Ever noticed how children, as a general rule, want to help.  This is a basic behavior genetically coded into our natures.  Many studies of early child development have proven this to be the case.

It is natural for humans to want to be part of a group (a social animal) and as young children, it is very natural for us to seek approval from others through offering to help them.

Environmental Impacts

Unfortunately, with time we learn to be more focused on ourselves and less so others.    Our young childhood learning experiences teach us being helpful is not optimal behavior.

Surprisingly, our parents are a key catalyst to this process of learning not to help.  Most often parents, even teachers, and others that interact with us as children don’t have the patience to let us help.

We are taught to think and learn for ourselves but our offers to assist others, (i.e, being helpful) are often disregarded.  It is just easier for the adult to do it themselves.

Unintentional

Teaching children to fend for themselves and rejecting their natural tendencies toward being helpful is not planned nor even recognized by most of us.

It is a natural behavior for us to focus on the easiest way to accomplish a task and often that is by just doing it ourselves (we are more likely to get the results we seek with least effort).

Letting someone help you accomplish a task actually takes a fair amount of energy (to say nothing of the patience required).  And so,  sadly, as children grow older they learn to suppress their natural tendencies to be helpful.