Raising Can-Do Kids by Richard Rende & Jen Prosek

Author:Richard Rende & Jen Prosek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joosr Ltd

Serving others should be seen as one of the main purposes of life—we can nurture this even in early childhood

It is in serving others that we can get the most out of life. Chefs want to give their customers the most delicious food, hoteliers want to give vacationers the most relaxing break, and doctors are driven to heal people. Serving others is central to what sets us apart as humans and leads to a more fulfilling life. We can teach our children how to enjoy serving others from a very early age.

As a starting point, we should develop our child’s sense of empathy—and the way we do that is, again, by modeling it ourselves. Do you acknowledge your child’s feelings and validate them, or do you admonish them for being too emotional? A child who has their emotions recognized will learn to honor and respond kindly to other people’s feelings. Not only should we acknowledge our child’s emotions, but we should also help them to recognize them in others. For example, “Grandpa is feeling a bit grumpy today because he had some bad news.” Or, “Cecilia isn’t feeling too good, and it is making her feel sad and quiet.”

Beyond empathy, we can encourage our child’s natural wish to help others. Often we discourage children from “helping” with cooking or cleaning because we feel they will get in the way, but if we allow them to help, we let them experience the rewards of serving others. We can build on this by involving children in goodwill activities: donating clothes to an overseas charity, holding a bake sale, or giving time to help out at an animal sanctuary. Another idea that we can try is to ask everyone in the family to complete three acts of kindness each week. These acts of kindness will lead to an increased feeling of well-being in children, and will help them to build relationships and be more empathetic.

We should teach our children the value of serving others—not only will this help them to build and sustain relationships, but in the world of work, the most successful businesses are those who solve a real problem for their customers or help them to live better lives. We should endeavor to model empathy and encourage our children to carry out acts of kindness for others and help solve problems in their lives.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.