Teaching our children to be kind is an important task as a parent. Kindness comes in many forms, but I believe that in general, we wish for our kids to be thoughtful, generous, and do good towards others. It takes guidance, behavior modeling, and patience on our part, since kindness is an abstract concept. But, luckily our kids pick up on things quickly. With a bit of work from us, we can help our children be kind-hearted youngsters, so they’ll grow into kind adults. With today being World Kindness Day and the rest of the week being World Kindness Week, I thought I’d share a few ideas for fostering kindness in children. Let’s encourage our future generation to be more kind!
Fostering Kindness in Children on World Kindness Day, World Kindness Week, and Every Day!
- Encourage your child to do something nice! Doing something nice for others is a great way to show kindness. Take a peek at our ideas for 15 nice things kids can do on Do Something Nice Day (another unofficial holiday for kids to spread kindness) and download our free printable [PDF]. It’s a simple way to remind kids of small deeds they can do every day to help spread kindness!
- Help your child learn about causes. There is a lot of great information out there, much geared for kids and some that provide ways children can help make a difference right from home. Common Sense Media has a list of sites that help kids do good and breaks each down by age-level.
- Read books on kindness. Often, I find that reading about a topic with my kids helps spark up a conversation. It provides us with a way to delve deeper into the idea, since the book laid a groundwork. Below are a few children’s books that teach kindness for you to explore with your kids! We’ve read some of these and hope to check out the rest in the near future. (Affiliate links used.)
I know that fostering kindness in children can sometimes be challenging. Teaching abstract concepts is often difficult. Hopefully, though, with these ideas and by putting our words into action, our children can learn to be more kind and grow to be generous, thoughtful individuals.
What other tips can you share for fostering kindness in children?
Photo: David Nguyen/Flickr
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