How do you teach your children–even adult children–about giving and charity? And how do you teach them their wealth is not just for them, but for others, too?

My wife and I met with Roy Peterson, president of The Seed Company, last night.

We were talking about The Seed Company’s charitable purpose and work, Bible translation, and similar matters. At one point, however, partially because we began talking about the Sonlight Curriculum/Mission India Rice Bag Project we are sponsoring, the conversation turned to the subject of how we (people in general) can teach our children about charity and charitable-mindedness.

Roy said that when his son was doing some research on this subject a few years ago, he discovered that the average American teenager has a say over how as much as $390 a month is spent–the equivalent of almost $5,000 a year in disposable income. That’s a lot of money over which to have authority!

Whether the children in your family come in above or below that number, I think the primary question Roy asked remains pertinent: how do we teach them a charitable or philanthropic mentality? How do we get them to look beyond themselves and their own interests?

Of course, one part of the answer has to do with the behavior modeled by mom and dad. Are we–are you–diligent in your giving? Do you discuss with your children how you make decisions for giving? Carol Weisman, in her wonderful book Raising Charitable Children, writes (p. 108),

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we all have a philosophy of giving. Do you give money to panhandlers on the street? Always, never, sometimes? Gloria Steinem . . . has said that she always gives money to homeless women on the street. Her mother had schizophrenia, and she believes that, had circumstances been different, her mother could have very easily wound up on the street like them.

My older son, Teddy, always gives money to Hare Krishnas when he passes them on the street. When he was backpacking through Europe a few years ago, he was without funds for a couple days while waiting for a check to clear. The Hare Krishnas in Amsterdam fed him a meal while he was down and out–something he will never forget.

I have a client who belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous; he never gives to the homeless. He believes that doing so is just enabling the drunks to get drunker. He does, however, donate directly to homeless shelters.

Let’s say you are the type of person who does not believe in giving money to people on the street. You probably have a very good reason why you choose not to. But when you’re out with your child and he or she sees you walking past a homeless person without stopping to help, all your child sees is that you just ignored a person in need.

This is what I call a “teachable moment,” and in order to make it into a learning opportunity, the first thing that you should do is stop. Take a few minutes and . . . say to him or her, “I always/never/sometimes give to people on the street because. . . .” Explain your philosophy. And remind your child that someday he or she will have the opportunity to develop his or her own philosophy of giving.

Key point: kids will be drawn away from what you say if your actions don’t match. But it is quite possible they will never even consider doing as you do if they never understand why you do it.

But beyond these basic–and almost commonplace–insights, last night Roy suggested another reason why children might not behave as charitably as you would like: Perhaps they are never asked to give.

He mentioned that at the Urbana 2006 Conference, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the sponsor, maintained a practice that, as far as he understood, they have always followed: they called college students to give up the rest of their lives for the cause of Christ in but they didn’t ask them for a sent in giving.

“How many of the students in attendance do you think will actually go to the mission field?” Roy asked. “At most 1%?

“Y’know, at almost the exact same time that Urbana was happening, Louie Giglio sponsored a Passion conference down in Atlanta. They also had about 25,000 students in attendance. And in the middle of that conference, Louie asked participants what they would like to give to. He gave them eight options, from drilling wells for people who have no fresh water, to relief efforts, to Bible translation.

“Do you know: those 25,000 students raised $1.2 million. And they gave the better portion of that to Bible translation!

“The old saw about ‘poor college students’ is just not true anymore. They have money. And I think it would do them good to ask them to give it for worthwhile charitable causes.”

What I’ve written here, of course, is only a partial list of suggestions to help train children–even adult children–to become more charitably minded. But it is a good start!

What “methods” have you found to be helpful with your children?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 5:34 pm and is filed under charity, giving, kids, legacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.