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start charity early
Your kids may grasp that they can survive without a screening room in their apartment—or even without a second American Girl doll. But teaching them about families that are truly needy is just as essential. And that, too, is something you can begin early in their lives.
One Tribeca mom introduced her son to the habit of giving when he was just four months old. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s how old he was when Hurricane Katrina hit. We gathered all the clothes and toys he didn’t need anymore and packed them up. Then we propped him among the donations and took a picture so that later he’d know that giving back was part of who he was from the beginning,” she explains. Even today, at two, her son drops coins into the box for the Jewish National Fund that the family keeps by their kitchen sink. “It’s important to make giving a routine. It’s not about how much you give, but that you give,” she says.
“You’re planting the idea that as citizens, they have to care for others,” says Yvonne Brooks, author of Kids Finance 101. And there are many ways for children of all ages to participate, from collecting toys, clothes and coats to donate, as Geddes’s daughters do, to putting aside some of their own money (see below) to give to a local animal shelter or food pantry. It’s a habit you’ll be happy to see them continue into adulthood.
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