Reply to What If Your Kid Isn’t Into Volunteering or Community Service?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is why I’m a fan of required community service. Sure, for some kids it’s just a box they check with the most minimal effort they can muster. But for others, it’s the push they need to get involved in something they end up really caring about. My kids work with a neighborhood organization that provides food and health services to others in the local community. They both continued volunteering after satisfying their school requirement. Beyond the general positive experience of helping others, they’ve also built skills in food handling and customer service that they can include on their resumes as they pursue paid jobs.

I don’t know whether my kids would have gotten involved with this organization if not for the school service requirement. But I’m so glad they did and believe it’s had real benefits for them, as well as the organization they’re serving. [/quote]

+100

It’s good for teen’s mental health too [/quote]

So are many things…yet schools don’t require you to join a student club, participate in a music/arts EC, play a sport (I know some privates do), etc.

Those are also great for mental health.[/quote]
Meet genius- my kid plays sports and has a job too.  It’s the “giving back”/gratitude/service that is the spike for mental health.  Looking outside of oneself and helping others less fortunate.  Our society is a mess and selfish. [/quote]

I guarantee you that more kids would feel happier and have better mental health if they engaged in any of the school activities.

My point is that schools for some reason force you to do community services, but they don't force you to engage with the school.  That doesn't make much sense to me since it's practically easier to participate in school activities.[/quote]

Schools can make community service easy too. Some schools have service days, do projects in school and after school during after care. Some schools make service a regular part of the school day or school week. Some districts have summer camps that are service oriented. Etc. etc. It's all out there and readily available.[/quote]

Ok…but most of those are designed to just get kids their mandatory hours.

Our school will give service hours for helping decorate for homecoming and all kinds of things.

A friend at a private school says the school offers one week service trips for which students pay to attend which are basically designed to just get kids their service hours the easiest way possible.

These trips are very popular and you are essentially just buying your way out of real CS.[/quote]

So don't let your kid do those two specific services if you don't like that method. Choose on of the other million options.[/quote]

You completely missed the point.  Why force community service hours just to let kids buy their way out of them or claim CS hours for things that nobody considers CS.

Maybe...just don't make it mandatory at all so kids that really want to do it, can do it.[/quote]

Because as a community we see the value of encouraging, by requiring, all students to give a little of themselves in some small way at this age. You may not like all the projects some kids do, and we can be sad that some kids "cheat" themselves out of a real experience, but that doesn't mean there is no good in requiring it. SSL reaches thousands of kids in our community, public and private schools, churches and scouts and sports teams, and results in hundreds of thousand of hours of work in our communities. This is a very good thing.[/quote]

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