Raising Passionate & Engaged Children: A Thanksgiving Guide
https://souljourneyphilanthropy.com/2015/11/23/raising-passionate-and-engaged-children/
Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude and giving, and in some cases, a rare time when all family members are present, including “launched” children. It can be an ideal opportunity for discussion and reflection upon the year’s world events, blessings, and ways in which we’ve contributed to the greater good as individuals, and collectively as a family.
It can also be a time to look ahead at giving priorities in the realms of time, talent, and treasure, and ways to engage the entire family, particularly its youngest members. My hope is to provide you with a roadmap to family giving that makes the process as joyful and frustration-free as possible.
One of the most common conversations I have with parent-peers in my community, a community rich with blessings, is about how to raise kids to be thoughtful and empathetic vs. (God forbid) entitled. Yet, our children are often the ones who most embrace the true definition of philanthropy.
As parents, we are the stewards of our children’s innate compassion and its promise of building stronger families and communities.
Philanthropy helps to solidify family values, communication, and trust. By deciding together where to spend your time, talent, and/or treasure, children can learn leadership, decision-making, confidence, organization, negotiation, investing, while developing empathy. Further, research has shown that the act of giving causes family members to have an increase in happiness; in fact, a recent study from the Lily School of Philanthropy at Indiana University cites that children who perform acts of kindness experience increased wellbeing, popularity and acceptance among peers, which leads to better classroom behavior and higher academic achievement.
(Shameless Plug Alert!) Kitty and I co-created a book to inspire countless philanthropic “anonymice” entitled “The Secret Adventures of Anonymouse.”
It’s the story of a mysterious poem, a tiny mouse with a huge heart, and a forest that is transformed by all they inspire. It is a story of selfless deeds that inspire readers to join in their own kindness adventures. All are welcome to the December 5th book launch at the Denver Art Museum from 10am – Noon, which is also a free day for families! anonymouse-aok.com
Raising Passionate and Engaged Children: How to Begin
1. Lead by Example. Children will do as you do, not as you say. Talk about your philanthropy. Talking about giving increased by 20% the likelihood that children would give. That holds true across race, gender, age and more. When appropriate, have children join in when you volunteer.
2. Show Enthusiasm and Support for their Interests. Encourage children to get involved in a cause they care about, or better yet, create opportunities for you to collaborate together on the cause. Explore options together: charitable giving, volunteering time or talents to a cause, or being of service to those in need. If the cause loses its luster and the child wants to move on to something else that catches their attention, they will take the skills and values with them to their next endeavor.
3. Make It A Family Affair. In our busy family lives filled with sports, homework, play dates, and more, engaging in philanthropy is a great way to spend quality time as a family while helping a worthy cause and instilling core values in our children. When your family has decided upon what cause you would like to support, commit to year-round service, even if only quarterly, and leverage Thanksgiving as a time to evaluate impact not only upon the organization you’ve supported, but the impact the giving has had upon your family. This can be formalized with creating videos, scrapbooks, and children reporting back at the Thanksgiving table: “What I learned this year about the cause, and about myself,” and more. And celebrate as a family your good fortune, and how you’ve shared that good fortune with others.
I work with families on creating their generosity plans, incorporating where each member intersects in terms of an issue area, and developing a strategy around engagement and impact (for the issue area and the family); but you needn’t have a sophisticated approach to philanthropy to begin.
In the wise words of Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Getting Started, Getting Traction: Family Philanthropy Visioning Session
Call a special meeting involving pizza (or Thanksgiving turkey!) or some other special treat. At the risk of eye rolls, exude enthusiasm for the journey you are about to take with your family!
Rule #1: Have fun. This is an opportunity to create a unifying experience for your family, while bringing the conversation to values, gratitude, and giving back.
Rule #2: Every member of the family should have a say in the creation of a family philanthropy mission statement, including the youngest members if they are old enough to participate. Create a space for everyone to be heard and valued, reinforcing that their contributions matter.
Rule #3: Make the process and length of time age appropriate, and recognize that this can be done over the span of a few gatherings. For kids aged four to nine, 15 – 20 minute blocks work well. For older kids, a 30 – 45 minute meeting fits. A note of caution: toddlers are not developmentally equipped to participate in a planning session, and including them in a visioning session could be an exercise in frustration; however, there are age-appropriate ways to engage even your littlest ones in philanthropic activities.
Rule #4: Ask questions that will foster a healthy discussion. I’ve prepared some suggested questions to get you started:
What are some of our blessings that we feel everyone should have?
What are the primary family values we will use to guide us?
What are primary issue area(s) that most engage our heart and values?
What is our personal connection to this issue area (our “why”)?
What are some of our superpowers? What is every individual really good at? How can those superpowers be used collectively for good?
What are ways we can engage so that the activity will bring us together?
What volunteerism can we engage in as a family? Would travel philanthropy apply here?
What are the feelings we want to enjoy as a family by doing this activity?
Rule # 5: Do It Ugly. Create an inclusive and playful environment for all, free flow white-boarding the big ideas and discoveries, capturing the information in its raw form.
Rule #6: Keep it Short. Short is memorable. Try to keep your mission statement to two or three sentences to invite clarity and impactful language.
Rule # 7: Get 100% Buy-In. Write, edit, and re-write until everyone is happy with the final product.
Rule #8: Check your Authenticity. It can be an easy trap to create a feel-good philanthropy mission statement that gathers dust. The statement should something you all believe in, even if it is aspirational.
Rule #9: Hang your Family Philanthropy Mission Statement in a prominent place as a visual reminder of who you are as a family, and as community citizens. Refer to it regularly, especially during teaching moments around values.
Rule # 10: Use It or Lose It! ‘Nuff said.
Rule # 11: Refocus and Refine. Families change over time, particularly as children are able to take on bigger roles and responsibilities. Ensure that the mission statement remains authentic and continues to reflect the values of your evolving family.
Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours! May it be filled with joy, gratitude, and deep connection to those you love the most.
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Work with Me: My firm, Black Fox Philanthropy, works with families in the early to mid-stages of their philanthropic journey, engaging the entire family in articulating and sharing their hearts with each other, and their deep “why” behind what they care about. The result is to appreciate each other in deeper ways, and create a unifying vision for giving back that honors each family member while creating a legacy of impact and connection. blackfoxphilanthropy.com