Does giving come naturally to your child?
Headaches, anxiety and gray hair don’t count.
Rather, consider whether or not your child is innately predisposed to be generous with his possessions without being prompted?
As we countdown to Christmas, we’d all like our children to remember that it is better to give than receive. However, a new study found that most kids tend to be selfish with material items, unless they know their generosity will be seen by others.
The research, recently published in the journal PLoSOne, suggests that children as young as five years old strategize ways to advertise their charitable works, especially when it comes to giving and sharing with others.
“Much like the patterns of charity we see in adults, donation tendencies in children appear to be driven by the amount of information available to others about their actions — for both adults and children, the more others know about their actions, the more likely they are to act generously,” study co-author and Yale University researcher Kristin Lyn Leimgruber noted to reporters.
Like parent, like child.
Makes you think about how you come across when you are being charitable in the presence of your kids. What are they garnering from your actions?
Are you a reluctant giver, a discreet donator, or do you make giving a big deal in an effort to attract as much attention as possible?
In the study, researchers gave a bunch of five year olds a stack of stickers and told them they could share one to four of them with another child. However, only some of the children could see their potential sharing partners. The other half of the group was blocked from viewing their potential sharing partners.
According to the study’s author, the children who couldn’t clearly see their sharing partners were much stingier than the kids who had full access to the youngsters waiting to be shared with. In addition, researchers found that kids hoarded the stickers more when they were housed in an opaque box rather than a transparent one that showed what they were giving.
In the end, researchers found that five year olds are innately selfish, as only those children who could clearly see their sharing partners and gave their stickers in a clear box, consistently donated the maximum of four stickers.
So, if sharing is a learned skill, then ask yourself: In what ways do you demonstrate the gift of giving to inspire your children?