Watch: How do I teach kids generosity?

Charitable Impact Founder and father of two, John Bromley, talks about nurturing generosity in kids and why he gives his children a monthly charitable allowance.

We all want to have generous kids. So, how do you teach that? Generosity is such a great characteristic. I think it’s really valuable to serve ourselves and how we go through life. It’s fun to be generous. So, how do you teach that? 

Let me just tell you what I believe. First of all, I believe that generosity is natural. It comes with us at birth as human beings. But if you don’t nurture nature, what happens? Generosity does need to be taught. It needs to be modelled. It needs to be experienced, so people have to trial generosity and see how it goes for them. 

I happen to have children, and I’m struggling, doing my best with my partner to develop them into charitable beings. One of the things I’m doing to develop that generosity that relates to charitable giving is giving them a charitable allowance. 

We choose to give them an allowance once a month. Each kid gets a certain amount of money that they have to give away. But once they have that money, they are in control of what type of cause they’re giving to, what charity they’re choosing. The reasons why they’re doing it, when they’re doing it… all those things are up to them. 

In the context of generosity applied to charitable giving, I’m choosing to give my children a charitable allowance so that they can experience the development of generosity in the context of giving money away, and at the same time, we’re starting to develop their charitable literacy.