Recently I took my 6-year-old son to spend a few hours with a woman who was celebrating her 90th birthday. The visit was arranged by Dorot, an organization devoted to enhancing the lives of the elderly, through its birthday program, in which children, teens, and families add cheer to an elderly person’s birthday by visiting with a cake and a handmade card.

Until my grandmother died two years ago, I took my boys to visit her nearly every week. Toward the end of her life she was completely unaware of her surroundings, but many of the people – mainly women – we saw each week at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale recognized the boys and were visibly brightened to interact with them, even for a few minutes.

I missed that interaction,and also wished that the values taught by those visits – family devotion and respect for the elderly – were still being passed on to my kids.

So on a recent Tuesday afternoon, I picked up Jacob from school and told him we were going to spend an hour with a woman who was celebrating a big birthday. The woman turned out to be a great fit for us – she was sharp and animated, and her immaculate apartment was child-friendly.

Dorot, along with including a birthday cake in the package I had picked up earlier that day, included a mess-free art project that kept Jacob busy as well as engaged with the birthday girl. When I told Jacob that our host was turning 90 on Saturday, he looked up from his artwork, eyes wide, and said to me without a hint of sarcasm in his voice,”If she makes it until then.” I was momentarily mortified, until I realized that like most octogenarians, our host hadn’t been able to hear Jacob’s hushed tones.

“He said that he just can’t believe you’re turning 90,” I told her. She was thrilled.

All parents struggle to find ways to transmit good values to their kids. Who among us doesn’t want to raise hardworking, unassuming, empathic, down-to-earth children? But choosing New York as our backdrop, with its concentration of wealth, success, and ambition, adds additional layers of complication.

At the same time, New York also offers up solutions in ways that suburban pastures cannot.There are countless agencies, hospitals, old-age homes, and religious institutions that are ready to help maximize the most of your volunteered time. Some are geared toward those children and families who are looking to make a long-term commitment; others are able to make the most of your one free afternoon.

Teaching our children the value and pleasure that comes from giving of themselves, as well as showing them that they have the ability to improve the world around them – one good deed at a time – are lessons that will serve them well now, and later.

Many of us who are firmly dedicated to bringing up our children in New York are just as fiercely committed to raising children who understand the value of a dollar and the hard work that it takes to afford this urban oasis.

It was with this lesson in mind that I helped my children run a lemonade stand a few times over the fall. We baked cookies and brownies, made big pitchers of pink and yellow lemonade, and set up our stand across from a bustling Central Park playground. Within an hour or two we had made more than $100 – a tidy sum that impressed not only my children, but even my husband, who insisted that before divvying up the proceeds they repay me for the start-up cost of the baked goods, lemons, and sugar.

A few lemonade stands later, their piggybanks were bursting. And the most telling feature of this experiment is just how frugal my children are with this money. When I refuse to buy them a toy, and remind them that they can well afford to buy it themselves with their own money, they almost always balk. If I’m buying, it’s one thing, but if they are shelling out their own money, there is a whole different standard. Almost instantly they are able to differentiate between their desires and their needs.

This, of course, is the most instructive guide of all. When children feel like they are spending their own money, they are far more likely to be aware of its value. It’s never too early to teach this lesson. Create bank accounts in their names. Let them participate in determining how much they receive each week in an allowance. At the end of each week, whatever they have saved is their money – not yours.

“My kids each have a specific snack allowance,” a mother of four kids ranging from 3 to 13 years old told me. “I got so sick of them asking me for money for a drink or slice of pizza. But at the end of each week, without fail, some have run out of money and end up borrowing from the one that is very careful with her money. I should teach her about interest,” she said with a smile.

Encouraging your teenagers to work is also a surefire way to get them to appreciate the value of a dollar and the pleasure that comes from earning money, saving it up, and buying something independently. While there are few lawns to be mowed in New York, there are baby-sitting gigs (both sexes are welcome to apply), moving companies, restaurants galore, computer firms, and all sorts of other odd businesses and families looking for teenage help.

The ultimate transmission of good values is, of course, in the way we parents choose to live our lives.No good deed or instruction speaks louder than the choices we make every single day. After all, in most cases, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.