Kids are never too young to volunteer. The key is helping children discover their passion and then finding volunteer opportunities where their time and talents can help others.
“Whatever age your children are now is the right age to start volunteering,” says Jenny Friedman, author of “Doing Good Together: 101 Easy, Meaningful Service Projects for Families, Schools and Communities” and executive director of the family volunteering nonprofit Doing Good Together.
Parents and grown-ups should let kids lead the way, according to William Damon, author of “The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life.” “When kids follow through and stick with things,” says Damon, “it’s their own things they are following through on.”
Both Friedman and Damon provide tips and advice for introducing kids to volunteering and helping them turn a passion into a lifetime commitment to helping others.
1. Be a volunteering family
“You want this to be a habit and something they associate with warm family time,” Friedman says of volunteering. Toddlers may not understand how they are helping, but by preschool age, they will. That understanding will only grow with age.
2. Point out talents
Encourage your child to share a particular skill through volunteering and help them identify their interests. Do they take pride in watching their well-tended plants grow? Point that out to them.
“Find things that are both useful and meaningful at the same time,” says Damon. These things show kids they can be responsible and make a difference.
3. Figure out what gets them excited
“Ask your child, ‘What is your spark?’ and almost every kid seems to know what that means,” says Friedman. Kids are empowered when volunteering activities are based on their interests. Tweens can use soccer skills to help kids with special needs learn how to play. Older teens can run computer classes at a senior center or create a website for a local nonprofit.
For kids younger than 5, who may not be able to answer the spark question yet, have them choose one activity (from a list of three) they would most enjoy doing. “Giving your child voice to share what they want to do is critical,” says Friedman.
Need volunteering ideas? Try VolunteerMatch, which matches people (including kids and teens!) with needs in your area. You can even search based on causes you want to help, like animals, sports, education and literacy, immigrants and refugees and more.
4. Start small
Building a love for volunteering doesn’t usually start with spending hours at a local soup kitchen or animal shelter (although no one would discourage that!). Take baby steps and don’t worry if you can only volunteer every now and then.
Don’t ask your 8-year-old to play their clarinet at a large fundraiser. Instead, see if they want to play for their grandparent in a nursing home. “The child sees the direct result of entertaining someone,” suggests Damon. “That is very meaningful to a child. Even if it seems small to a parent, it is not so small to a child.”
5. Be creative
Is your 5-year-old a ballerina? Maybe they could put on a tutu and dance for an elderly neighbor. Are your kids Picassos with crayons? Send their pictures to Color A Smile, where they’re distributed to seniors, troops overseas and others who need a smile. Have a budding scientist? Maybe they can compost kitchen scraps and donate them to a community garden. An organized child can spearhead a playground cleanup at school while a high-energy kid can pound the pavement for a charity walk.
6. Emphasize everyday kindness
Show children the cyclical nature of giving and receiving, suggests Friedman. Ask kids how they helped someone today and how someone helped them. Did they hold the door for their music class? Did a teacher help them pick up a dropped stack of paper? Even the smallest acts of kindness can go a long way.
Volunteering reinforces that give-and-take mentality and builds compassion. Then, the next time they are faced with situations where people need help, they’ll respond, says Friedman.
