How to Build a Great Foundation for Service With Your Kids

Today is post #12 of my 12 Days of Serving Others Series. I hope you have enjoyed learning different ways to serve others, and to teach your kids how to as well – I know I sure have! I am looking forward to incorporating more acts of service into our homeschool well into the new year.

I’ve shared a lot of different ways we can teach our kids to volunteer and serve others. Let’s wrap up this series with focusing on one of the most important places we can begin to instill this value – our own homes.

As homeschool moms, we are always serving in our homes. I love giving (especially to my kids). Maybe you can relate? And while my kids typically experience a lot of receiving at home, it’s important that I be mindful to give them the experience of serving others in our family as well.

I want my kids to feel the same joy in giving that I feel, teach them to be selfless towards others, and set the baseline for service throughout their life.

Most of all, I want them to know that we honor and show Christ when we serve others. We serve because Jesus served others, and set that example for us to follow.

Teaching Kids to Serve

There are little things we can do each day to train our kids in that tendency towards selflessness. Being selfless might not come easily to our kids (or us, if I’m being honest!), whose hearts are naturally bent towards sin. Here are a few easy things you can do to help keep service at the front of their minds:

• Use words to encourage serving and thinking about others in your home. When asking a sibling to help another, you might phrase it as, “Could you serve your sister by…?”

• Teach them to go out of their way to ask how they can serve or help others in your home. Maybe there are certain expectations that are already set (in our home, our kids know that when Mom pulls in the garage with a van full of groceries, they better be out the door helping bring them in!).

• Let them be helpful! It can be so easy to brush off their eagerness to help because it isn’t “convenient” for us at the moment. True, sometimes it really isn’t, but when at all possible, let them help and experience the joy that comes from it.

• Colossians 3:23-24 tells us “Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” Let us live out this verse in the way we serve in our home, so that we may bring glory to God and teach our children how to do the same.

Finally, when teaching your kids how to serve, you might enjoy reading some books about different issues people face and how we can help. Doing Good Together has a great list of resources for diving into different issues with your kids.

Serving in Our Home: Specific Ideas

You’ll of course also want to talk to your kids about what service is, and discuss examples of what this might look like in your home.

• If you have multiple children, encourage them to serve by doing someone else’s chores for the day! If you only have one child, they can still do a chore for mom and dad.

We use chore charts in our home, so it is easy to see when one child might be falling behind in their tasks for the week. In some cases, it has been great to help the other siblings empathize with each other and see how they might be helpful to one another.

• Write down ways to serve others in your home on slips of paper (or write them on popsicle sticks!) and put them in a box or cup. Tell you kids that each day, at whatever time they want, they should choose one and serve someone by doing the task! Make them simple things like “do brother’s chores”, “wash dishes for mom”, “play with the dog for 10 minutes”, “read to a sibling”, etc.

• This one will work better if you have multiple kids: assign each child a “secret sibling” to serve throughout a whole week.

• Teach your kids to show kindness with this fun Acts of Kindness Bingo! Showing kindness is an easy way to give of ourselves to others, and this printable is a great way to keep kindness in the forefront of your minds all year long.

• Teach your kids to give sincere compliments to people (and how to receive a compliment as well – I need to work on this one!).

• Grab some board games about kindness! Check out some of these fun favorites below:

You might ask them to keep a journal for a week, writing down their acts of service. They could also write down how it felt to serve or how other people reacted. Share with the family at the end of the week, and cheer your kids on!

Serving Out of Our Comfort Zones

Eventually, we want to make sure we are taking our acts of service out of our home (and maybe even out of our comfort zone a little bit!). It could be helpful to spend some time in prayer with your kids here, asking the Lord to guide you in how you can best serve as a family.

Serving sometimes involves doing things we don’t necessarily want to do, in order to help other people. There have been many opportunities for my husband and I to be a good example to our kids in this area! When opportunities to serve arise, it might not always be convenient for us, or necessarily fun. But we can model for our kids how to use our time and talents to help others.

We might work as a family to help an elderly neighbor with yard work. Or pick up trash around the playground if we notice it is dirty.

Our family may spend our free time helping friends or family with a big project.

The kids might help cook a meal to deliver to a new mom.

Check out the rest of the posts in this series to find more ideas for stepping out of your comfort zone to serve, not just during this holiday season, but throughout the entire year. Whether it’s small acts within your own home or larger service projects you do with your kids, practicing all of this will set up a great foundation for service that they will carry with them through their life.

Don’t Miss the 12 Days of Serving Others Series

This post is part of the series “12 Days of Serving Others”. In this series, you’ll find great tips and ideas on how you can incorporate service and volunteering into your homeschool all year.

I’ll link the rest of the series posts here to make it easy to navigate!

1. Something Important That Might Be Missing From Your Homeschool
2. The “Giving Box” and Other Ways Kids Will Love to Donate
3. How Your Creative Cards Can Make a Big Impact
4. Helping Our Furry Friends: Fun Ways Kids Can Get Involved
5. The Best Boxes You’ll Ever Pack
6. One Wreath Can Make a Difference
7. Random Acts of Kindness: How to Make Them a Habit
8. Why You’ll Want to Host a “Packing Party” This Season
9. Crafted With Love: Wonderful Service Projects for Crafty Kids!
10. How To Begin Volunteering With Your Family
11. 7 Ways to Bless Others With Your Baking Skills
12. How to Build a Great Foundation for Service With Your Kids

Comment below and let me know – how do you teach your kids to serve? What are your favorite ways to serve one another in your home?

This post is also part of the 12 Days of Homeschooling Fun Through the Holidays Series. Click here to check out the other amazing bloggers who are a part of this, and to enter the giveaway!