Image courtesy of Alameda County Community Food Bank via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for One Green Planet, a website dedicated to ethical choices. Here’s an excerpt from “3 Tips for Helping Raise Kids to Serve”:

“It is always unnerving to me when I meet middle and upper middle class teenagers who don’t feel a sense of responsibility or a desire to improve the world, help the poor, protect the vulnerable (whether human or nonhuman), make humane choices, or be of service to others. Our culture today seems to foster a sense of entitlement that I find damaging not only to our world, but to our children whose lives are diminished by a focus too intent upon the self.

So how does one foster a service ethic and sense of responsibility toward others among children? Waiting until the teen years is often too late. Service should begin very early on.”

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: community service, humane parenting Tagged: | Altruism, children, community service, compassion, compassionate kids, Generosity, humane education, humane parenting, parenting, systemic change, volunteering, volunteerism