Helping Others Helps YOU Shine
Volunteering and helping others isn't always the most comfortable thing; let's face it, as a child or young adult, serving at the local homeless shelter or even volunteering on a work site with other kids wasn't always the stress-free, fearless task you hoped it would be. But volunteering itself, by it's very nature of commitment and compassion, serves as a bridge for overcoming those fears and for bringing families together - here's how:
Volunteering & Serving Others . . .
1. Helps You Step Out of the Box: Oftentimes overcoming your fears takes outside-of-the-box thinking and creative actions - take the man who faces his fear of heights, for example, through a virtual video game instead of jumping out of a plane.
Same goes for volunteering - it helps kids step out of the box, thinking about hardwork no longer as a way to earn allowance or a good grade, but rather a way to change someone's life, beautify their community and challenge themselves. If social anxieties or very specific physical fears are holding your child back, making helping others part of their routine.
2. Helps You Build Confidence: Few things build confidence in a kid better than knowing they helped make a difference in someone else's lives. Overcoming your fears is really all about having the confidence and gumption to know you can - touching someone's life in a very positive, impactful way gives even kids this sense of pride and contribution.
3. Helps You Meet New & Different People: Volunteering is great for bringing kids and mentors together as well as unifying the groups of people that already exist in your child's life, i.e. Scout troops, youth groups and teams. Mentors and close-knit friends and support groups lend that hand that helps kids know they can get over their fears and personal road blocks, and they will always have loving friends at their back.
4: Helps You Grow Closer with Your Family: Doing GOOD with mom, dad, and the siblings is a tough experience to beat when it comes to bringing people together, supporting one another, building confidence and showing compassion. Overcoming fears can seem a daunting task, especially for a child, but having those shareed experiences with the ones you love the most, having those memories and all that one can take away from doing good for others, these are all positive building blocks that help kids soar!
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Check out Reading Rainbow's "Overcome Your Fears" Campaign this week and join them on twitter, facebook and youtube! Click here
