Austin Scholar #122: Making charity selfish: the secret to getting your kid to volunteer
& my sister and Adlerian psychology
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: My sister and Adlerian psychology
Making charity selfish: the secret to getting your kid to volunteer
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been up to…
As you read this, I am on my way back to Austin (literally – I’m on an airplane as I’m posting this). After a truly lovely two-and-a-half weeks with my friends, I’m ready to see my family again and sleep in my own bed :) Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter to hear about the trip and the things I’ve learned about independence!!
Austin’s Anecdote: My sister and Adlerian psychology
For pretty much any high schooler, charity and volunteering are just things you do to get into college.
It seems bad to say, but I was no different. If I’m being incredibly honest, I wanted to start the Learn and Earn program so I could get into a good college. So I traveled to Ukraine and spent a month setting up a program to help Ukrainian refugees get their education back on track. The first two weeks were really hard, and any time I was struggling, I would calm myself by remembering that the work I was doing would really help me secure the future I wanted for myself.
But as time went on and I started to see actual results – kids saying that what we were doing was helping them – my motivation began to change.
I started getting up every morning for the kids. It made me happy to make them happy. I felt like I was changing lives.
I eventually realized the reason for this transition after talking to my sister.
My sister loves to read books that sound impressive to other people, so, ironically, one of her favorites is called The Courage to be Disliked.
After reading the book, she immediately burst into my room to test her knowledge and prestige on me. She introduced me to something called Adlerian psychology and the idea that true happiness comes from feeling like you’re contributing to your community.
Which, it turns out, is the key to get any kid to start volunteering.
Making charity selfish: the secret to getting your kid to volunteer
It’s no secret that teens struggle with happiness – study after study shows the declining mental health in teens around the world.
How do we fix it? According to Adlerian psychology, the answer is to get them to contribute to their community.
But how do you get them to care about volunteering?
Based on my own experience, the answer was to make it about them – show them what’s “in it” for them.
If you talk to them about how happiness comes from contributing to their community, they’ll probably be more inclined to want to try it. And all you really have to do is get them started.
The secret is just to make charity selfish.
This may all sound great, but where do you start?