Young adults who give and receive help

Article: Young adults who give and receive help (PDF)

Objectives

• To understand how young adults view and experience helping behaviour.
• To consider the social impact of giving and receiving help.

Classroom instructions

1. Engage your students in a discussion of what it means to give help. Ask them to provide examples of the ways that individuals help others, even in situations when they may not realize they are providing assistance. Are small acts of kindness any less valuable than acts that occur on a grand scale (e.g., helping a neighbourhood child with homework versus donating one million dollars to charity)? How might a single act of helping have a broad social impact?
2. Ask your class what they believe motivates someone to help another person? How might helping someone else be a gift to the giver as well as the receiver? Speculate on some of the reasons why young people are more likely than older persons to both give and receive assistance.
3. Have your students examine whether they would find it easier to give help to, or receive it from, a friend, family member, neighbour or complete stranger. Why? What specific types of aid might be exchanged with these different individuals?
4. Ask your students if they think that seeking help for a problem is viewed as a sign of weakness. Are some types of help more socially acceptable than others? Why might it be important to be able to receive help from others when it's needed?
5. Examine whether it is ever inappropriate to give or receive help. Consider possible negative consequences that could arise from providing or receiving help in certain situations, even when the help providers have good intentions. (E.g., financially or emotionally supporting someone with a destructive behaviour such as using drugs, or parents who always try to solve their children's problems rather than allowing the children to resolve them).
6. Explore with the students the circumstances under which help is expected. What is the difference between help and obligation? Does helping behaviour always have a voluntary component? Do individuals have a social responsibility to help others?
7. Have your students consider why certain events, such as natural disasters, spawn immediate huge outpourings of support, yet it is more difficult to maintain the public's attention on ongoing social problems, e.g., poverty, illnesses, both at a national and international level. Do the media have a role in keeping these issues in the public eye or in encouraging individuals to become involved?

Using other resource

• See the Civics and Society Teacher's Kit.
• See the Patterns of volunteering over the life cycle lesson plan.

Educators

You may photocopy "Lesson plan" or any item or article in Canadian Social Trends for use in your classroom.

Please e-mail comments or examples of how you used this exercise in your class.