Healthy Children: Holiday gift-giving: A modest proposal from Dr. P

As the holiday season heats up and the true meaning of the celebrations gets lost in the buzz of XBoxes and such, Dr. P has a suggestion for one of the best gifts you can give your kids:

Sit down with your kids and tell them that, instead of one of the presents you had planned to give them, you are instead going to donate the cost of that present to the charity of their choice.

Then talk with them about what the word "charity" means, how charities aid people in distress, the different kinds there are...

Ask them to imagine what kind of charity they might want if your family needed help in some way (e.g., "What do you think would help our family most if Katrina washed away our house?).

Then let them think about it and pick their charity of choice.

When the holidays come, one of their gifts can be a nice card stating "$_ donated by Billy Goodfellow to the Welcome Charity. This money will be used to..."

I think this is a great way to help teach your children about empathy, especially for those more disadvantaged than themselves, and about the joys of charity during a season that tends to emphasize commercial acquisitions.

With a little luck, these lessons might be a gift that will endure long after the latest and greatest toy is relegated to the junk heap.

(P.S. If you do try this. Let me know how it goes on my WebMD Message Board)