Helping Foster A Sense of Communty In Your Kids Parents Families.com

Helping Foster A Sense of Communty In Your Kids

In a previous blog, I talked about the benefits of teens volunteering. Volunteering is a great way to foster a sense of community in your kids and in their book, 365 Ways to Help Your Children Grow, the authors give several ideas on ways your family can volunteer together. Here are some of them:

(1) Adopt A Grandparent — Find an elderly neighbor or a resident in a nursing home who may not have any family nearby and become their surrogate family.

(2) Adopt A Family — If you know of a less fortunate family in your neighborhood, your family can give them food or clothes once a month or presents on holidays or birthdays.

(3) Adopt A Disabled Person — The authors suggest taking the person on family outings or out to dinner with the family once a week.

(4) Books To Go — I love any idea dealing with books so I was pleased to see this idea. The authors suggest that you contact your local library and see if they will allow you to deliver books to homebound neighbors. We have a bookmobile here in Mobile and I know that they stop at many of the local nursing homes and senior complexes but on more than one occasion the van has been down for repair so I am sure the library would welcome a back up delivery system.

(5) Serve Food At A Homeless Shelter— Most shelters are always looking for volunteers.

(6) Visit A Nursing Home Regularly — My sister is activities coordinator for a local nursing home and they are constantly in need of volunteers to come and just talk with the residents. Many, sadly, don’t have families or their families visit irregularly or not at all.

There are many other ways you can teach your kids how to develop a sense of community including, recycling, reading the newspaper together or organizing a neighborhood clean up.

Another great idea is to Get To Know Your Neighbors. In my next blog, I’ll tell you how.