How Teach Your Kids Kindness and 3 Activities you can do together to spread LOVE!
You have probably uttered the words “be nice!” or “be kind to your friend and share” in the last 24 hours. After all, we just all want to raise kids who are genuine, nice, human beings. My measures of my own success as a parent sounds like this “Is my kids a jerk?”. All joking aside, kindness is what makes humanity go around. When we open our children’s eyes to a world of love, consideration and unconditional kindness, we teach them hope and community. Stage stores #BringHeartHome community initiative actually prompted me thinking more about how we can contribute. Throughout the month of April, Stage is helping raise money for American Heart Association (AHA) to make a true different in our health and community. Stage truly believes in supporting the community and starting conversation about preventing heart disease right from home. Now until end of April, share a photo with #BringHeartHome on either Facebook or Instagram and, Stage will donate $1.00 to support American Heart Association. All the outfits and kitchen décor you see in this post can be found at Stage. While you are refreshing your space with pieces that really makes it feel like home, you can give back at the same time! When you make a donation in Stage stores or online to American Heart Association, you will receive a 40% off coupon! It pays to give back!
To support this incredible effort, I am choosing to show Kai want kindness means at home and how to share it with our community. The tricky park about kindness is it’s not taught, rather than shown. To give kindness one must know it from experience. That’s why kindness starts at home. As parents, I’ve found it useful to do the deed then talk about it with Kai so she can experience it first-hand! Here are 4 ways to instill kindness in your toddler at an early age.
Start with the small things – let someone in front of you in line and point it out to your child. Talk about why and how something so small can make their day. Pay it forward by buying someone else’s coffee behind you. Be sure to talk about how good it feels to do for others. Even bringing insects safely outside so they can reunite with their family can teach incredible kindness.
Monkey see monkey do! Kindness is not just about what we say but what we do. When you treat others kindly, your children will model after you. If you are teaching manors, make sure you are using kind words your children are asked to use.
Random acts of kindness – For Halloween last year, we made baskets for all the children in the neighborhood and left them secretly on their door steps. Kai was soo happy seeing their reactions and it’s a teachable moment we can refer back to. This time, Kai and I baked cookies for our new friends across the street who just moved in. When we delivered them, she had the biggest smile on her face and felt so proud to do for others.
Teach gratefulness! – In the beginning of the year, we started a reciting a list of morning and evening affirmations. I saw Kai repeating things to herself like “I can do anything”. Same goes for gratitude. When we have grateful hearts, we feel enough, we feel compassion, we want for nothing else. For us, it’s a big step to raising appreciative and kind humans. Simple things like saying 5 things we are thankful for at dinner opens the conversation about gratefulness. The other day, Kai voluntarily said “mama thank you so much for making a delicious dinner” and my eyes just teared up.
No matter how big or small the gesture, it’s all about the effort! You can shop all the home goods signs and outfits from Stage here.
Thank you Stage for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions are my own.
