It has always been really important for Orion and I to teach our children the importance of giving back, serving and helping others. I truly believe that these principals and values start at home. It's my job to teach my children about these things.

We don't have a lot, but we do have something we can give. There are always ways we can help others. There are always ways we can serve other people.

Since it's nearing the holiday season of Christmas I wanted to share with you ways that we are teaching our children to give back. Since Ava has been a baby we've been buying gifts for children who might not otherwise have a Christmas. My husband's work has an angel tree that we've participated in before, our church now supports a local foster home and the children there.

We always pick two children to give to, even before we had two kids we did. The first couple years Ava had no idea why we were doing what we were doing. Last year was the first year she got it, and she didn't fully understand why we were giving gifts to others. There were some tears about not keeping the toys. This year she's 4 now, and she really gets it. We were able to explain it to her, and she got really excited about giving to these children.

Every Friday night we have "family night" so last Friday night we took our kids to Target and let them shop for the kids on our list. Ava had a lot of fun shopping for the little girl we choose. We came home and had a little wrap party with our gifts and talked again about why we were doing this.

After we were done we took the opportunity to pray for these kids, and pray for the gifts were were going to give them. That they would feel loved this Christmas season.

This is one of my favorite things we do as a family. As a family we are heavily involved in our local church and are always using this an an opportunity to teach our children to serve. They help us at church, they see us cleaning up and serving there. Ava loves jumping in an helping us with things and it's such a joy to see her loving being at church and helping others.

What ways do you teach your children about giving back and serving others? I'd love for you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Andrea Worley