{Character Traits} Teaching Generosity

My mom taught my sisters and I to give to others even when she had very little to give. We took food to the sick, gave food to food banks and so much more. My husband and I want JDaniel to grow up giving to others too.

One way we have shown him how to give is by taking food to our local food bank. The last time we went to gather foods we ended up going up and down and then down and up some of the same aisles as I read from a list I had printed out from our local food banks website. I was frustrated and he kept reminding me we had been on that aisle already.

After our last  hunt and gathering session at our local grocery store for foods on the food banks list, I decided to take pictures of the items we had purchase. The pictures were then edited and placed into a word processing document. I had JDaniel sit beside me and tell me what each item was and then I  typed the words for each food beside their picture. We then printed out the list and put it in a plastic sleeve to keep it from getting torn.

We recently went back to the store for  another hunt and gathering trip for the food bank. JDaniel was able to walk up and down the aisles with me carrying his food bank shopping list. He could hold up the list to the shelves and make sure we were selecting the right items to put into our cart.  Having a picture list really helped him find what we needed and helped keep him focused on the task at hand.

When we got to the food bank, we were both relaxed and at ease. The food bank list made our family outing so much more enjoyable!

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Teaching Character Traits to our kids:

How do you help instill values in your kids lives??

Here are a few of our posts regarding character traits:

• Peaceful Parenting – encouraging kindness in our kids
• Teaching Gratefulness – examples of thank you notes as a family
• Bags of Joy - make a difference in another person’s life
• Teaching empathy in the face of natural disasters.