So why did it fall flat with my little audience?

We have read it several times over the past two weeks. Nearly every time my two-year-old has fallen asleep before the third or fourth random act of kindness amid the fifteen that are detailed, so 2 seems too young to enjoy this story.

In contrast, my five-year-old definitely responded to the message in this book. She likes to point out how each person is helping the next. She has a few favorite deeds that we may try to do, like dropping produce off for people we know, smiling and complementing people who look unhappy, or helping strangers with heavy bags.

In that sense, the book has served its purpose. It has helped her see the big impact of small good deeds as they spread throughout the world. It has inspired her to do her own good works.

Clearly, it was an effective learning tool.

However, as my daughter jumps into the shallow pool of new readers, rhyming her cat’s with her hat’s and giggling at an angry fish on a dish, I’m don’t want our reading time to be reduced to moral instruction alone. In a world full of technological distractions, I want to teach her to love reading as much as I do, and that must begin with an early childhood full of deliciously entertaining stories.

As much as I liked the message, Ordinary Mary was less than thrilling. No amount of superfluous exclamation points can fix that.

I’m going on a mission to find uplifting tales of kindness and compassion that entertain as easily as Kate Dicamillo’s Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken. Books that inspire pleas for a second and third reading. Or at least books that support our Doing Good Together efforts without inducing extra naps.

Do  you have any recommendations for books that can entertain even as they educate?

I’ll be mining the DGT Resources page for good suggestions as well as wandering the web for good ideas. I’ll keep you posted!

We’ve been looking to volunteer out in the community (as opposed to all of our Kitchen Table efforts), and Meals on Wheels seems like a great fit. The time commitment is surprisingly small, only an hour and  a half every three weeks. The girls will learn about people in our own neighborhood who need our help to have nutritious meals. Plus, they will spend more time with an older generation, a helpful thing for kids who live too far from their great-grandparents.

The handbook for parents is invaluable. Full of discussion questions and easily understood facts about nutrition, aging, and the importance of community service.

The girls and I made a practice delivery to dad, using the helpful “Checklist for Starting Out.” We knocked loudly, waited patiently, used our best smiles and greetings at the door, and handed over a homemade card. Of course, this was all very easy with dad. I hope they can be as cheerful and brave with the people on our route.

Our daughters recently spent time back in our hometown, at a big, multi-generational family gathering. My five-year-old hadn’t said a word about that experience until I brought up aging as part of a Meals on Wheels conversation.  Suddenly she was full of questions about great-grandpa’s walker. She called it a stroller at first, since no one had given her the correct word, and she was clearly worried about it. Afraid of it even.

I felt terrible that we hadn’t been more thoughtful about the issue of difference and respect before. Thanks to Meals on Wheels, we had a big conversation about all of the things great-grandpa can do, like play the violin and sing and fix bicycles even though his legs don’t work perfectly. She was so excited she told her friend down the street about how many things her great-grandpa can do.

Even before our first delivery, Meals on Wheels has enriched our lives. I hope we can do the same for the people we will serve.

What are your experiences with Meals on Wheels?

Did you volunteer with your own parents as a child? Have you brought your children recently?

Their blog is a delight, full of new ideas about living a joyous and compassionate life while teaching your children to do so. Unlike many other parenting websites, I never come away from this one with the sense of being overwhelmed or falling behind or failing at this seemingly impossible task of parenthood. I am nearly always inspired to try something new and live more deliberately.

Though the discussion group is now four chapters in, don’t worry. This is an easy read, and the posts and comments are waiting for you whenever you get a chance to catch up.

In the book, just as in her blog, author and sociologist Christine Carter lays out the latest information in psychology and sociology, assuring us that happiness can be thought of as a “collection of habits rather than a genetically endowed trait.”

This is good news! We can teach our children the habits of happiness as we learn them ourselves.

And for those of you feeling stretched and frazzled, consider that the first chapter, entitled “Step 1: Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First” focuses entirely on the importance of soothing your own frayed nerves, feeding  your spirit, and building your marriage before beginning anything else.

