Do you want to feel like a hero? Take care of others

Why is care important?

Care is of the utmost importance. We support organisations that take care of what’s important to us, e.g. the ones that take care of children or seniors or that deal with ecology. We react when someone gets hurt, we segregate trash and teach our children how to take care for pets. This gives us not only satisfaction, but also a sense that we can impact the world to make it a better place. Talk to your child about how to behave when someone needs help or when someone is hurt. 

What is caring?

Recall a situation when you took care of or helped someone. Tell your child how it made you feel. Ask them if they remember a situation when they’ve been taken care of. Perhaps they took care of someone themselves? You can draw examples of such situations and create a comic book. Also, talk to your child about how we feel when someone takes care of us. How do we feel when we take care of someone, what do we get from it?

How can we take care of others?

Create a good advice list. Talk about how we take care of: 

- small children,

- the elderly,

- animals.

Try to create lists of good advice about how to take care of specific people or animals. You can also play scenes that illustrate this. Remind the child that in our lives we can meet people who are in a difficult situation and can need help. It may be a neighbour who isn’t able to do her own shopping due to illness. It could be a friend who missed a day at school and doesn’t know about the homework. Look around you. There might be someone who needs you. Think about how you can support such a person. 

People who help professionally?

Talk to your child about occupations that involve taking care of others. Perhaps you have such professionals in your family or among your friends? They are everyday heroes. Encourage the child to draw portraits of such people. You can also think about what to do to thank them for their work. It might be a card for a neighbour who’s a doctor or for an uncle who’s a paramedic. 

– Talk about what determines what professions people choose.

– Why do some people want to take care of others? 

– What significance does the work of such people have for individuals and for the whole community?

How do we take care of ourselves?

Of course, taking care of others is very important. However, don’t forget to take care of yourself. Only someone who’s in good shape themselves can take care of others properly. So let’s take care of our health, maintain proper nutrition,  keep  our body fit and have inner strength.

All source materials are prepared by the team of Kulczyk Foundation’s Education Department in cooperation with teachers and experts – pedagogists, psychologists and cultural experts – and verified by an experienced family therapist Kamila Becker. Kinga Kuszak, PhD, Professor of Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Educational Studies, provides content-related supervision over Kulczyk Foundation’s educational materials. All materials are covered by the content patronage of the Faculty of Educational Studies of Adam Mickiewicz University.

The article was published on 12.05.2020 on the website of Instytut Dobrego Życia (Good Life Institute)

Authors: Marta Tomaszewska (Kulczyk Foundation) and Anna Woźniak (Instytut Dobrego Życia)