With the holiday season just around the corner, families and households will soon be gathering to give and receive gifts. Many will also be sending donations to communities in crisis and organizing charity events and food drives to help others.

The reason for our holiday generosity is obvious to us as adults. We hold a sense of moral responsibility to be kind and get the satisfying feeling of having done a good deed.

For children, it can sometimes be less clear why, when, and how they should show kindness to others.

Based on my research and that of other developmental psychology researchers, here are three things science says parents can do to encourage generosity this holiday season.

Children learn best by seeing and imitating. Observing adults and the consequences of their actions teaches children which behaviors are good or bad, kind or mean.

As a parenting and child psychology researcher, I have worked with colleagues to understand how parents can model kindness and generosity to successfully teach their children these same values. Our........

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