Summertime often feels like both a blessing and a curse to parents. While it’s always wonderful to spend more time with the children, it can be hectic finding ways to keep them entertained and engaged all summer long. Volunteering provides an activity that parents and children can both enjoy, while offering the children a chance to learn and grow all summer long. Volunteering has actually shown to have a profound effect on the cognitive, emotional, and social development of children, making it a wholesome and enriching activity for kids.
Volunteering Teaches New Skills
There is no reason that learning should take a break over summer. By engaging children in volunteer work, they can learn about a variety of new topics and skills. By picking up litter in a public space, you can teach your children about environmentalism and the importance of nature. Bringing them to a soup kitchen can teach them how to cook and prepare food, while also teaching them about how to plan balanced and nutritious meals. Humane societies can teach children about various animals, while encouraging responsibility and compassion. Every volunteer experience offers an enriching educational experience that teaches useful life skills that will follow your children into adulthood.
Volunteering Encourages Emotional Growth
Volunteering can improve social growth, while enhancing the development of empathy in children. In fact, helping others is one of the best ways to teach empathy, as it allows the children to see first-hand the impact that good behavior has on society. It also helps to open their mind and make them aware of the problems facing the world, so they can grow to be socially conscious adults. Studies have also shown that one of the best ways to teach empathy is through modeling empathy, so by volunteering alongside your child, you can serve as a positive role model that fosters the emotional development of your kids.
Volunteering Teaches Social Skills
Social skills are routinely reinforced throughout the process of volunteering. Children are encouraged to collaborate with other volunteer workers, which helps them learn to share and work well with others. They will also be exercising their verbal and conversational skills throughout the day, which can help shy children to become more confident with their voice. Volunteering also builds confidence, as it allows children to help others in need, making them feel useful and important as a result.
Volunteering Can Help Children Find Their Passion
By the time a person is ready for college, many still don’t know what they want to do with their lives. In fact, on average, 80 percent of college students change their major at least once. Volunteer work exists across a range of fields. There are volunteer opportunities that involve gardening, construction work, medical care, teaching, cooking, cleaning, caring for children or the elderly, and more. This provides your children the opportunity to explore a variety of career paths from a young age, helping them to gain a better sense of who they are and what they want to do with their lives.
Volunteering is an enriching experience, and this summer provides the perfect opportunity to get your children more involved. By participating in volunteer work with your child, you can model empathy and enhance their cognitive and social development, while preparing them to be more compassionate and productive adults. Teach your children the importance of giving back to those less fortunate. Browse our selection of bulk goods at low rates to find supplies for local nonprofits in need.