Hopefully, I’ll see you over at the Raising Happiness discussion.

As a former farm-girl transplanted to the cities, I’ve always tended a big garden. About this time every year, though I always vow to plan more carefully, I find myself leaving town just as harvest is in full swing.

This is a major sign that I am not a true farmer. It is also a source of much consternation. With tomatoes plump and blushing on their vines, the zucchini coming of age nearly every evening, and pole beans producing enough to feed my entire neighborhood, I’m heartbroken. Because of a much anticipated summer road trip, I will have no time to prepare, preserve, or parade this good food around to the neighbors.

Last week, when I harvested my first grocery bag full of fresh and local produce, I began looking for a home for the bounty to come. Unfortunately, some likely beneficiaries aren’t allowed to accept donations from backyard gardens. This was the case at Meals on Wheels and our local assisted living facility.

But most food shelves are happy to accept garden donations, including our local favorite People Serving People.

Our family has essentially adopted People Serving People. Along with an annual monetary donation, we make frequent contributions from their wish list. I keep a box in the hall closet for our monthly drop off. Many things find their way into that box, from the new dress my five-year-old just won’t wear to duplicate kitchen utensils.

This month, we’ll be making extra contributions. We’ve already dropped off a couple bags of produce, and at least one more will find its way there before our big trip. With luck, the garden will survive a few days of my absence, and I’ll have plaenty to share when we return.

The most recent came out last week. From Students, Less Kindness for Strangers reported a 40 percent decline in the empathy of college students, most of which has occurred in the last decade. While there is some disagreement over the quantitative measure of empathy, this is still a thought provoking study. People across the internet are saying, “ah ha, I knew it,” and are citing various examples of egocentric behavior among our society’s newest adults.

In contrast, back in May there was this article on The Moral Life of Babies, which demonstrates that we all have an innate sense of morality. We are all born with the groundwork for living a kind and loving life in community with our neighbors. The babies in this study not only understood the difference between fair and unfair, they preferred one over the other, and attempted to administer justice when the puppets used in the study ended up in their own chubby little hands.

The research suggested that these inborn traits may just sit around latent while the kids learn more about the world.

Which is why, I suppose, we parents feel like Every. Single. Social. Behavior . Must. Be. Taught…  Don’t hit your sister! Don’t bite your friend! Don’t run away and hide so you can hoard your toy! And yes, don’t eat the cat’s ear! I’m talking about two-year-old here, not a baby!

So what is happening? Why are we simultaneously discovering that children are born with the capacity for empathy yet reaching adulthood with an ever-diminishing quantity of it?

Like others who commented on the most recent article about teens and empathy, I point instinctively and disdainfully (and entirely unfairly) at reality television, social media, and the hyper-overvaluation of Type A perfectionism.

In other words, “Baah, kids these days.”

But most of the college students and college bound that I know are delightful and involved people, so what can I do to make sure mine end up in that category?

With that question in mind, I’ll offer this third lovely find from several months ago . Empathy is Natural; But Nurturing it Helps. It seems  that modeling empathy for your child, and being empathetic with their own  fears, needs, and triumphs may help grow their own capacity for understanding and identifying with others.

When my dramatic five year old got her latest round of vaccinations last week, she refused to stand up, preferring to crawl to bed declaring “My legs hurt too much to walk.”

Her two-year-old sister was extremely upset. “I don’t want her to hurt,” she repeated over and over. All the while she loaded up her sister’s toothbrush with toothpaste and delivered it to her on the bed, so poor hurting sister didn’t have to walk to the bathroom.

It was so dear. So empathetic. And definitely an instinct I hope to guard as they grow up together.

What are your family’s favorite, frequent adventures?

Have you looked for ways to add a DGT dimension to them?

Our family visits the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory at least a dozen times a year. We take advantage of the educational programs, free story times and puppet shows, and of course, learn about our animal neighbors that reside in the park.

