Having a heavy school schedule and extracurricular activities may seem like your child’s path to success, but what about the importance of community service?
While education and competition help mold young minds, many people forget about the benefits of starting community service at a young age. Helping others and making a real difference in the community has more lasting, far-reaching benefits for children than you might realize.
To help get your kids involved, let’s look at 9 reasons to teach kids the importance of community service.
1. Opens the World Around Them
As kids, it can be easy to live in a bubble. Many aren’t exposed to other ways of life or people of vastly different backgrounds.
Volunteering for community service opens up a child’s world to new experiences. It helps them see circumstances that are different from their own. Plus, they meet people they may never of had a chance to meet before.
Community service enables kids to see past the immediate world around them and see first-hand how their help can make a difference in lives and communities.
2. Gain New Interests
Joining community service gives kids a chance to do an activity that may be new or completely different from their everyday life. In turn, it could spark a new interest or passion that will drive them to want to do more.
Whether kids volunteer in food service, at an animal shelter, or help build homes for the less fortunate, discovering a new field of interest will give them a purpose. They’ll want to learn more, do more, and possibly find their calling in life.
3. Develop New Skills
Some things you learn in school, but others you can only learn by doing. Developing new skills is a major importance of community service.
Working with new people from different backgrounds and expertise help to develop social skills. Working with their hands will improve physical skills. Plus, dealing with new situations and projects will fine-tune mental skills.
Kids can push the boundaries of what they thought they were capable of. Developing new skills can be the key to being successful in all aspects of their life.
4. Connect What They Learn in School to the Real World
It’s one thing to sit in a classroom and learn from a book. It’s a different thing to take that knowledge and use it in real-life experiences.
Kids who have an interest in environmental issues can expand that knowledge by recycling or helping to clean up local parks. Those who enjoy law or politics can volunteer for local elections or help out the community police department.
By taking what they learn in school and connecting it to real life, kids will develop a newfound interest in their studies. In fact, children who volunteer do better in school and are more likely to graduate.
5. Helps Develop Empathy
Getting involved with community service will open the eyes of children to the needs of others. Fostering their natural sense of empathy will give them a better understanding of other people.
To do this, make sure kids get first-hand experience seeing how their help makes an impact. Don’t only have them make sandwiches for the homeless, have them help deliver them. Or don’t simply gather toys for an animal shelter, let the kids play with the animals too.
Developing empathy will help kids see how they make a difference and learn to respond to the needs of others.
6. Stand out in College Admissions
Getting into a good college is more competitive than ever these days. Doing anything that will help kids stand out from the competition will only improve their odds.
Getting involved with community service is a great way to show interest in the community and for helping others. The earlier they start, the better their advantage.
That’s because universities know community service fosters leadership skills. Students who work in community service have a wider breadth of experience that appeals to colleges. Plus, it opens the door for kids to receive valuable scholarships.
7. Gain Experience Working with Others
Another importance of community service is the experience kids get working with others. Whether it be other volunteers or those they’re helping, working with others from different backgrounds is an amazing way to develop social skills.
Working together in community service involves communication, cooperation, trust, and collaboration. Coming together to work on a common meaningful task brings people together in a way a regular job may not.
It’s a great way for family, friends, and strangers to learn together and bond over a common interest.
8. It’s Good for Your Health
Volunteering is great for others, but it also has a positive impact on your child’s physical health.
Focusing on others takes the attention off of themselves which can break tension and reduce stress. The joy of volunteering can improve emotions and moods, which strengthens the immune system. Plus, doing good for others simply makes you happier and gives a sense of satisfaction.
While at its core, community service is all about helping others, but it’s good to know it has a positive effect on volunteers as well.
9. Gain Self-Confidence
Children may understand that others need help but feel helpless in knowing how they can make a difference. By getting involved in community service, they’ll quickly learn how even a single act of kindness can make a real impact.
Knowing they can make a difference empowers kids to do more. It boosts their self-confidence because they realize their own efforts and skills can improve lives and the community around them. This empowerment will boost kids to do more now and throughout their life.
It’s Never Too Early to Teach the Importance of Community Service
Set your kids on the path to success by helping others. Teaching them the importance of community service will give them the skills and confidence to do anything in life they want.
Looking for the perfect community project for your child? Contact a Camp Expert today for free information!
