As parents, I retrieve i of our top dog goals is to enhance kids who attention for others. But, approximate what? Our kids don't e'er acquire that message. Several surveys convey straight off shown us that despite our words, kids retrieve nosotros value other things over kindness. Results from this year's Highlights State of the Kid report illustrate this:
- almost one-half of kids surveyed (44%) said they retrieve their parents' top priority is their happiness
- 33% of kids persuasion doing good inwards school was their parent's top priority for them
- exclusively 23% of kids said that they persuasion being kind was their parent's top priority for them
In other words, it seems similar in that place is a gap inwards what nosotros think we are communicating to our kids together with what they are hearing.
Kids are hearing that nosotros desire them to survive happy together with attain to a greater extent than than nosotros desire them to survive kind.
Kindness Builds True Happiness
Of course, nosotros parents know that existence sort together with existence happy are non mutually exclusive. They piece of occupation manus inwards hand. As study author Christine French Cully points out,“Maybe role of the message nosotros aren’t e'er sending to our kids is that yes, nosotros desire y'all to survive happy, but role of existence happy agency thinking most the needs of others sometimes.”We know from experience that existence sort genuinely makes us experience happier. Now query is backing this upwards too. New studies demo that compassionate or sort acts exercise spark connections inwards the encephalon that promote feelings of pleasance together with happiness.
Fostering Kindness
Let's facial expression upwards it, The Elf on the Shelf is a pop vacation tradition, but what does it genuinely teach? I don't desire to acquire likewise serious here, but genuinely this tradition focuses on encouraging skilful behaviour every bit a way of avoiding negative outcomes (no toys!). In other words, fear becomes the motivating forcefulness here. Kids desire to exercise skilful for fearfulness of getting no presents at Christmas. Deep down, nosotros know (and research backs it up) that fearfulness is non genuinely an effective long-term strategy for teaching moral lessons. As this neat article points out, we desire to "raise a skilful person, non but i who's afraid of existence bad."
The Kindness Elves focus on the opposite--kindness for kindness sake. They offering wonderful ideas for everyday acts of kindness that kids tin do. With this approach, kids larn speedily that kindness is it's ain best reward. The feelings of happiness together with joy y'all experience when y'all exercise something helpful for to a greater extent than or less other mortal is the best type of positive reinforcement.
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| The Kindness Elves bundle |
The vacation flavor is the perfect fourth dimension to innovate your kids to the Kindness Elves. You mightiness desire to acquire yours shortly together with thus you'll survive certain to convey it earlier the vacation flavor genuinely gets underway. They come upwards inwards several dissimilar varieties (e.g., peel tone, pilus color, etc.). The best role for parents is that the kindness ideas together with cute cards are already done for you. No scouring Pinterest to notice ideas each day.
We started introducing the Kindness Elves a couplet of years agone inwards my house. The boys dear it! In fact, my 8-year-old asks when "Elfie" is coming dorsum each year. The acts of kindness are simple but meaningful. We also convey a lot of fun figuring out where inwards the identify Elfie hid each nighttime spell nosotros were sleeping.
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| The Kindness Elves |
Curious most how kids railroad train empathy (the solid seat down for kindness) over the course of teaching of their development? Check out this post:
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