Mention the Como Zoo to any family with young kids in the Twin Cities, and you’ll undoubtedly find a fan club in the making. For one thing, the whole park is free, with only a small recommended donation of $2 for adults and $1 for children. For another, the park is relatively small. In only an hour and half my girls can meander from the Galapagos turtles, to the new polar bear exhibition, through the tiger habitat, and all the way around the orangutans and other primates.

Anyone who hasn’t visited Como Zoo in a while might cringe at their memories of the park from a couple of decades back, when sad animals were crammed in a circle of tiny cages. Fortunately, the zoo has been transforming itself piece by piece into a small but lovely oasis.

Since we visit so frequently, we have decided to step up our support and sponsor an animal.

This decision caused some initial confusion. When I explained to my five-year-old that our sponsorship would help take care of whichever animal we choose, she was ecstatic. “Great! The zoo keeper can just tell me how to feed them. Can we take them home? I think I want the giraffe!”

Right. It took a while to clear that up. Luckily,she was almost as excited about a color photograph of her animal and special news about the zoo…. Especially news about new baby animals. She asked what we needed to do to become sponsors, and when she found out, she ran to her room yelling, “Well, that’s easy!”

She ran back clutching her piggy bank gleefully, “this should do it!” Her little sister followed suit. They delivered their donations at the front door of the zoo, since I’ll be submitting our official sponsorship over the phone.

The difficult part now is choosing our animal.

My two-year-old seems happy to support whatever decision her sister makes, while sister is weighing the decision extremely carefully. You see, the black-footed penguins have a very, very small space, and maybe our ($30) sponsorship could get them some more room. But then there are the ostriches, who always seem to be casing their pen for a big escape, they must need something to play with. But the lion was tucked away in a corner during our last visit. Maybe he was sad and needs our support!

So we aren’t actually sponsors yet, but the decision-making process is moving forward. Soon we’ll have a special friend to learn about and visit each time we head to the zoo.

Designing oven mitts for Meals-on-Wheels was the perfect Kitchen Table Project for our annual week at the cabin. I simply added a package of fabric markers and some inexpensive oven mitts to our packing list. On one particularly quiet morning, I pulled out the crafty stuff and set the girls to work.

This project kept them busy, and it got them talking. While it didn’t inspire the enthusiasm that card-making does, this project did solicit some good questions about Meals-on-Wheels. Who needs their meals delivered? Where do people who need help live? Why do the volunteers need pot holders?

And most importantly, Can we deliver meals?

My answer, of course, is a resounding Yes! We will be checking out the Meals-on-Wheels “School is out: Family time is in” initiative next week, when we deliver a newly tricked out potholders full of hand prints, drawings of happy feasts, and the inspiring words of a five-year-old: “smile” and “have a happy day.”

I’ll keep you posted on our first venture into out-of-the-house family volunteering!

Have you considered bringing a DGT Kitchen Table project along on your summer vacation?

Shel Silverstein just might be my favorite poet of all time,  (Where the Sidewalk Ends, anyone?), but somehow his popular children’s book about a selfless tree and a demanding little boy has always left me unsettled.

This might sound odd coming from an organization dedicated to helping families volunteer together, but the tree’s over sharing has always made me  uncomfortable

The tree is selfless in the extreme, to her own detriment.I’m obviously a proponent of giving, but I also hope to raise strong self-advocates

Many readers, including my own partner, see the tree’s ultimate selflessness as an expression of parenthood, but I certainly hope to return my own parents love and care more than Silverstein’s boy.

Others respond to the book’s subtle lesson in ecology. Our careless use of the Earth’s resources mirror the boy’s constant harvest of the tree. In the end he is worn out and alone with a stump, just as we will sit on a barren plain one day and wonder why we didn’t make real changes sooner.

When I dusted it off last week, I used it as a sort of Baby’s First Book Club discussion.

The Giving Tree was our starting point for a conversation about sharing rather than a demonstration of what giving should look like. This time, message didn’t feel so off to me.

My daughters both loved the story. The simple sketches and rhythmic words soothed them before bed in a way that their latest favorite Skippyjon Jones, never quiet does.

