I often look at my children and wonder what they’ll be like when they’re older. What they’ll choose to do with their lives. What parts of their young selves will stay with them through to adulthood.
One of my biggest hopes for them is that they just grow up to be kind.
To be caring and thoughtful, to look out for other people.
There’s a quote that I really love that sort of sums up how I feel about this:
“It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”
I think that, to some extent, kindness is something that we’re born with, but there are also quite a few things we can do as parents to teach our children how to be kind people.
1. Be kind yourself
Our children are constantly watching us, and learning from what they see. So make sure they see you be kind as often as possible.
Be kind to them, be kind to your partner, be kind to the various people you see as you go about your day.
As well as this, try not to do anything unkind in front of your children. I mean, try not to be unkind at all, but especially not in front of your children. None of us are perfect and we all have our moments where we maybe gossip about other people, and say not so nice things, but try not to let your children hear it. Otherwise if you’re not careful they’ll start doing the same.
2. Read books about kindness
Reading books together is a great way to introduce all sorts of topics with your children. We’ve done with it starting school and when I was pregnant with Nerys we read lots of books about new babies with Rhys.
Look around to find books that are age-appropriate and that are focused on the idea of being kind and caring.
Take a look at ‘Have you filled a bucket today?‘ and ‘Ordinary Mary’s extraordinary deed‘ to get started.
3. Give them plenty of chances to be caring
As often as you can, allow your children to practice being kind and caring.
Encourage them to help around the house, ask them to look around and see if they notice any little jobs that could be done to help other family members.
Talk to them about helping their friends at school if they’re finding something hard, and comforting another child who is upset or hurt.
One thing to remember is to acknowledge these acts of kindness, but to not necessarily reward them. We want our children to grow up doing kind things because it’s a nice thing to do, not because there’s something in it for them.
4. Notice and explain
Following on from the last point, it is important to notice and acknowledge when your children do nice things.
Tell them that you’re proud of them for all the little kind things they do.
Then go one step further and explain what it was about the act of kindness that was so nice. Children are still learning about the world so we need to explain the reason behind things sometimes.
So explain the reasons behind your actions too. When you put your change in the charity pot at the supermarket explain to your children what the charity is for and how giving money to them can help other people.
5. Perform acts of kindness together
Look for opportunities to carry out acts of kindness with your children.
They don’t have to be big, extravagant gestures, and actually more often than not it’s the little acts that mean the most to other people and really brighten their days.
If you have the money to spare then you could tape a envelope with a few pounds inside to a vending machine, or hide a few on the shelves of the pound shop with a note instead telling people to treat themselves.
There are all sorts of things you can do that don’t cost any money though.
If you see someone drop something then encourage your child to pick it up for them, share your bag of duck food with another family at the park and let the person behind you in the queue at the supermarket go through the till ahead of you.
Ultimately, raising kind children comes down to bringing as much kindness into their lives as we can.
Then hopefully we’ll help to create the kind of world that really is a little less cruel and heartless, one that’s full of people who are kind and caring and look out for each other.
Totally agree with you on lead by example, children are like monkies, they mimic everything #kcacols@_karendennis
I think that’s key to pretty much everything we want our children to do/be isn’t it, to model the behaviour ourselves. x
I love this! I am working on a blog post this morning about how much words can hurt. This kind of ties in. Awesome post! Great ideas! #KCACOLS
Thank you so much, and I’ll keep an eye out for your post once it’s written! x
What a lovely post. I do hope too to raise my little girl to have empathy for others and see others points of view. I’m sure with you as a role model, your children will be just fine! #KCACOLS
Thank you, that’s such a nice thing to say! x
Such a lovely post! So many ways to teach your children to be kind. I try to practise them all onba daily basis although sometimes it can be hard to notice when they’ve done kind things when you’re caught up with the busyness of everyday life.
Thank you. I think there will always be things that slip through the net, and times when we get things wrong, but that’s just life isn’t it. None of us are perfect, but the lesson of kindness will still get through to our children if we try our best to teach it as much as we can, if that makes sense! x
Love this post. I think that teaching kindness and empathy might just be one of our most important jobs #KCACOLS
Thank you, and I think you’re right, it is such an important thing to be teaching our children. x
Good words to live by, we all need reminding too often. Jane XXX
I think you’re right, we could all do with a reminder to be kind now and then. x
These are some lovely tips, I especially like the one about acknowledging being kind without rewarding it, so important that children don’t think that being kind is only worth it if they get something back. I always try to say thank you to my children when they’d done a kind thing too. #KCACOLS
I think that point is so important, we need to emphasise kindness for kindness’ sake, not for any benefits we might get from it. x
Lovely words, Madeline. Well done for leading by example. I particularly like the lack of reward comment, really important. Being kind can leave you with a lovely warm feeling which is reward enough.
Thank you, I think I grew up with pretty good examples of how to be kind! x
The world would be a much nicer place if everyone did this with thier children. It is not hard to be kind to people. Thanks so much for linking up at #KCACOLS. Hope you come back again next time
I think you’re right, teaching our children to be kind will make such a big impact on the world. x
Kindness is so under-rated isn’t it? I love your point about acknowledging and not rewarding. So very important. Loved reading this thanks. #kcacols
I think that’s such an important point isn’t it! So pleased you enjoyed reading this. x
Completely agree with you I hope my kids will be kind too, and we can always do things to help them teach and preach kindness #KCACOLS
I think it’s one of the most important things we can teach our children, and so much of it is taught by example isn’t it. x