By Kathlene Mullens, www.femaleequalitymatters.com

Kathlene Mullens, MLHR, SPHR, BSBA is the founder and CEO of Female Equality MattersTM, The "No Glass Ceiling" Certification/Brand©. With over a decade of HR experience in four Fortune 100 companies, Ms. Mullens is using that expertise in recruiting, line HR, employee development, and technology to help leverage the power of consumer spending to yield more women, with more equitable pay, in the C-suite and board rooms of companies, non-profits, and colleges/universities around the world.

July is National Make a Difference to Children Month! Here are a few alternatives to classic summer activities that will help your nieces and nephews learn the value of helping someone out.

Looking around at my friends with kids, I am blown over by how many of these activities there are out there and how expensive each one can be.

Given how tight money is for so many of us, is this the best use of your funds? Are you depriving your kids if they can't go to baseball, science, leadership, and harp camp?

Only the parents can answer these questions, but let me humbly suggest probably “no” and “no”, respectively.

Instead consider teaching your nieces and nephews some old school summer activities:

-Help someone paint a fence.
-Plant and maintain a garden.
-Change the oil in a car.
-Pick up trash.

Or some other activity that keeps them busy and supervised while demonstrating that life is not always an entertaining romp, and they may just learn a practical skill along the way. The further away from electronics, the better. By the way, this should not only be at a homeless shelter or a community service day – it should be with a family member or a neighbor. Pitching in should be a way of life, not a special event. Summer is a great time to practice what should be a lifetime skill.

As an added (and probably most important) bonus, they can learn the value of helping someone else while expecting nothing in return. For whatever reason today, kids are so often paid more than minimum wage for doing what used to be called, "helping out" or "being a family."

What is this teaching today's kids? That they should only pitch in if there is a direct benefit to themselves while expecting all manner of assistance be rendered them free of obligation? After all, I don't see these same kids paying family who help them out, right? Think of Amish barn raisings – everyone wins, learns, and enjoys company. All without a cell phone in sight.

Take time to teach your nieces and nephews the value of community, and challenge them to see what they can learn from the experience, no matter how mundane, while picking up practical skills and building their community.

Dare you, Savvy Auntie?

Published: July 9, 2013