I am sorry to rain on the collective parade, but that is not the way to teach kindness. These kind of exercises will do not harm, may even do good and can be fun, so have at it and enjoy. But studies have shown only one reliable way to transmit kindness to the next generation. Parents who show kindness, not as a special event or as a teaching moment, but as a day to day part of living tend to raise kind children. That means not saying "Come here Billie, kindness is a very good thing. See, let's practice it by doing X, Y, and Z......" Instead, children learn kindness when you say "Come on Billie. Get you coat. We have to go to the grocery store, drop these cans off at the food bank and pick up the dry cleaning." Children who see kindness modeled, not as anything special, but as a part of day to day life, like sweeping the floor and brushing their teeth tend to grow into people who see kindness as just a part of being human. When I read the accounts of people who risked their lives to hide and save holocaust victims and who continue to stand between evil and innocents in our world today, the thing that strikes me the most is that the great majority do not see themselves as any kind of hero. Indeed, if you read the interviews, they tend to be more than a bit startled to be described that way. The general attitude runs along the lines of: Sure I did it... what else could I do? Why all the fuss? To them kindness, even kindness on that scale, is just part of being human, Many, I'll even say most of use are overwhelmingly busy these days trying to survive and carve out a future for our kids. But if you want kind children, the best way to assure this is to do kind things yourself, regularly and without fanfare. Little eyes will see. Will copy. Will learn. And will become the kind, rock solid decent people we dream our children to be without a word spoken.

@ LaVera- I concur

As a P.S. to the previous comment
We all realize that the chain smoking father who, with all the love and good will in the world, tells his 10 year old not to smoke as he puffs away on a cigarette has very little chance of success. Even if he tells him this weekly. By the same token, telling our kids to be kind, having teaching moments and marching them our to volunteer when we are too busy to reach out to our fellow man ourselves is not a lesson that is likely to take. Without going into details, I have seen a 40% cut in salary in the last two years and have been so consumed with getting those ends to meet that I haven't really forced myself to make the time to help others or to reach out. New year, new start. Let's make kindness a priority for both our kids and for ourselves.

Beautifully said LaVera. Thank you.

Very well said, all. As well as being consistently kind, be consistently as truthful as you can be. If you spout all kinds of nonsense that the kids know isn't true then they won't believe you when you do tell the truth and may reject some really good ideas for a lot longer than they should. Don't make a huge fuss over doing things the "right" way when it doesn't matter exactly how something is done, only when it really does. Explain why it matters, don't just spout "that's how we've always done it" or "because I told you to". If you can't explain it, maybe you should think about why.

There is an area in SF called the PANHANDLE. Many homeless hang in that area. Whenever I have shoes or clothing I no longer need but in relatively good conditon, I take it to the PAN HANDLE and leave it in the area where I know someone might benefit from it.
I had a couple of pair of sneakers that were in good condition but didn't fit me anymore (?) Go figure. Anyway, I took them to the PANHANDLE while I was caring for my 8 year old great niece and her 4 year old brother. She asked me why I was leaving the shoes and I told her because someone here may be able to use them. She said, THAT'S REALLY NICE TITI ANGIE. Agree that kindess is thought by example, not by 'telling'.

I'm guessing that the kid is trying to be thankful to the elves because you played that weird Elf on a Shelf game? I get why kids believe in Santa or elves or whatever and I think it's relatively harmless, but it is not at all remotely a lesson in kindness.

Adults usually don't mind that a kid is giving credit to Santa or elves because hey, they're kids... but adults also know that their hard earned money bought those gifts and that that not only are Santa and elves not real, they did jack to bring gifts to the tree. So I'm a little confused as to why encouraging and being charmed by your kid running around and being thankful for the elves and the gifts they brought is in any way teaching kindness. Kindness is teaching a kid to be thankful to his aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents, for their kindness.

Thanks LaVera. I needed to read this after the original post, which still leaves me a little confused. The child's comment was cute and thoughtful, but teaching children to be thankful for material things is entirely different than teaching kindness. Saying "thank you" is easier than giving up something to help out others. LaVera, you are on point when you said that "best way to assure this is to do kind things yourself, regularly and without fanfare." Thanks.

I concur with LaVera. Kindness should be a way of life.

nicely said all!

Teaching kindness to children is a hard thing to do these days with trash TV shows encouraging and praising cynicism, sarcasm, rudeness and meanness to others. The worst culprits are reality or competition type shows where participants are obviously encouraged to act like jerks to each other.

Then you have have the bullying that has been allowed to fester in schools and online because God forbid you hold any children or their parents accountable for bad behavior.

Goodness what a lot of hating, the message in the comments seems to be one off gestures, events and ‘activities’ such as those mentioned in the post are vacuous and the best way to teach kindness is to demonstrate it day to day.

The thing is the writer agrees, before saying anything else on teaching kindness she writes “The obvious is that modelling such behaviour is the best and first thing we as parents should do if we want to see it in our children”. She also says that volunteering is ALSO a good way to keep it alive – not solely to teach but as one way to demonstrate kindness to others. On one of the links she highlights letting the children help to cook the food for volunteering – how is this different than having the children in the car when dropping off food cans or trainers?

Thankfulness, gratefulness and kindness are taught by example but for some children, particularly a young child such as the one in the post, something tangible to help demonstrate the principle may be helpful: or maybe we should teach all behaviour without anything such as sticker charts, naughty steps, time out or the word ‘No’ – after all if the ONLY thing children need is example then such things are as superfluous as the thankfulness jar.

I also believe that the child in the post does demonstrate kindness. To write a thank you letter is a behaviour that can be taught (or prompted) by parents and carers. Politeness and thankfulness is a good base for any child. The child took this further, thought about it by themselves and then wanted to thank the elves (who to him are real) for their work even though it wasn’t necessary. Yes at the moment he’s kind to imaginary beings but what makes anyone think that the respect and giving spirit he’s already showing everyone won’t one day translate into respect and giving to those less fortunate and decidedly less fictional?

Sounds like you’re doing a good job, keep it up!

I concur, be a decent, civil person yourself & don't make it a big show of 'look how great I / we are'. Also, it's impossible to love / like everyone, but civility and distance is the best option in these cases vs any need for ugly interaction.

For Ruth@Yummy
Disagreement, especially civil, polite and friendly disagreements are not hating on anyone. You seem to disagree with some of the comments. I do not believe that it is because you are attacking or hating on people. Please extend the same cutesy to me. I said nothing disrespectful. I couched all of my statements as gently and politely as possible. We live in a society of 300 million people, and it is impossible that we all agree about anything. Yet an attitude has been spreading that sees anyone who disagrees with us, as not just men and women of good will who see things differently, but as attackers at best and heinously evil at worse. Let's not give it to that. It only encourages the spread of that attitude. You disagree? Then point out the source of your disagreement, calmly and politely without accusation. And don't overgeneralize by grouping all of the comments, many with differing points of view (I certainly haven't agreed with everyone), as one lump of humanity in opposition to your or the author's viewpoint. If you see incivility, point it out and don't assume that everyone must share the same view point or is in a part of one person's incivility. We don't know each other. It's not likely that we've all met behind the scenes and decided to be uncivil together. I'm responsible for what I say. You're responsible for what you say. Don't muddy the waters with collective censure. Why draw imaginary battle lines?