By Cindy Hartwig
Parenting Columnist, Canyon Lake Insider
The children filtered into the normally tidy classroom early in the morning only to find it in poor condition, littered with paper trash strewn about the new flooring. The perplexed students addressed the proverbial “elephant in the room” in their innocence and innate directness. “Our classroom is a mess!”
Since this was a planned activity, the teachers prompted the conversation. “Who do you think should clean it up?” asked the mastermind educators. The responses varied from “the custodian” to “the moms and/or teachers.” Eventually, the question was posed, “Well since we found it, and it is our classroom, shouldn’t it be our responsibility to fix it?”
The students quickly grasped the concept and followed the lead of their teachers in cleaning up the mess, eager to move on with their normal routine.
Children are notoriously egocentric in their actions, especially in their younger years, but there are a number of skills that can be acquired to further the development of civic-minded young citizens.
A child’s first experience with society begins at home. Much like in the classroom example, parents can prompt their young children into community awareness by involving them in simple chores, age-appropriate democratic decisions regarding the household, and selflessly and lovingly serving others. Consider the possibility that if children begin developing these traits in the younger years, the chances are good they will continue through adolescence and adulthood.
Parents can model care and concern for others. As the primary influence in their child’s lives showing self-sacrifice on behalf of another human being or animal and teaching responsibility and modeling empathy for others are ways to evoke selfless behavior in children.
The following are several tangible ways to instill responsibility in young children:
- Take a walk to a park. Inevitably there will be trash, so plan ahead with gloves and bags to seize any teachable opportunity. Discuss the beauty of nature and our responsibility to care for our environment.
- Prepare homeless packages with your child and keep them in your car. We all have opportunities to safely help those less fortunate. It is difficult to discern specific needs, but carrying a supply of non-perishable food and hygiene items in a Ziploc bag will allow you to offer help in most circumstances. Writing contact information on the package will assist with proper resources. Some of our local Riverside County resources are: SU Cares 800-499-3008 and HomeConnect 800-498-8847.
- Involve your child in discussing the needs of the home. They may have a specific way in which they would like to contribute. Patience will be required anytime young children are involved in chores, but remember this is a worthwhile investment since we are raising future teenagers and adults.
As adults, we have grieved together on social media when viewing images of vandalism or the remnants of destroyed gosling eggs in our beautiful lake community. Likewise, we have collectively rejoiced and praised the efforts of youth cleaning up trash on our local beaches.
At a time when many children are raised to become entitled without having the opportunity to serve and care for others (including the environment), it is easy to lose sight of the end goal. Since these children are the future, we as their parents, grandparents, and educators have a unique opportunity and window of time to raise up our future citizens and leaders.
Cindy Hartwig is a parenting coach and consultant specializing in start-ups, growth, and expansion for churches and schools. She works with children, parents, educators, administrators, board members, accreditation teams, and pastors to strategize and implement best practices in education. Hartwig resides in Canyon Lake and is co-founder of 1 Focus Counseling.
