How to teach children good values.....thoughts?

[welshmum]

Dd is 4 now and I feel like we live in a world where children increasingly seem to get whatever they want whenever they want it (she doesn't but still seems to have acquired masses of stuff) They have no idea about the lives of other children and I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't want to frighten or upset her but I would like her to have some clue about the value of stuff. Is she too young?
What do you do about it?

I volunteer for Plunket (which is like the HV, but kind of more in the community as well with M&T groups and car seat rental and new mum courses), I take ds with me and he sticks stickers on people and asks them for money, and we talk about why they need to collect the money. He comes with me on my round on appeal week.

I put his gumboots on and go to community tree plantings, he isn't much use, but he learns that we need to make our environment beautiful - it doesn't get that way by itself and it's not someone else's problem.

He brings the recycling bin in on a Wednesday, and gives money to charity collectors.

You a kiwi then threebob?
How old is your ds?

I'm British, but ds is a kiwi. He is 3.3

sponsor a child same age as your dd? we do this and get occasional letter/photo - explain to ds how some children don't have much money, few toys etc - he's happy to send off football stickers etc, only a little thing but makes him understand a little better.

Am married to Kiwi. I think they're better at not wasting stuff over there.

I talk to my 6 yo dd about the world, simply but honestly. So she knows about the situation in Burma, apartheid in South Africa and what Chinese factories are like.

My MIL reuses gladwrap and tin foil. I am not that extreme, but we only have one world it seems a shame to waste it.

Oh, I also took Bob to see some men fishing off the pier and pointed out that they would eat the fish for tea instead of buying it from a shop.

We grew our own veggies for the same reason.

I really like the idea of sponsoring a child the same age as my own, anyone know which organisations do this?

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