Wear the Cape Shares Their Top 10 Reasons to Encourage Your Kids to Volunteer

Wear the Cape, “a brand that gives back and aims to restore the power of kindness and good character with cool, inspirational products and its non-profit the kidkind foundation,” sent out a press release today about their new Top 10 Reasons to Encourage Your Kids to Volunteer list, which, frankly, is probably testing the boundaries of press release necessity, but we like them so we read it. We’re glad we did. We are fans of encouraging kids to volunteer, after all, it was one of the main reasons that we created Dads 4 Change.

From Wear the Cape:

 

#1: Volunteering helps foster empathy.

Empathy is the most critical disposition for responding to the needs of others. We need to be able to imagine what other people may be going through or feeling. Volunteering helps engage our natural empathic sense, but you have to make sure that there are opportunities to talk about the purpose and experience of any volunteer activity if the recipients aren’t visible in the process (making sandwiches for the homeless isn’t the same as helping to deliver the sandwiches to homeless people).

#2: Volunteering helps develop a sense of self-efficacy.

Children may understand that other people need help or that there are projects that could make a community more habitable or productive, but feel helpless or unclear that an individual can do anything about it in response. Volunteering can provide experiences that affirm a young person’s sense that they can make a difference through their own effort and skills. These experiences can empower young people to apply themselves in other contexts, including school and other organized activities, such as faith-based youth groups or scouting.

#3: Volunteers gain experience working with other people.

Social skills are best learned in social situations. When people come together to engage in a meaningful task, issues of communication, power, collaboration and trust rise to the surface in a supportive context. It’s easier, although still a challenge, to learn to navigate these waters with others who may be more skillful and be in a position to offer supportive feedback. It’s a good way for parents and children to see each other in a different light, as well, and learn together.

#4: Volunteering develops new skills.

In addition to social skills, practical experiences of organizing tasks and using physical and mental capabilities to get jobs done is fundamental to successful work of any kind. In school, these skills are often fragmented or unrelated to real-world applications. Service activities offer the chance to apply and test our abilities, as well as learn from other kids or adults in a way that engages kids’ natural drive for competence.

# 5: Volunteering provides the opportunity to explore new interests and develop new passions.

There is nothing more exhilarating than discovering a new field of interest that sparks a real passion for learning and doing. One of the wonderful things about being our species is our inquisitiveness and motivation to investigate and find meaning in discovery. Service activities have the potential to expose us to these opportunities and see how other people live their passions.

Read the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Encourage Your Kids to Volunteer by Dr. Philip Brown, a senior consultant at the National School Climate Center, on Wear the Cape. And if you want more good stuff you can follow Wear the Cape on Facebook (feel free to follow us, too!).