Many of us hope to raise happy, healthy, kind children. And while there’s plenty we can do to make them happy and healthy, fostering kindness and compassion can be a challenging task. For one thing, young children are naturally pretty egocentric; it’s just how their brains work at this age. It’s hard for them to see from other peoples’ perspectives—as well as that of other sentient beings—and empathizing does not come easily. It’s our job to help demonstrate healthy, compassionate choices and actions to help teach them these traits.

Craig Kielburger, 26, of Canada says it can definitely be done. At age 12, Kielburger started the Free the Children organization, which trains kids in North America to help children overseas through various programs, projects, and education. Kielburger’s book, The World Needs Your Kid: Raising Children Who Care and Contribute, contains guides, life lessons, and teachable stories to use as lessons to inspire children and families to make a difference. Kielburger and his co-authors also explain the benefits of improving the world aside from the obvious ones, such as a higher sense of self-esteem, making friends, and even improving one’s grades in school.

Kielburger stresses that it’s the little things that count. His schoolteacher parents led him by example, such as by interacting with the homeless and reading the newspaper every day together as a family. One thing that Kielburger says is absolutely true: “It starts with kids. The most powerful people in the world are not politicians, they’re parents and teachers.”

These powerful people, however, are not focusing on kindness so much these days as they are on educational results—meaning not learning itself, but academics, grades, and college. Kielburger says the traditional three R’s we are all familiar with need to be replaced with the three C’s—compassion, courage, and community.

To do this, Kielburger has launched yet another inspiring project—Me to We. Me to We is a great resource for people who live the MOGO: Most Good, Least Harm path. It encourages people to seek out information to make good choices that impact themselves and the world. It also helps people take incredible volunteer trips to places like India, Ecuador, and Kenya where they help create clean water projects, build schools, or create positive change in other sustainable ways.

Kielburger and his works are definitely worth checking out if you are striving to raise a compassionate family. This article also includes some of his personal tips for raising humane kids, such as “curing the gimmies.”