Children's School - Directors Corner

For Parents

Givers and Receivers
December 2004
Dr. Sharon Carver

Spending time with family and friends often reminds us of how challenging it is to help our children become both generous givers and gracious receivers. Fred Rogers shared his ideas for promoting this development in The Giving Box: Create a Tradition of Giving with Your Children (Running Press, 2000). He stressed the important point that even the most independent among us needs help at times and that our experiences in receiving loving gifts help prepare us to give lovingly. "Becoming independent is much more than mastering new skills. One of the most important parts of independence is knowing there are times when you can be helpful by giving things to others" (Rogers, 2000, p. 8).

Early childhood is a perfect time to model the reciprocity of helping and being helped, as well as to explicitly discuss the ways that each of us receives and gives assistance. At the Children's School, we emphasize this exchange from the first interactions we have in the morning when we work as a team to greet the children. We thank the children for their smiles and hugs even as we help them enter the school and remember to follow their morning routines. Giving notes to the staff, taking responsibility for classroom jobs and cleaning up also provide key opportunities for children to be helpers. As you prepare to spend several weeks together during the winter break, I encourage you to both notice and mention the giving and receiving of help that occurs on a daily basis. At the same time, you might also want to consider opportunities for you and your children to recognize gifts, particularly by offering thanks and making thank you notes. The time we take to show appreciation is a gift in itself.

One way the Children's School family will acknowledge the many gifts we have received is by participating in Pennies for Paper & Pencils, a collection to support early childhood programs in our region that lost supplies in the recent flooding. This whole school penny collection will begin now and continue through the first two weeks of January. Project Chair Marlene Behrmann (mother of kindergartner Daniel Plaut and professor in the Psychology Department at CMU) has enclosed a flyer and a label for families to attach to a jar or can that will serve as the collection container. Children can begin bringing pennies to school during the week of December 13th and then again after the New Year. In preparation for this "penny project", your family might discuss the ways that you could share pennies with "neighbors" or "friends" who need them to buy paper, pencils, and other supplies for their drawing / writing centers at schools that were flooded by the hurricanes. Fred Rogers explains that, "I know how tempting it could be to encourage generosity by asking people to help 'the needy' or those who are 'less fortunate.' That kind of thinking divides people into 'us' and 'them,' and doesn't necessarily contribute to a sense of 'neighborliness' ... Everyone has needs and everyone has something to give. As different as we are from one another, as unique as each one of us is, we are much more the same than we are different" (2000, p. 13ff). Additional project ideas for interested families are listed elsewhere in this newsletter; many of these agencies conduct similar projects throughout the year, so feel free to check the web for further information.

Thank you for the many ways that you invite us to partner with you to facilitate your children's development and for the ways that you offer your special talents to support the whole school. Together we have created a school community in which all of us can experience the joy of both giving and receiving.