Teach 7 Essential Values While Making a Difference
A better world begins at home. This simple truth can be easy to overlook.
Daily life overflows with ground-level challenges and triumphs, the minutia of parenting that keeps us on our toes. It often feels mundane. Unnoticed. Maddeningly repetitive.
And yet, this work we’re doing — the lessons we teach, and the values we impart — will have an impact that cannot be understated.
The everyday routines of family life are setting the tone for the sort of people our children will become. By living the values we wish to teach our children, we instill these lessons deep into their growing psyches.
It feels overly dramatic to claim that by tending our children’s hearts and minds, we can begin to mend our communities. But it’s true.
At Doing Good Together, we believe that family acts of service, kindness, and introspection have a tremendous impact well beyond the boundaries of our own homes.
This is why DGT works so hard to connect you with dozens of service projects — through our free, city-specific family service listings as well as our free Big-Hearted Families collection. We aim to make it easier for you to live your values and instill strong ideals in your children amid the daily grind.
There are enormous benefits to intentionally doing good with our families.
Sharing our time and abundance as a family contributes to a broader culture of engagement and communal support while meeting current community needs.
Living generously contributes to personal well-being and improved social and emotional health. Plus it gives us an even greater capacity to make a difference.
Research shows that children who volunteered with their families are more than two times more likely to be involved in community service as adults. (Engaging Youth in Lifelong Service, The Independent Sector, 2002)
Teach kindness, tap into these benefits, and strengthen your community with this series of character-building projects, videos, and conversation starters.
Big-Hearted Service Projects to Build Strong Character
This brief video illustrates the power of helping out when you see someone struggling.
1. Teach Caring and Compassion
Parents everywhere say that raising compassionate kids is their number one goal, above academic success and happiness. Yet kids, when asked, suspect the opposite. Let’s stop sending mixed messages, and start practicing, celebrating, and elevating acts of compassion.
Create a Display
Celebrate the kindness you share and receive with this Kindness Quilt project. Ask: How can we tell if someone could use a little extra kindness?Share Uplifting Cards
Create crafty greeting cards to share with a local nursing home, lonely neighbors, or folks in a nearby hospital. Ask: What words, phrases, or pictures can we use to make others smile?Support Your Local Food Pantry
Invite young ones to pick out food donations for the food pantry. Collect coins and save allowance in a giving jar to donate to your food pantry. With older kids, pick up a shift volunteering to help stock or sort donations. Ask: Why do communities work together to support people who are hungry?
Make time to boost your child’s confidence with this practical video.
2. Teach Confidence and Self-Compassion
Mindful self-confidence and self-compassion promote personal growth and resilliance in the face of challenges. Here are a few projects that – when paired with the video from TedEd 3 Tips to Boost Your Confidence – will build resilience in your child.
Older kids may find this video especially thought-provoking.
Soothe anxiety with fidgets.
These therapeutic stress balls are easy to assemble and satisfying to manipulate. Make some to keep and lots to share! Ask: How can we use a fidget to help us find our inner calm?Create an “I Feel Peaceful” mandala.
This crafty project and build your child’s ability to harness calm during stressful situations. Ask: Can we brainstorm ways you might comfort and calm yourself during stressful moments?Share encouragement with Big-Hearted Awards.
Pair your confidence-boosting conversation with compliments for everyday heroes you admire in the form of these fun awards! Ask: If someone were to celebrate you with an award, what would you like to be recognized for?
3. Teach Courage
Ask: Tell me about a time when you were afraid and you had to show courage. Then watch this thoughtful video.
The world relies on people of courage to step up and make a difference and to speak out when they spot injustice. These projects will kickstart conversations about courage.
Speak up for a cause.
Reach out to elected officials in support of an issue you feel passionate about. Then reflect on the courage of activists Ask: Tell me about a time when you had to stand up to a bully or point out something that wasn’t fair?Write a letter to a soldier.
