An Infant's First Volunteer Experience

Our little 5 mo old, Kavi, has started his first volunteer experience in the last few months with an organization called Roots of Empathy, who were actually featured in the DailyGood. The idea behind the organization is to use infant babies to teach empathy and help combat bullying. Kavi goes once a month and meets with a class of second graders. The other day was Kavi's second class and I was fortunate enough to join Trushna this time. It was a really amazing experience to see how excited the kids were to see Baby Kavi. When we walked in the room they sang a song to welcome the three of us during which Kavi 'went' to each child and 'said' hi. This time the theme was crying and the major takeaway was that a crying baby isn't a bad baby, but rather a baby that wants/needs something. We answered questions from the facilitator about Kavi's crying frequency and then talked about our own feelings when Kavi cries. There were silly questions (does Kavi play videogames?), but overall I think it's a good program. I think it is important for the kids to see positive parenting role models, to learn about babies in a way that they can apply the lessons in their own homes (if there is a baby), and it gave them an opportunity to think from Kavi's perspective. Of course for Kavi it was just fascinating to see all these wide eyed faces staring back at him, laughing, singing, and moving around. I would highly recommend parents of infants look into this program and try to work it into their little one's first year.