10 tips for teaching children kindness

teaching children kindness
  • Save

Kindness has been proven to increase our happiness, reduce stress and improve emotional wellbeing. As well as the immediate personal benefits of kindness, it is often cited that kindness can change the world. Once viewed as an airy fairy concept, the science of kindness has now elevated the concept of kindness, showing that when you are kind to another person, your brain’s pleasure and reward centers light up. Now imagine if we were all running on that all day long!

So when kindness is beneficial to both the giver and receiver, why wouldn’t we want to pass on the gift of kindness to our children? The good news is that kindness can be both taught to and nurtured in our children. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Caroline Floyd – TV presenter and founder of a new charity, Inspire, which aims to inspire kindness across the UK – to share these ten tips for teaching children kindness ahead of this year’s World Kindness Day.

Ten tips for teaching children kindness

Smile

Show children the importance of smiling at people and how a simple smile might just make someone’s day.

Compliment

Encourage them to give their friends compliments. And if they ever notice someone is sad, to ask if they would like to tell them what’s wrong. Show them that encouraging friends and talking about feelings can help make everyone feel better.

Look for the positives

Teach them to seek out three positive things in friends and in new people they meet to help them see the best in everyone. 

Say thanks

Thank You. That wonderful word. Make sure children know when to say ‘Thank You’, to show those around them they are appreciated and noticed. Perhaps learn it in a new language too! 

Get creative

Show your child how to use their creative skills to show kindness by creating a gift whether that might be drawing, painting, singing, making up a game or dance etc.

Laugh

Teach your children the value of laughter, give them some easy to remember jokes or funny facts to make people laugh.

Share

Sharing is a wonderful way to show kindness. Suggesting, but not forcing them to share toys is a great way to teach children to play fairly and be inclusive. Why not suggest they pick a toy to donate to charity too?

Look after the planet

Find a way to be kind to the planet – perhaps plant some seeds at home and help grow a new plant and talk about how this can help us be more sustainable.

Be a good neighbour

Do something you enjoy for a neighbour, perhaps it’s baking some cookies or drawing them a card. Making something fun and seeing the joy it brings to others will be infectious.

Self-kindness

And finally, one of the most crucial for kids in today’s modern world is to learn to be kind to themselves. Perhaps there are 3 things about themselves they can be thankful for that day. Help them appreciate every bit of them and to see themselves through your eyes  

By helping children to understand what kindness is, and using some of the above ways of teaching children kindness, we can coach our children to help make the world a better place by instilling a culture of kindness both at home and in the world out there.

Light photo created by jcomp – www.freepik.com

16 comments

  1. Be a good Neighbor.. YES and AMEN!! Being kind to one another is so important. Kids can be so cruel these days and if taught right we would have a better kinder world.

  2. Yes! These are such great tips for teaching kids kindness. I am an elementary teacher and some years I have to really model and teach kindness. We watch video, do weekly kindess challenges, compliment circles, etc. Other years, the kids bring kindness into the classroom and really wow me. It is definitely something that needs to be taught and modeled though. Kids (and adults) can be mean and forget to use their “filter” sometimes.

  3. These are some really great tips! The on e that I love the most is that we should teach our kids how to give compliments to others.

  4. I have 2 girls. It is sometimes hard to cope with their fights. But teaching them to share and realizing how good it feels is something I really do much on. We also always make a drawing or those little things for friends birthday or when going to grannys… Now I dont even have to say, they just gladly do it.

  5. I have 2 girls. It is sometimes hard to cope with their fights. But teaching them to share and realizing how good it feels is something I really do much on. We also always make a drawing or those little things for friends birthday or when going to grannys… Now I dont even have to say, they just gladly do it.

  6. All of tips that you have elucidated here were really interesting. Specially self kindness can be really helpful

  7. I have 2 girls. It is sometimes hard to cope with their fights. But teaching them to share and realizing how good it feels is something I really do much on. We also always make a drawing or those little things for friends birthday or when going to grannys… Now I dont even have to say, they just gladly do it. There are many that should read this. Thank you

  8. I have 2 girls who constantly fight over toys. I try to teach them that sharing and kindness leads to a great feeling. Many should read this. Thank you

  9. These are great tips. Children learn kindness at home so these tips can really help to teach the importance of that.

  10. this will surely help them understand what kindness means. inspire their imagination and as a parent, modeling kindness everywhere you go is also one of the good ways.

  11. It’s so important to teach our kids how to be kind and to be honest. Thanks for sharing these tips!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.