Encouraging Your Kids to Be Kind
We hear a lot about kindness these days. Choose kind. Be kind. Kind is the new cool. Each month, I choose a character trait to focus on with my kids as part of our homeschool learning. Since the week of February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Week, my focus for February is kindness, and I have compiled some great resources for you to teach kindness to your kids.
These suggestions will help you instill in your child the importance of kindness as a way to interact with others, both in their close circle of family and friends, and those with whom they have only fleeting interactions, like store workers or a random child they encounter on a trip to the zoo.
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Character Trait of the Month List
There are a lot of character traits worth pursuing, but since I wanted to choose just one per month to focus on during the school year, I narrowed my list down to ten.
Teaching Kindness with Quotes and Questions
Here are a few quotes about kindness, along with questions you can use to engage your kids in conversation or use as a writing assignment or journal prompt.
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
Albert Schweitzer
Question: Have you encountered an example of this in real life, or even in a book you’ve read? Do you agree with this statement?
A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.
William Arthur Ward
Question: Does a simple smile really have the power to effect change?
Be kind whenever it is possible. It is always possible.
14th Dalai Lama
Question: Do you agree? Is it always possible?
A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.
Amelia Earhart
Question: What does this mean? Have you experienced this in your life somehow?
Printable Kindness Quotes and Questions
At the end of this article, you can download a free printable file containing these four quotes and the accompanying questions.
More Kindness Quotes
Here are a few additional quotes about kindness you may wish to consider as alternatives, or use in addition to the four above.
No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.
Aesop
Kindness is love made visible.
H. Swanepoel
To err on the side of kindness is seldom an error.
Liz Armbruster
Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.
Bob Kerrey
Kindness News Articles and Reports
Here are a few sources for news articles containing stories of human kindness, compassion, and caring. One way to teach kindness to kids is to show them specific examples of kindness in action.
Good News Network
This website compiles stories of positive, uplifting events and people. If the negativity and hopelessness you see on most media leaves you anxious and dismayed about the state of the world, stop by this site for a quick pick-me-up of good news. Here’s a link to the section tagged kindness: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/tag/kindness/
A few favorites
A plumber in the UK who has spent thousands helping people in need get their plumbing and heating repaired.
900+ car pay it forward line at Dairy Queen in Minnesota
Teen runner helps injured competitor
Today Show stories
Another source for heartwarming stories of kindness to others. Here is the link to stories tagged with kindness: https://www.today.com/kindness.
Global News Canada
This website has a section dedicated to Random Acts of Kindness, with a selection of stories detailing heartfelt acts of kindness sure to inspire.
A Few Favorites
Couple pays for 45 hotel rooms for homeless to get out of cold
Kids provide porch concert for elderly woman isolated at home
Books that Explore Kindness
There are many, many picture books that encourage kindness in kids, but I wanted something to share with my older kids. I settled on one picture book that I just love, Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed, and I’m offering a few other options for them to read this month.
Video Content to Promote Kindness
These links are videos I added to my kids’ Google classrooms during February to keep them thinking about kindness.
Kindness Boomerang (YouTube – LifeVestInside): Fun video of kind acts passing from one person to another in a city until they make their way back around to the initial giver of kindness.
Simple Acts of Kindness (YouTube – Chad Brownstein): Another video of individual acts of kindness and how they impact the receiver of those acts.
Revolutionary by Josh Wilson (YouTube – JoshWilsonVEVO): Official lyric video to the song Revolutionary, “Why does kindness seem revolutionary, when did we let hate get so ordinary?”
Movies with a Kindness Theme
Random Acts of Kindness
It’s been said that one act of kindness makes a big difference, and studies about how kindness spreads have found this to be true. When we see someone else being kind in some way, we are more likely to act toward others with kindness. We can model small kindnesses—to our kids, spouses, neighbors, friends, and strangers alike—with big impact. As a project this month, encourage your kids to make it a priority to be kind.
General Ways to Be Kind
- smiles
- encouraging words
- acts of service
- small gifts
- pay it forward
Specific Examples of Showing Kindness
- buy an armful of flowers and hand them out
- pass out kindness cards
- give snacks or water to a homeless person
- give genuine compliments to store workers, teachers, or anyone you encounter
- send thank you notes to service workers, military service members, or someone who has impacted your life
- have kids draw pictures for residents of long-term care facilities
- pay for someone’s coffee, meal, or purchase without them knowing it
- allow someone to go ahead of you in line
- leave an extra big tip with a kind note
Kindness Scriptures
The Bible has a lot to say about kindness. Here are a few scriptures that reference kindness. Display these, memorize them, and put them into practice.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32
And one for us moms…
And when she speaks her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.
Proverbs 31:26 (NLT)
Free Printable Kindness Quotes and Questions
Join my email list for access to my printables library, where you’ll find this printable list of kindness quotes and questions to use in your homeschool. Use them as conversation starters, writing assignments or journal prompts. Access to the printables library provides you with hundreds of pages of printables to help you organize your home and homeschool!
Visit my homeschool resources page for monthly unit study ideas, projects, and homeschool planning help!
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Choose Kind
In the words of one of the kindest people to walk the earth, Mother Teresa said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” We can help our kids learn how much their small actions make a difference in their lives and the lives of everyone around them. Let’s set the example ourselves and choose kind.
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February Character Trait Focus: Kindness
