Previous empirical reviews and theoretical summaries of children’s prosocial behavior have focused very little on the question of why children help others, that is, the underlying motivation. Here, we reviewed three recent studies that addressed this question. The first study demonstrated that children’s instrumental helping behavior is intrinsically motivated given that external material rewards undermine children’s propensity to be helpful to others (Warneken & Tomasello, 2008). The second study demonstrated that children’s sympathetic responses motivate their prosocial behavior (Vaish et al., 2009). The third study showed that children are not motivated to “get credit” for their helping acts but rather want to see the person in need be helped (Hepach et al., in press). From a motivational point of view then, children’s earliest helping behaviors appear intrinsically motivated to benefit others. Children help others out of a concern for the person in need.