Teaching Children Kindness: At Home and in the Classroom

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“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
-Aesop

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Parents and teachers are extremely important in a young child’s life because they are the primary role models during their formative years. What children see and experience when young, can impact them all the way to adulthood. That’s why it’s important for these primary role models, to keep learning how to provide the children with a good, positive environment that facilitates character, confidence and healthy social skills.

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Parents and teachers both provide the children with a foundation on which they can build their basic core values on. Parents primarily teach their children life skills such as basic daily activities like dressing, eating, bathing, toileting & grooming. But more importantly, parents teach children basic social skills like how to interact with each other, learning to cooperate, sharing and working together. By fostering social skill, these children will make better transition into school and life in general.

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Teachers on the other hand, build upon the foundation started by the parents, introducing children to academic development but also focusing on social interaction skills with other children. Often times, teachers will encourage group projects, working in small study sessions and physical activities that encourage team play. They will facilitate interaction activities but sometimes that is not enough. Some children will need more one on one experiences of kindness activities but teachers have either too large of a class or not enough time and resources to do this.

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According to an article called “8 Important Reasons For Teaching Kindness at Schools” at https://edarticle.com/8-important-reasons-for-teaching-kindness-in-schools, “scientific studies have shown that kindness has a great number of physical and emotional benefits and that children require a healthy dose of the warm and fuzzies in order to flourish as health, happy, well-rounded individuals.”

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In this article Patty O’Grady, PhD, who is an expert in neuroscience, emotional learning and positive psychology, believes that “kindness changes the brain by the experience of kindness.” In another words, she feels that children do not learn kindness by only thinking or talking about it but they need to learn kindness by feeling it through actual experiences of kindness activities.

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So the first significant thing all parents and teachers must do at home and at school is to actually set up situations where children have the opportunity to feel what it is like to do something kind so that they will be able to reproduce this action. Before we go into the specific activities that can be done, it is important to know why kindness is so important for a child to fully learn.

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According to the “8 Important Reasons For Teaching Kindness at Schools” article mentioned previously, there are 8 reasons for teaching children to be kind. The 8 things they listed are as follow:

1. Happy Children - When we experience good feelings from doing something kind, our body produces endorphins that actually activate pleasure centers in the brain. This leads to happy children.

2. Increased Peer Acceptance - It has been scientifically shown that kindness actually increases our ability to form connections with others leading to more acceptance by peers. As we know being accepted at school is so important in developing self-confidence and social skills.

3. Less Stress Leads to Better Health - As we all know, any type of stress, especially long term, can have very detrimental effects on the body leading to many health issues. That is why children need the opportunity to learn kindness to develop friendships and a good support system.

4. Greater Sense of Belonging Will Improve Self-Esteem – When we feel that we belong to a group or a project, we experience good feelings of being a part of something, instead of being left out where isolation can come into play. When we are part of something, we take pride in belonging, leading to good feelings and a self-esteem. A good self-esteem leads to confidence and future success in life.

5. Increased Feelings of Gratitude – When we have the opportunity to help others who may have it harder than us, we learn to appreciate what we have and at the same time we are given a real sense of what it feels like to be appreciated

6. Better Focus and Concentration Which Leads to Improved Results – Acts of kindness increases serotonin which helps with learning, memory, moods, sleep, good health, etc., all important factors that help a child to feel good and be positive.

7. Less Bullying - Teaching kindness to children give them the opportunities to belong, to feel good about themselves, to learn compassion which leads to less likelihood of bullying incidences.

8. Reduced Depression – When we learn to give and to receive, to be kind, to help others, we actually increase our serotonin levels which is a natural antidepressant.

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So, what activities can parents and teachers do? Well for parents, they can start by doing an activity with their child, where they make something for a neighbor, a friend, the teacher and having their child give it to the person. The simple act of giving something to another leads to a wonderful feeling of appreciation by the receiver. Teaching their child to hold the door open for someone can lead to another good feeling of doing something kind when they receive a thank-you from that person going through the door.

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There are so many activities that children can do in order to learn kindness. Here are some resources on the internet:
http://www.kidactivities.net/category/random-acts-of-kindness.aspx
http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/68659/55-kindness-activities-kids
http://www.coffeecupsandcrayons.com/100-acts-kindness-kids

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Parents can also create a kindness project where they learn to do one kind act a day. Together, the child and parent can list different kind acts and the child can pick one each day to do. Kind acts can be helping with setting the table, taking care of an animal, giving a hug to someone, visiting grandparents, etc. Another activity parents can teach their children is to share with others, like sharing a toy, sharing their food, sharing a ball during a game activity. Any simple acts of kindness can really impact the child’s comprehension of what it is like to do something good for others.

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Teachers have so many education requirements to follow, so it is challenging for them to fit all other important activities that children need to develop their social skills into a full day of classes. I found a wonderful site called Edutopia at https://www.edutopia.org/blog/kindness-lesson-plan-rebecca-alber, where they set up a program where they focus on practicing kindness intentionally in the classrooms. They quoted the Greek philosopher Aristotle as saying, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”. I love that quote because it is so true.

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In their program, that they call Kick-Start Kindness: Activities, they list 7 activites that are part of their program. They are:

1. Good Things: Each student is asked to talk to their neighbor about something like “One good thing in my life is ….” Once it is done, the receiving students are asked to volunteer to share either their own or their neighbors good thing with the class. According to the article, this is an opportunity for students to share their lives.

2. The Write Around: This is a writing activity where students are given the chance to write what they appreciate about the others while working on their writing fluency. See the article for specific examples.

3. Shout-outs: The teacher will do some shout outs like “I’d like to give a shout out to ……for doing her best today.” Or, “I noticed that ….” Eventually students will be asked to do the same after a few weeks.

4. Appreciation Box: Create a box and place it somewhere for students and the teacher to slip their written appreciations for classmates into the box. Every day the teacher will take out the appreciations and read them aloud before the end of the class session.

5. Temperature Check: Teacher will ask at the beginning of each class, “How are you feeling today?” Students are allowed to talk to others or to the class to share their feelings.

6. Buddy Up: Students are asked to partner with another student for the purpose of helping each other by collaborating.

7. Community Circle: Sitting in a circle only one person talks at a time while the rest listen. Choosing a talking piece (i.e. object like a globe, basketball, etc.) the one holding piece talks about it.

I highly suggest reading the article by Edutopia to get more specific details of their kindness program.

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For teachers there are resources on the internet that they can tap into. For instance The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has a great website at https://www.randomactsofkindness.org for teachers that include lessons, videos and kindness ideas. Another resource can be found at Scholastic’s Creating a Culture of Kindness in Your Classroom at https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/shari-carter/creating-culture-kindness-your-classroom. Even on Pinterestyou can find a lot of ideas on kindness activities including “how full is you bucket” at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/287597126184540103/?lp=true. I’m sure if you search the web, there will be many sites that can provide you with resources for kindness activities.

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"A single act of kindness
throws out roots in all directions,
and the roots spring up and make new trees.
The greatest work that kindness does to others
is that it makes them kind themselves.”
-AMELIA EARHART

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So it is important for parents and teachers to provide children with greater opportunities to experience what it is like to be kind. It is one of the most important building blocks for self-confidence, social skills, emotional health, physical health, and general well-being. It is too important to overlook this simple act of kindness.

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All pictures from https://pixabay.com except first one.