Katherine Commale of Pennsylvania has raised $43,000 to fight malaria.

Rachel S. Rosenfeld has raised $57,000 to build a school in Cambodia.

A group of motivated people has collected and cleaned over 2,000 pairs of shoes for donation to charity.

Impressive achievements, sure, but even more impressive when you know that these people are all children. Katherine is 7 years old. Rachel is a high school junior. The shoe collectors attend an intermediate school in Christchurch, New Zealand.

As a child, I didn't compete with these superstars, but I was raised to give. Because of my mother's faith, my sister and I participated in quite a few charitable activities with her throughout the year. One year, as part of Christmas activities at our church, we went shopping to fill a bag of groceries for a needy family. When we got to the bread aisle and she went to get a loaf of whole wheat bread, I burst out "Mom, can't they please have white bread? It's CHRISTMAS!" She had apparently gotten her message across that we should be generous in our giving, and I wanted the recipients of the grocery bag to have the very best.

Now that I'm raising a child, I think a lot about how I want to get this message across to him. (I also think about how to make him like whole wheat bread, but that's another post.) When I was working at a full time job, I gave a certain percentage of my income to social and charitable causes I believe in. Now that I'm working part time, I have a fixed amount set aside for giving out of "my" spending money. My husband has gladly agreed to some additional donations I've made from our joint account since he became the main breadwinner, but he does not have a regular habit of giving. We also don't participate in a faith community which has regular opportunities for giving, so anything we do, we will be figuring out on our own.

What I don't worry about is whether my son will be the kind of person who cares about changing the world. Everyone is born with the capacity for empathy, and even very young children love to help others. As long as we nurture that love, I know he'll be excited about helping when he learns about people in the world who don't have all the advantages he does. The trick is for us as parents to find ways to make giving and helping a satisfying experience for him, so that it becomes a lifelong practice.

Beth Kanter, a nonprofit consultant, asked her colleagues for ideas about encouraging children to participate in philanthropy. She has involved her children in fundraising since they were young, and she wanted to know what other parents do to instill a love of giving in their own children.

I encourage you to read her entire post, Encouraging Philanthropy at a Young Age: Teaching Your Kids To Give To Causes, and check out some of the links and resources. For me, the responses she got can be summarized like this:

• Make giving part of your regular family activities: be a role model for your kids, play giving games with them online, make it part of their allowance.
• Tie giving to events, such as birthday parties or holidays.
• Connect giving to their experiences and interests by letting them pick their own causes or giving to other children.

Quinn Donovan came up with a similar list, Developing Philanthropic Children, at his blog Connection Cafe.

As parents, my husband and I may have to improve our own lives in order to teach our son lessons we know are important - even if we may not have been perfect about following them ourselves in the past few years. (Just like eating vegetables and laying off the ice cream. Also, getting more exercise.) It may also mean shifting the focus of my giving for a while, or giving to additional causes, since some of the donations I make might be kind of abstract to discuss with a two year old.

I'm confident we can do it, though, just like we've shifted from sleeping in on Saturdays to making early morning trips to the park instead. Different, but still very rewarding.

[Image by Ammar Abd.]