Wear
the Cape’s tips were conceived by the organization’s resident character
education expert Philip Brown, PhD, who is a Fellow of the Graduate
School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University,
where he founded and directed the Center for Social and Character
Development. With his pointers, Dr. Brown focuses on how we can help our
kids understand the joy of giving, as well as the pleasure of
receiving, and how we can fill the holidays with love, rather than
experience a time of regret and emotional emptiness.
Top 5 Ways to Teach Your Kids to Give and Receive in the Holiday Spirit
1. Be intentional.
Talk to children about giving and charity, how it makes us feel, and
what values we are upholding. Whether the heart-to-heart is about giving
money or time and energies, research shows that talking with children
to help them understand the family and society values associated with
giving is important.
2. Think beyond your family. Let
children know they are part of a community and global citizenship. Ask
who has served your family this past year and could use some
recognition. Look at where there are people in need locally, nationally
and internationally. Could a neighbor use a helping hand or the local
food pantry some extra servers?
3. Involve your kids in decision-making.
Include your children in discussions about to whom something should be
given, whether it’s a toy, a dollar, a card, the offer of service or a
good word. Simple and sweet can open the heart as much as big and fancy.
Think of family and then extend outward. Involving kids in the process
of selecting charities or persons to whom they want to give goes a long
way toward building a generous spirit.
4. Gift outside the box – literally.
Consider gifts of experiences rather than just material items. We
remember and cherish good times together longer than almost any physical
present.
5. Don’t overlook the art of receiving.
You can help children build their character by learning how to receive
gifts gracefully and with gratitude, which is as important as being a
caring giver. The holidays are also about receiving. Receiving should be
done with an open heart, remembering that the person giving the gift
wants to please you and make you feel good.
Dealing with Disappointments Is Part of Learning
According
to Dr. Brown, dealing with disappointed expectations during the
holidays provides an opportunity to support children’s learning process
and emphasize that the holidays are about sharing time with loved ones,
not about the size of the gifts. He recommends being present to each
other, remembering that children ascertaining how to handle intense
feelings is rarely a smooth course, and being tolerant of their
mistakes, as you would want them to be of yours. “Emotional honesty goes
a long way to healing the wounds of dashed expectations,” commented Dr.
Brown.
Opening One’s Heart Helps Shape Character
To
build an ethic of caring, commit to emphasizing the power of giving
throughout the year, encouraged Dr. Brown. When tensions and
expectations are high is not the best time to introduce and ask for or
demand new behaviors from kids. If you’re beginning this holiday season,
start small. Learning about giving and how to do it from a place of
compassion takes an open mind, as well as an open heart, and repeated
exposures.
“Avoiding
being swept up in societal pressures to dazzle our kids with exciting
gifts in pretty packages is one of the biggest challenges for parents
during the holiday season,” observed Leigh Ann Errico, CEO & Founder
of Wear the Cape & the kidkind foundation. “Teaching children to
appreciate non-material blessings all year round helps parents battle
expectations for excess.”
Errico,
an experienced leadership coach, built Wear the Cape and established
the kidkind foundation in 2013 when she identified the need for
resources on kindness and character-building that would appeal to her
own four children. The idea for the brand was sparked when she observed
that the chance to wear a cape—the organization’s logo—motivates
children to act like heroes, or “Cape Kids,” in order to live up to the
symbol of honor.
Starting
today, Wear the Cape is kicking off its #BetterThanPresents challenge
and inviting people of all ages to post a short video on social media
sharing what they want this holiday season that money can’t buy, then
daring friends and family to do the same. Join in! Include the hashtag
#BetterThanPresents when posting your video, and tag your friends and
Wear the Cape's Facebook page (www.facebook.com/wearthecape/).
To learn more about Wear the Cape, visit www.wearthecapekids.com.
About Wear the Cape™ and the kidkind foundation
Wear
the Cape™ is the first global, mission-powered brand with the nerve to
equate being kind with being cool. By coaching kids to be BETTER THAN
THAT™, Wear the Cape breaks down barriers and brings people together—a
world of new values prevails: It’s cool to be inclusive, tolerant and
socially responsible. From its line of apparel and accessories, to its
educational tools and its own non-profit the kidkind foundation, Wear
the Cape sparks awareness and raises money to build heroes, a kid at a
time. Wear the Cape’s products and resources are designed to create
teachable moments between kids and the grown-ups they look up to with
Hero Tags that tee up conversations about what it means to stand up and
stand out; to stick up for the underdog; to do what’s right, not what’s
easy. Wear the Cape donates 10% of its net profits directly to the
kidkind foundation, and the rest is reinvested in the design and
production of new products, as well as character-building educational
materials for parents and teachers to help the kids they love. Wear the
Cape’s work with communities and schools is helping mold everyday heroes
that will create a kinder, better world for us all.
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