When our own kids started school, we noticed that many of our questions at the end of the day were about accomplishments. Did your team win? How did the test go?

To demonstrate that caring is a core value, we realized that we needed to give it comparable attention. We started by changing our questions. At our family dinners, we now ask our children what they did to help others. At first, “I forget” was the default reply. But after a while, they started giving more thoughtful answers. “I shared my snack with a friend who didn’t have one,” for example, or “I helped a classmate understand a question she got wrong on a quiz.” They had begun actively looking for opportunities to be helpful, and acting upon them.

As parents, we’ve also tried to share our own experiences with helping—and to make a point of including the moments when we’ve failed. Telling your kids about how you regret not standing up for a child who was bullied might motivate them to step up one day. Recalling a time when you quit a team and left your teammates in the lurch might prompt your kids to think more carefully about their responsibilities to others.

The point is not to badger kids into kindness, or dangle carrots for caring, but to show that these qualities are noticed and valued. Children are naturally helpful—even the smallest ones appear to show an innate understanding of others’ needs. By the time they are a year and a half old, many children are eager to help set the table, sweep the floor, and clean up games; by the time they turn two and a half, many will give up their own blanket for someone else who is cold.

But too many kids come to see kindness as a chore rather than a choice. We can change that. Experiments show that when kids are given the choice to share instead of being forced to, they’re roughly twice as likely to be generous later. And when kids are praised and recognized for helping, they are more likely to help again.

We can also advise our children to be mindful of the friends they make. Psychologists distinguish between two paths to popularity: status (which derives from being dominant and commanding attention) and likability (which comes from being friendly and kind). Adolescents are often drawn to status, flocking to cool kids who seem superior, even if they’re not particularly nice. (Every parent can relate to the experience of thinking, I can’t believe that kid’s behavior. He’s never coming over again!) Children are similarly quick to admire peers on the basis of their accomplishments—the fastest runner on the team, say, or the winner of the talent show. We don’t think parents should police friendships, but we do think it’s important to nudge kids to notice classmates who are kind and compassionate. We can ask how those children treat others, and how they make others feel. That’s a starting point for developing friendships with children who have compatible values—not ones who stomp all over them. We tell our own children that they shouldn’t hang out with the popular kids who sneer and laugh when a classmate trips in the cafeteria. They should get to know the kids who help pick up her tray.