Send some cheer to men and women who have volunteered to defend and serve in the armed forces. Ask: What other careers require courage and bravery? How would it feel to have one of these jobs?
Assemble care kits.
Help families around the world who are struggling through difficult times by assembling support kits through CWS. Ask: How can you show courage when facing difficult challenges? What can you do to calm your fears?
This animated short is sure to inspire a conversation about conformity, creativity, and different ways you can support each other.
4. Teach Creativity
Creativity is too often mistakenly confined to artistic ability. The truth is, creative thinking takes many forms and is essential for a purposeful life, helping us all become better problem solvers and more compassionate neighbors.
Decorate Breakfast Bags for Ronald McDonald House.
Decorate brown paper bags. Then get creative, filling them with thoughtful breakfast items. Drop your bags off at a Ronald McDonald House to support families staying there. Ask: What words or images can you use to make people smile?
Decorate a Giving Jar, then get creative filling it up!
Raising money for a cause your family cares about may inspire lots of creative thinking. Give it a try! Ask: Brainstorm creative ways to fill your jar. For example, add to it when something good happens as a way to pay it forward.Set up space in your home to encourage ongoing acts of creative card-making and letter writing. Our free printable will help you connect with organizations as well as people in your life who may enjoy some happy mail. Ask: What was the last fun piece of mail you remember receiving? Who was it from? How did it make you feel?
This video from Greater Good Science Center offers excellent tips for parents.
Get inspired to share random acts of appreciation with this short video.
5. Teach Gratitude
According to The Greater Good Science Center, it’s clear that practicing gratitude makes us healthier (reducing stress and improving sleep quality) and happier (boosting self-esteem and resilience). Notably, gratitude also has the power to cultivate patience, generosity, and empathy toward others.
Visit our article on Active Gratitude to discover 13 creative projects your family can try. Ask: Is it hard to feel grateful when you’ve had a difficult day? What can we do to remind ourselves of gratitude even when we’re not feeling very happy or grateful?
Let Kid President give your family the pep talk you need to persevere through your next, big kindness idea.
6. Teach Perseverance and Determination
Seeing a project through to the end can be challenging for kids and adults alike. Select a service-minded project that best suits your child by talking to them about what problems they would like to help solve. Here are two examples that may promote perseverance.
Take a 30-Day Kindness Challenge.
Commit to 30 days (or even just a week) of daily kindness activities to encourage kids to see a project through to the end. Ask: How could we celebrate our stick-to-it-iveness at the end of our challenge?Plant a row (or a pot) for the hungry.
Gardening offers essential lessons in perseverance, as we noted in our article Little Green Thumbs. By planting a vegetable or a row of vegetables specifically to grow donations for your food pantry, you might tap into the extra motivation you need to see the project through. Ask: What are some other ways can we share healthy, fresh foods with others?
7. Teach Teamwork and Responsibility
This short animated video will kickstart a conversation about community responsibility.
Working together for the communal good is essential for building strong communities. This can start at home simply by involving children in your family’s household chores. Take it further with these three community-minded projects that offer unique lessons in relying on one another.
Clean up a park or neighborhood. Picking up litter is a fun, simple, free activity that can have instant results for your child and your community. Ask: What would our neighborhood look like if everyone littered? How would you feel about living here?
Be a Citizen Scientist.
SciStarter.com creates a shared space where people of all ages can get involved with the scientific process and scientists can crowdsource new data. Have fun choosing a project together! Ask: Why do you think scientists are excited by the opportunity to engage the broader community in their research? What are the benefits?Walk or run for a cause.
Whether in person (hopefully soon) or virtually, participating in a walk/run for a cause can be a fun way to work with your family and your community to support an issue you care about. Ask: How does it feel to participate in a charity event with so many other people?
The deep divisions and discontent in our society point to the real need for more meaningful, purposeful lessons in compassion. We hope this collection of character-building projects will make it easier for your family to act with purpose and think curiously about your values and your community.
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The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.