The Small Things: Teaching Your Kids to Serve the World Around Them

Sometimes the running list of things I am trying to teach my 2 year old is almost overwhelming.

Don’t talk with food in your mouth.

Use your silverware, not your fingers.

Use your inside voice.

Share your toys.

Hold my hand in the parking lot.

Be gentle with your baby brother.

Don’t throw rocks.

Don’t eat the berries off the bushes in the front yard.

. . . And on and on and on the list goes. . . .

Almost so that I forget to teach him to look up and notice the world around him. We are privileged and blessed to have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and warm clothes in the winter. Here’s the thing: we, as adults, know that we are blessed with all those things, but our kids think it’s the norm because they’ve never seen anything else.

In my desire to create such a wonderful world for my kids to discover, I realized they were missing a whole other world.

In lieu of that, my husband and I started having serious conversations about how to teach our son more about the world around him. We’ve come up with 5 ways to help our kids expand their worldview and serve others:

Bags of Blessings

In Dallas proper, it’s fairly common to see someone on a street corner asking for money. It has always made me uneasy to hand them money plus I hardly ever carry cash these days. So instead, we make “Bags of Blessings” filled with peanut butter, crackers, a water bottle and a small piece of candy to hand out. My son takes an active part in this, coloring on the brown paper bags while we talk about the people we will bless with these bags.

Meals on Wheels

We are a tad young for this, but our local Early Childhood PTA serves with Meals on Wheels once a month, so that the kids see that hunger and lack of food to eat is a real and tangible thing. As soon as my son can sit still for longerish periods of time, we have every intention of serving with this great organization once a month.

Giving Away Toys

It’s no secret that all of our kids have far more toys than they need. As Christmas and our son’s birthday were approaching, my husband and I talked long and hard about what to do with the influx of toys that was about to head our way. We have decided that once our son is old enough to understand (we plan on starting this Christmas–when he is 2.5 years old), he will give away a toy for every toy he receives as a gift at Christmas and his birthday and then physically go with us to hand those toys to kids in need.

Fundraisers for International Organizations

We also want our son to look past our city and see the needs in the rest of the world. This is hard for younger kids and especially mine, since he is so tactile and has to see things to understand them. This year, we will be participating in The Goat Run for South Sudan. It’s no secret that this country has had almost unfathomable suffering in the last few years. This Fun Run, 5K and 10K is a tangible way for our son to see pictures of those in need and know that he can make a difference.

Sponsor a Kid

We know that children are often the most exploited and forgotten faces in the war on poverty. So many wonderful organizations allow individuals to sponsor a specific child and receive periodic updates on how your child is doing. Most organizations will make sure you have a picture of your sponsored child so that you can hang it on the fridge as a reminder.

Our 2 year old is to young for this concept yet (we plan on starting when he is 3) but we want him to pick a child to sponsor and then give him chores every month to “pay” for that sponsorship, so that he can understand the financial sacrifice and feel like he is part of the solution.

There are so many great organizations that will help you find a child to sponsor: Child Fund International, World Vision, or Compassion International.

What about you? What activities do you do to teach your kids about how to serve the world around them?

Please add your ideas in the comments below!