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Jewish World Review May 23, 2000/ 18 Iyar, 5760
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
SOMETIMES even the best parental efforts to teach children compassion and charity can go awry.
Consider, for example, the true story:
One sunny day, Amy, 6-1/2, and her mother were taking a walk through the neighborhood. As they
chatted about Amy's coming birthday, her mother noticed empty trash cans lying on the curb of an
elderly, fragile neighbor's home.
"Amy," said the mother, "Let's help out Mrs. Grossman and take the empty trash cans into her
garage."
Amy nodded enthusiastically, and the two rolled the cans over Mrs. Grossman's expansive lawn, and
placed them in the garage, in their holders. Mother and daughter then smiled at each other,
strolled down to the street, and resumed their walk.
"We did an important thing just now," Amy's mother remarked to her daughter, "a special deed, and
that deed has a name. Do you remember what it is?"
Amy nodded, sagely.
"Tell me," said her mother, smiling, expectantly waiting for the payoff for all the family
discussions about mitzvahs or acts that makes one more G-d-like.
Her daughter answered immediately. "It's trespassing, Mommy."
"There's not a day goes by that doesn't offer 'teachable moments' for children," says Dr. Earl
Grollman, a nationally known author, psychotherapist and former rabbi. "Each day provides
opportunities -- some small thought or act of compassion -- that can be talked about with
youngsters if you make a point of looking for them.
"When there is a happy occasion in the family, the family can as a rule make a small contribution
to charity, as both a kind of thank-you for good fortune and a recognition that others are not as
blessed. In many families this becomes a tradition that the children eventually pass on to their
own children.
"Or, if you are able to do volunteer work in your community, you can bring your children with
you, if at all possible. If you're clearing an elderly neighbor's driveway after a snowstorm,
take your children and let them bring a little shovel. If you're bringing food or medicine to
someone in the neighborhood, take your children and let them bring a gift of their own, perhaps a
special drawing or a clay figure. If you're doing something for the environment, take your
children and let them help in some way by planting or weeding or helping to clear rubbish.
"When children experience the joy and satisfaction of realizing that they have the power to touch
other people's lives and can make those lives better, even in small ways, it's more effective
than any parental lectures or Sunday school lessons can ever be. I've learned this through
literally hundreds of discussions with kids."
Teaching Children Charity
By Dr. Janice Cohn
Ah, instilling compassion and charity in young children is not always easy. Parents can do
everything right, and their children can still be distinctly uncooperative. In such cases,
research findings provide clear guidelines regarding what to do which, basically, is, "If at
first you don't succeed, try, try again." The following suggestions can help:
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and director of The Children's Defense Fund, has led a life dedicated to public service. Looking back at her own childhood she has recalled:
South Carolina is my home state and I am the aunt, granddaughter, daughter and sister of Baptist ministers. Service was as essential a part of my upbringing as eating and sleeping and going to school. The church was a hub of black children's existence, and caring black adults were buffers against the segregated and hostile outside world ...
We couldn't play in public playgrounds or sit at drugstore lunch counters and order a coke, so Daddy built a playground and canteen behind the church. In fact, whenever he saw a need he tried to respond ...
I have always believed I could help change the world because I have been lucky to have adults around me who did.
When Robert Massie ran for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1994, he had some very special campaign volunteers. One of them was four feet tall, and possessed of a winsome, gap-toothed grin.
Seven-year-old David Yust-Schutt had a mission that fall. He was determined to help elect the candidate for lieutenant governor who genuinely cared about people. And that candidate, he was convinced, was Bob Massie.
"As parents, we often talked with David about our belief that we're all responsible for working toward the goal of a better, more just society," says David's mother, Reverend Karen Yust, an ordained minister who teaches with Robert Massie, a reverand, at the Harvard Divinity School. "We spoke of my husband's and my conviction that each one of us can make a difference --- or at least that it's important to try. And we discussed some of the principles that Bob Massie stands for, explaining to David that these are our principles, too."
David's father, Brady Schutt, adds: "We've always tried to communicate to our son the importance of thinking about what's best for everybody, not just our own family. We told him why we thought it was important to work on the campaign, and he was very eager to help."
Every family eventually finds their own ways of instilling compassion in children. The method
doesn't matter --- the only thing that really counts is the
04/10/00: Creating a Town Hero Project
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02/16/00: Whatever happened to playing for playing's sake?
02/03/00: Down to Earth Heroes
01/27/00: Parental discipline affects child's compassion