This is a time of year when you can accomplish very little without much effort. Very little, that is — except for buying Christmas presents for family and teachers, attending school holiday assemblies, tipping the doorman, and (if you’re lucky) organizing an upcoming vacation. How fulfilling.

But in fact, this is an important time of the year to teach your children that small acts of kindness can change the world, and that sometimes, what feels like an obligation can turn out to be the best part of the week. What I mean, of course, is that this time of year in New York lends itself to volunteering in soup kitchens, visiting the elderly, and reading aloud to children in shelters — all with your children in tow.

There are two subjects I am frequently asked by parents to discuss. The first is how to answer our children’s thorny questions about the world.

At a middle school gathering a few weeks ago, one parent said that she finds her son’s questions off-putting. “He asked me why some children in Africa starve to death,” she said. “He wanted to know if normal kids in Iraq had food to eat, and if they were going to school. The next day he asked me why some countries in the world had so much, and some had so little. What am I supposed to say to a 13-year-old?”

The second issue that I find many parents forced to confront is how to help our children combat the rampant materialism that surrounds them. Apple, Abercrombie, and Nike spend millions of marketing dollars aimed at 13-year-olds — not 33-year-olds. “My daughter wants $100 jeans and the latest iPod and the latest cell phone and Ugg boots and a bag that costs more than my handbag,” a mother of a teenager told me at a similar school gathering in September. “Many of her friends actually have all of the above. How do I get her to realize that these things don’t bring happiness? I don’t mind her having a few of these things, but I really worry that she’s too focused on this kind of stuff.”

One of the most powerful ways to effectively address both of these concerns has nothing to do with artfully answering complicated questions, or delegating financial responsibility to brand-conscious teenagers. Teaching our children that they have a responsibility to give back to less fortunate members of their communities might seem like a peculiar remedy to anxiety-ridden questions and teenage voracity for status symbols. But it is tried and true.

“Last year, my family began to volunteer at a homeless shelter one night a month,” a mother of two teenagers told me. “The first night, I have to admit that I was nervous. And my kids acted as if we were inflicting some sort of torture on them. But it’s turned out to be the best decision we’ve made. They really have become less spoiled and have the kind of perspective that my husband and I were just about desperate for them to have.”

Telling your brand-obsessed 14-year-old that having the latest cell phone isn’t important will not make nearly as much of an impact as a personal experience with someone who doesn’t have a roof over her head. The message will be so powerful that you might not even have to connect the dots.

In every neighborhood in this city, there are all sorts of volunteer opportunities — including a vast variety of experiences for parents and their children who are only ready to dip their timid toes into community service. Within a few minutes of searching on the Internet using the words “family volunteer opportunities in New York City,” I found hundreds of ways for children and teenagers to deliver meals to the housebound elderly, wrap holiday gifts for underprivileged children, care for pets that are awaiting adoption, and organize donated clothing into appropriate groups.

Children who are up at night worrying about pictures they see on the cover of newspapers and magazines from faraway lands will realize that they have some ability to improve the lives of the people around them. This lesson will stick with them until they are old enough to improve the lives of those in distant lands. While the millions of starving children in Africa make headlines, there are, unfortunately, thousands of children starving right here on our own doorstep.

So add something else to the never-ending to-do list this year: Pick a night in the next few weeks and mark it in pen on your calendar. If you want your children to know that there is more to the holiday season than getting the latest and greatest present, and if you want them to understand that each person can improve this world, show them how. In this season of giving, this will be the greatest gift of all.

sarasberman@aol.com