As moms and dads, we spend a lot of time worrying about how our children are going to turn out in the future.
We worry about what kind of person they will be, how they will act, and how they will treat other people.
One particular thing that we might worry about is whether our child will be kind.
The world is full of difficult and unhappy things, and bringing a little kindness into the world is always an amazing thing. It makes sense that we would want our children to be agents of this kindness in the world.
So, how do we encourage them to be kind people? How do we influence kindness in our child’s life?
It can be a tricky thing and when you think about it, you might not even know where to start.
Luckily for you, in this blog, we have a few different ideas for you to try with your child to encourage them to be as kind a person as they possibly can.
You never know, it might just benefit the whole family in the process.
Emulate kindness yourself
The easiest and most effective way to promote any behaviour or trait in your child is to emulate what you want them to do yourself.
If you want your child to be a kind person, the best thing you can do is be a kind person yourself.
Yes, it’s not always easy. Yes, we all come up against tricky and stressful situations at home, at work, and in our relationships. So there will be times where we fail to choose kindness with others, but that is still ok. The only important thing is that you communicate with your children about what has happened and what you could improve on in the future.
We aren’t trying to show our children that we are perfect people, just that we are doing the best we can.
Read books about kindness
There are a lot of amazing books out there written for children that will teach them about kindness. These books know exactly how to present information to children and they will help you put difficult things into easily digestible formats for children.
Reading these books with your child helps take a little bit of the strain off your hands, and allows someone else to explain these concepts to your child.
You can find many of them in any good bookstore.
Practice “random acts of kindness”
You can get your child into the habit of being kind to other people by promoting and practising the system of “random acts of kindness”.
This simply means doing something kind for someone else and expecting nothing in return, at an out-of-the-blue time.
The acts can be for people you know or complete strangers.
It could be a cup of coffee, a lift in the rain, or a little present.
Whatever it is, encouraging your child to do kind things without expecting anything in return will help them grow into kind and thoughtful adults.
We can’t control the mystery of how our children will turn out, but we can do little things along the way that will help them go in the right direction.
Whether they are successful or not, all we can ask for is that they are kind. Right?