When I asked why she liked it, my five-year-old was enthusiastic, “Because that tree shared everything. She was a really good sharer.”

I struggled for a minute, after my daughter lauded the good sharing of the tree.

Building off of her response, I asked her a few simple questions:

• What did the tree share with the boy?
• What made the tree happy?
• What did the boy share with the tree?
• What could the boy have done for the tree?
• Who shared with you today?
• What could you share with others?

These discussion questions started a lengthy conversation. My daughter recognized that the tree was not always happy, and that the boy did not share anything. She thought the boy could have watered the tree or visited more often.And she fully enjoyed talking about how she can share with her sister, her neighbor, or her friends more often.

It was a pretty pithy conversation for a not-quite-kindergartner.

Still, she gave me a blank look when I suggested the tree could have asked the boy to visit more often. Perhaps that is just future me talking to my future college student.

What are your impressions of The Giving Tree?

How have you helped your child take a strong and positive message away?

Our Color-A-Smile effort fell a bit flat a few weeks ago, in spite of my high hopes for re-purposing our craft time. This time, I loaded our table with construction paper cards, glue, magazine cut-outs, and stickers, and then I got specific.

With the help of Make a Child Smile, I began a new conversation with the girls. Since summer is the season for banged up knees and splinters, I started there. A few questions really got them thinking.

• How did you feel when you fell off your bike this morning?
• How do you feel when you get your own mail from grandma?
• Do you think we could send some mail to another child who is feeling hurt or lonely?

I read them the brief story for Make a Child Smile’s featured kid, three-year-old Isabella. My five-year-old seemed really alarmed that Isabella was stuck in the hospital. Without any more direction, they made fairly elaborate cards for her. Then the girls, especially Big Sister,  helped me write a note to her based on the information on the site.

Isabella has big dogs at home, so my girls told her about our cats and our chickens. Isabella needed cheering up, so my daughter made up a knock, knock joke for her. Plus, they both stuffed the envelop with stickers so she could make a project of her own.

Happily, the card making didn’t stop there.

I now stock their art corner with a few folded pieces of paper, some stickers, and a few markers in a zip-lock bag. Whenever they hear of a family member or neighbor who gets hurt, out comes the card kit. Isabella has received a few others from us. So has a little girl over at another great site: Hugs and Hope, though their database is a little more difficult to search.

Adding a picture and a story to their craft, whether it was a distant family member’s surgery or a sick child we’ve never met, has made all the difference. Their creations get labeled “to Mom” much less often than with our Color-a-Smile effort. Even my two-year-old pulls out the card kit, saying, “Let’s make another wittle kid happy today.”

Have your kids cheered up unwell or lonely friends, family, or even strangers with homemade cards? How have they reacted to the experience?

Color-A-Smile redistributes children’s art to nursing homes, and it seemed like the perfect way clear out my own clutter without tossing away all of my daughters’ hard work.

It would have been, too, if my 5-year-old hadn’t taken our talk too much to heart.

I told her about Color-A-Smile in a general way. I told her that they would send her work to people who may be feeling lonely or unwell and that she could help them feel a little better. She could help them smile.

She fiercely set to work at our kitchen table. I assumed she was adding her name, age, and the word S-M-I-L-E, which she asked me to spell for her, to all of her drawings. I enjoyed the quiet while I got dinner ready.

Then she unveiled her work saying, “Here mom, I just wanted to make you and dad smile.” In her lovely pre-kindergarten scrawl she had labeled each and every picture “To Mom” or “To Dad.”

“Do you feel better?” she asked. At the time I had a minor cold. Apparently, my sneezes earned all that delightful art. Of course, it made me feel better, like any good laugh does. Unfortunately since this episode, every time I encourage her to make a picture for Color-A-Smile, it winds up with my name on it!

We’re now working on cards for Make a Child Smile, which encourages kids to send cards to specific children on their list.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Have you found ways to use your child’s drawings and coloring pages to improve the lives of others? It would be great to re-purpose rather than recycle them!