got a little sad - these were not all toys that we had at home and they looked SO FUN!  She knew it was important to share, but she also felt like it would be so neat to get to play with all these toys herself.  We took a moment and sat and talked before we paid and donated the toys.  I reminded her that it's hard to share!  Even for adults.  I told her how sometimes I think of something neat I could buy myself with money I'm going to donate, but then I remember how much more the money will mean to someone else.  I think of how much more important it will be to their lives than it would mean to me to have one more silly little thing to myself.  Since she is little, I also tend to make up a story with her to help her visualize who she's helping.  We waited until she was ready and then we bought and donated the toys happily!

This year S is 4 and did such a fabulous job.  She was really able to enjoy the entire process just totally excited for the kids who were going to receive these gifts.  It was truly awesome to watch her.

Though we usually split blog profits between Charity:Water and Room to Read - we decided to mix it up for the month of November and use the profits to buy toys for kids via Toys for Tots.  You guys did such an amazing job visiting the blog and shopping through our Amazon Affiliate Links this last month that we were able to double what we thought we'd be able to donate!

Because I am terrible at estimating when we're talking about this many items, we went through the line to see how close to our spending goal we were.  When we found out that we still had money to spend, S opted to go back and buy bags of food for the Food Drive the local firefighters were having outside the store we shopped at.

I think the final piece of talking with children about giving is praise.

Whether your child has donated one toy or many; whether they've helped you pick out one gift or many - they have done a beautiful thing by giving to others.  Be sure to let them know not just that day but on many subsequent days how proud you are of them.  Call their grandparents and brag on them when they can hear it; tell the cashier when you are checking out or the person working the donation booth what your child has done and they will likely congratulate your child and you can watch them just beam with pride.  What they've done is praise-worthy, so let them know that it is valued by you and those they've helped.  When S raised money for Charity:Water for her birthday, they actually called to thank her (I missed the call so they left a voicemail).  She listened to the voicemail at least a dozen times - she was so proud!  Every once in awhile I will bring it up out of the blue - "it's really amazing that there are people drinking clean water from a well right now because of YOU" or "I bet that some little kid is really having so much fun with the bear you donated last month right now!" and it really means a lot to her.

Oh, and one last thing - we are very lucky in that my husband has a great job and this blog brings in even more money for us to give (we donate every month to charity) - but don't feel like your child needs to give bags full of toys or spend a certain amount of money to learn about giving.  Giving can be very simple - donating a single toy, or purchasing one small gift for another child.  It does not have to be big/expensive to be meaningful to your child or to others!!!

I'd love to hear any additional ideas you all have for talking with young children about giving.  Please feel free to share them in the comments below!!!

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All activities here are activities I feel are safe for my own children.  As your child's parents/guardians, you will need to decide what you feel is safe for your family.  I always encourage contacting your child's pediatrician for guidance if you are not sure about the safety/age appropriateness of an activity. All activities on this blog are intended to be performed with adult supervision.  Appropriate and reasonable caution should be used when activities call for the use of materials that could potentially be harmful, such as scissors, or items that could present a choking risk (small items), or a drowning risk (water activities), and with introducing a new food/ingredient to a child (allergies).  Observe caution and safety at all times.  The author and blog disclaim liability for any damage, mishap, or injury that may occur from engaging in any of these activities on this blog.