(Post by MARILYN PRICE-MITCHELL,  PhD)

It’s that time of year again. Sparkling lights, glittering trees, and gift-wrapped presents fill store windows. While children begin to feel the magic and anticipation of the season, adults may ponder how to bring the real meaning of giving into their families’ lives. In fact, the holidays play an important role in shaping young people’s life-long identities about giving. What will you do this year to help children learn the true meaning of the season?

Of course, children associate the holidays with being receivers of gifts. But according to studies in human development, it is the giving of gifts that reaps the biggest psychological rewards. Mindful Gift Giving for Families: How Holiday Gift Giving Shapes Children’s Lives explains the psychology of gift giving and why the holidays are an important time for children to develop their “giving identities.” Parents can help children and teens realize internal rewards by teaching them how to give back during the holiday season and throughout the year. There are many ways to give back, including through some of the excellent projects listed below.

Ways for Families & Kids to Give Back this Holiday Season

Pledge to Volunteer

To mark the season of giving, from November 29 through December 13, each time a child or teen makes a pledge to volunteer through generationOn, its partners at Hasbro will donate a toy to a child in need. As part of their Holiday Gift Campaign, generationOn encourages kids, parents, teachers and nonprofit organizations to explore its many online resources, including holiday service projects that help kids turn pledges into projects. Also through pledging, children become engaged in a youth community that makes a big difference in the world – one small step at a time.

Sponsor an Impoverished Family

The Family-to-Family project helps American families share their bounties with others who are impoverished. They will link your family with a family struggling to put food on the table. Once a month, they’ll ask you to either shop, pack and send a box of groceries to them, or make a donation that allows them to do it for you. The best way is to get kids involved in the shopping, in the process of giving! Encourage children to reflect on what others would want, how they can empathize with families different from their own.

Visit Someone Confined to a Nursing Home

Bring the spirit of the holidays to those who otherwise might not have a celebration. The Holiday Project is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to pass along from generation to generation the responsibility of making a difference in the world by experiencing the difference we make in each other’s lives. The project connects volunteers with thousands of people spending Christmas, Chanukah, and other holidays confined to hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutions. Start a project in your community or join one already operating in 13 states.

Serve a Meal to the Homeless

The National Coalition for the Homeless is a national network of people committed to ending homelessness. They work to meet the immediate needs of people who are homeless by providing education, advocacy, and grassroots organizing. Check their directories of national and local organizations where your family can help this holiday or throughout the year.

Donate to a Food Bank

Right now, the programs that put food on the table for America’s vulnerable children, seniors, and working families are on the chopping block. Your help is desperately needed to fill food banks and pantries throughout the country. Feeding America, a nonprofit network of member food banks, can help your family find convenient ways to give.

Turn Family Values into Action

What values does your family hold about giving back? The holidays are a perfect time to talk about your values and make a plan to put them into action now and in the coming year. We are often so busy during the holidays it’s easy to go through the motions of gift-gifting without connecting to the deeper meaning of giving. Yet it is these deep connections that shape children’s “giving identities” and help them lead a life of happiness and well-being.

Family projects that involve giving to those in need during the holidays can be turned into powerful lessons that teach compassion, empathy, and meaning to children. By adolescence, young people have the capacity to think and act independently from their parents – to give conscious attention to and become passionate about giving.  Whatever your gift giving family traditions, it is always beneficial to revisit how your thinking has changed, and how you might want to adapt your traditions. Make children part of the dialog on family values. Studies show that what youth learn about giving during childhood and adolescence lasts a lifetime. Happy Holidays! Joyful Giving!

Marilyn Price-Mitchell, Ph.D., Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA

Marilyn is a developmental psychologist, educator, researcher, and writer who studies how today’s youth grow into healthy, successful, and engaged adults. She synthesizes multidisciplinary research in psychology, education, sociology, child & adolescent development, social psychology, and neurobiology to bring trusted, evidence-based research to parents, teachers, mentors, coaches, and all those who support kids. Visit her blogs at Roots of Action and Psychology Today. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

©2011 Marilyn Price-Mitchell. All Rights Reserved. Please contact for permission to reprint.