Five Ways to Teach Your Children to Give Back During the Holidays
The holidays are a good time to talk to your children about being thankful for their health, family, friends, and all the other good things they have in life. It's also a good time to teach kids about giving back to the community and the less fortunate. It's important to help people in need, especially during the holiday season. Here's how to give back for the holiday and show your family how to teach children to give back as well.
In Matthew 20:28, it talks about how Jesus came in this world to serve and not be served. As believers, our family feels called to do the same. It's the least we can do out of gratitude to Him who gave so much to us! We hope everyone can experience the joy that comes from serving others this Christmas season.
Here are their five ways to teach children to give back during the holidays:
1. Make Christmas cards
Kids will love being able to create and decorate their own holiday cards to send to the troops, sick children in hospitals, or people in nursing homes. You can even include some candy, Christmas cookies, or small items that might be helpful for the recipient. Each of these groups of people need an incredible amount of support and love; a simple card can make a huge difference.
2. Volunteer at a soup kitchen
You can find a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter near you in need of volunteers to help provide, prepare, and serve food to the homeless and hungry in your neighborhood. It's a great way to give back to your community and your child can help with little things like serving the food.
3. Adopt a family for the holidays
The Salvation Army and other organizations offer Adopt-a-Family programs for the holidays so you can sign up to buy gifts for families in need. Your children can help you pick out presents, clothes and toys for each member of the family. Let them know that not everyone can afford to buy presents at Christmas which is why it's good to share what you have.
4. Donate old toys and clothes
This is something the whole family can get in on. Everyone should go through their closets and find clothes that no longer fit or that they no longer wear that they can donate. Coats and jackets are always in demand during the cold winter months so it's a great idea to donate them to a coat drive. Kids will be getting new toys to play with at Christmas so use this to encourage them to give away old toys to children whose parents can't afford to buy them new toys.
5. Thank those who serve
Sometimes we forget to thank the people who help us out every day and we take their services for granted. Have your children help you give out cookies, candy canes, cards, or even a flower to the people who help you. These people include the postman, doorman, grocery store clerk, church workers, office receptionists, etc.
Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventors of the Zipadee-Zip
The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: "Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time," and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family's reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker's daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.
When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.
Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte's startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!
To date tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!
Interested in writing a guest blog for Sleeping Baby? Send your topic idea to pr@sleepingbaby.com.
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