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see if some of your neighbors could use some help raking the leaves. When children experience the internal rewards of how they feel after they help others, they often look forward to doing it again and again.

*Organized Volunteer Opportunities

Another way to encourage your children to help others is to look for organized volunteer opportunities. Many towns have clean up days; churches often look for volunteers as do many other community programs. Sign up for some of these events and expose your children to the many different ways they can help out in the community.

When children are exposed to community volunteering and ways to help others when they are young, chances are as they grow older they will continue to grow and appreciate the gift of helping others and they will hunt for ways to be of assistance.

*Required Community Service

Many public schools, as a part of their civics and social studies curriculum, require 10-15 hours of community service to be done. Teachers hand out the assignment and the kids have the opportunity to pick an organization and make arrangements to go help. This is mostly done on kids' own time, such as afterschool or weekends and for many turns out to be a valuable learning experience.

Chances are even after the school project requirements are fulfilled they'll be looking for other ways they can assist in the community. My own daughter recently fulfilled the school requirement by helping out in a thrift store that proceeds were sent to help the homeless and now she's looking to volunteer in a children's hospital.

The primary ways you can encourage children to help in the community is to expose them to the ways they can help and set a positive example. Before you know it, they'll probably be asking you to come help them with their latest community project.

Learn more about this author, Leigh Goessl.
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