If you’ve been blessed to experience the holiday season through a child’s eyes, you know how filled with wonder and anticipation it can be. This year, take time to establish traditions of generosity through your family gatherings and celebrations to help your school-aged children or grandchildren experience the joy of faithfulness through giving.
The foundation of living generously that you build while your children are young will help them maintain this posture throughout their lives. Over the last 15 years, study after study has revealed the importance of sharing generosity at home. Research shows that children of generous people are more generous. But it doesn’t often happen by accident.
Here are seven ways you can teach your children about generosity over the course of this giving season. These build on one another and begin with engaging the heart before moving to actionable steps. Depending on your child’s maturity and age, you may feel comfortable jumping ahead on this list!
- Teach your children to be thankful
“You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.” – 2 Corinthians 9:11
As Christians, we are called to be generous, but explaining the concept of generosity to children may be challenging. Demonstrate generosity through your actions; giving and serving are demonstrations of your thankfulness for God’s provision. If you’re serving at church, tell your children why. If you give aid to a family in need, share the reasons you decided to do so. Young kids love to ask “Why?” and want to know the reasons behind what’s happening in their world.
Practical application: During your next family gathering, have everyone pray aloud about what they are thankful for. Hearing from others about how they are blessed in various ways will help your children learn that they too are blessed! When they recognize this, they will begin to understand that they can use these blessings to help others.
- Recognize their acts of generosity
“Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!” – Psalm 107:22
Young children without the financial means or understanding to give can still demonstrate generosity. And you can help them create positive associations with giving by recognizing their generous acts. When they show compassion to another person, notice others’ needs, or choose to share, praise the action and tell them why you think what they did was important. Help your children recognize they are already caring for others!
Additionally, younger generations sometimes view volunteering as interchangeable with giving. If volunteering is one of your family values, talk about the ways that you have traditionally helped others.
Practical application: While also recognizing them for their actions, ask if your children have seen other opportunities to practice generosity. Have they noticed the red buckets for donations outside of stores? Have they seen food banks offering Thanksgiving meals? Help them see how family giving and volunteering are acts of generosity.
- Invite them to share in your practices of generosity
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6
As you plan your year-end giving, involve your children in your own decision-making process. How are giving decisions made in your family? Who has input into how the family’s charitable dollars are distributed? If you’ve established a process, make sure your children understand how to be wise givers as they grow older and more responsible for the family’s money. Children whose parents model generosity and invite their teens to contribute to conversations about family money are more likely to identify themselves as givers.
Practical application: Discuss the year-end charitable deadlines over dinner while your children are listening. When you’re at your computer recommending grants from your Giving Fund, invite them to sit with you and watch. When you attend Christmas Eve services, drop something in the offering plate while your children are watching, or even have them do this on your family’s behalf.
- Expose them to community needs
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me … ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” – Matthew 25:35-36, 40
As you’ve talked through how to be thankful and recognized small acts of generosity, help your children understand that while the holiday season is a time of joy and thanksgiving for many, for others, it brings hardship. Exposure to other people’s perspectives and ways of living broadens a child’s ability to understand the world and feel empathy. When matched with an explanation of how their actions impact others, this can be a powerful way to build a compassionate heart that leads to generosity.
Practical application: Talk about your community members who are in need this season. Gently explain how neighbors and friends might be lonely throughout the holidays, and pray together for their comfort during this season. Depending on your child’s age and maturity, you might talk about other children in the community whose parents are incarcerated and how they are also in need of support and love during this season.
- Seek to know and support their interests
“... God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:5
Once kids are old enough to care about causes themselves, one of the best things you can do to teach them generosity is let them share with you about the causes they are passionate about. Since you’ve taken the time to help them understand generosity and the needs of their community, spend intentional time listening to what they focus on and what is on their hearts. They will be more inclined to be generous if they feel they’ve been involved in the process.
If you’ve had trouble identifying their interests, start by asking what they like about the holidays. Your children are likely to talk about food, presents, and family. Translate these into people and groups you can support: those who are hungry, those struggling with unemployment, the widows and orphans who are lonely. Then, use your Giving Fund to research charities that support these.
Practical application: As you’ve listened to your children’s interests, brainstorm ways that you can support the people and groups they are passionate about. For example, if they’ve expressed concern that the neighbor down the street will be alone for the holidays, think about inviting him or her for a meal. If they’ve noticed the homeless community in your area, schedule time to volunteer at a shelter as the temperatures drop. Even if it’s only a small portion of your giving, consider supporting a charity that does something close to their hearts.
- Let them practice
“Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.” – Deuteronomy 15:10 (NIV)
One second-generation giver with NCF said the best thing his dad ever did was let him fail. His father gave him a sum of money and let this 20-year-old young man choose how to invest his own giving dollars. He explained that many young adults begin receiving money from their parents when they’re older, missing an opportunity for them to practice strategic giving with smaller amounts. Let them practice while you’re still around to guide them.
Practical application: A simple way to do this during the holidays with young children is to use the gifting idea of “get one and give one.” Provide them a small allowance, and tell them that they get to keep half (“get one”) and that the other half is to be used to help a person or group that they want to support (“give one”). They may even feel so much joy from giving this portion that they will want to use the whole allowance to continue blessing others!
- Make a plan to continue being generous
“They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” – 1 Timothy 6:18-19
Before the tree comes down and the Christmas dishes are put away, make a plan to continue your children’s generosity education in the new year. Take what you’ve learned from the lessons on thankfulness, the discussions about gratitude, and the service you provided to others as a launching point into a lifestyle of giving.
Practical application: As you plan your giving for 2024, let your children weigh in! Discuss how you can keep supporting the groups and causes that they care about. Perhaps you can renew your vision for what it means to be generous after living this holiday season through the eyes of your children.
