Out of the mouth of babes…
What is kindness to you?
The Blechner/Cafagno Crew aka The Cablechgno’s
What is kindness to you? We asked this question to each our our kids, ages 7 , 6, 5, 4, and 3. We were interested to see their answers. We expected cute, funny answers, and were surprised that they basically all said the same thing. To be honest, at first we thought the answers were kind of lame. They all had to do with being nice and sharing in one form or another. We were a bit disappointed. I’m not sure what we really expected from them! Then, it got us thinking a bit more…
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
Answers:
Bertie
Bertie (Age 7): Kindness means sharing, and being nice to people, caring about people and making people happy.
Nicole: How does it make you feel when someone is unkind?
Bertie: Sad
Michael
Michael (Age 6): It means that you should be kind always. Be kind to people by not speaking rudely, and respecting them. Sharing your toys. Sharing with my brother, and my baby sister, and my big sister. Your heart makes you kind.
Lyndsay: What are kind things that you do?
Michael: Kind things that I do are I share beyblades with my brother, and share my iPad with him sometimes.
Lyndsay: How does it feel when people are unkind to you?
Michael: Ummmm not that nice. Sometimes when people are being mean to me, I just ignore them and walk away.
Nova
Nova (Age 5): By being nice.
James
James (Age 4): You have to be nice and be kind to people. Share Ice cream, and like, share iPads. Share your food if you have the same germs…
Lyndsay: How are you kind to people?
James: My feelings and my brain make me kind, and sometimes it makes me mad.
Lyndsay: What are some things that you can do that are kind?
James: Sharing ice cream. Taking turns.
Lyndsay: How does it feel when people are unkind to you?
James: It makes me cry.
Phebie
Phebie (Age 3): Happy, being kind and you hug your toys if you’re scared.
There was a common theme in all of their answers- being kind, and sharing. Which seems surface at first, but it is a typical answer for this age group. It got us thinking… wow- it’s SO obvious. We tell them to be kind ALL.THE.TIME… but they don’t completely understand kindness at this age (or maybe they do, and it should really just be that simple). They get the general idea of kindness, but this exercise showed us more than ever that it is UP TO US TO TEACH THEM! These answers make it so blatantly obvious that they learn the aspects of kindness from us. Right now, at this age group, kindness is teaching them to be nice and to share with each other. We say it to them all day every day. It’s appropriate for this age group, but it also makes it blaringly obvious how much more they have to learn, and how much responsibility WE have to teach them all of these other aspects of kindness.
Their explanations are so cute. And so true for them. Kindness IS sharing. And sharing can work for adults too. Share a smile, share a compliment, share a positive thing about someone. Share what you love about your partner, or tell someone something that you learned from them, or what they did to help you. Building each other up is certainly an aspect of kindness, and it is so important. But where do we go from here?
It is so frustrating when we constantly teach them to use kindness, and two seconds later they are giant assholes. But you have to remember, that’s also age appropriate. Our kids are going to learn through making mistakes. It is our job to take those mistakes, and use them as teaching tools for us, and learning opportunities for them. Allow them to ask those hard questions that may embarrass the hell out of us…
”Why is that person different”, “Why is that man in a chair that moves”, “Why isn’t my baby sister walking at almost 2 years old?”
You have so much power as a parent. You literally control what our future looks like. Our kids look to us to teach them what is wrong and right. We have the power to show them. Remember, they see and HEAR everything. You’re not always going to be perfect, believe us, we know. But if you make a mistake, own it, and teach them why it was wrong and how to make it right. Explain why you might have yelled, or lost your shit. We lose our shit constantly. But we try (not always successfully) to explain to them that it was not right how we expressed ourselves, and explain why we got frustrated. We then try to tell a different way that we could have handled the situation, AND what they could have done differently. It is ok to make a mistake. Own it, fix it, and learn from it. This is also a great lesson in forgiveness. If a friend, sibling, or family member makes a mistake, but then apologizes and makes it right, then we need to forgive and let go and move on.
We’re all different but we all deserve kindness. Everyone evolves and grows in their own time. Try your hardest to teach your kids compassion, why it’s so important to be kind to everyone, accept everyone, and treat others how you would want to be treated. Explain to them when they’re curious about the little boy with autism. Explain to them when they ask why he screams and sometimes pushes adults. Explain to them that he too needs a kind smile, and friend. I always point out to my boys how their baby sister is different than other babies her age. She is significantly delayed. She needs a lot of different support. But she is perfect to them. I make sure to ask how it would make them feel if people treated her badly? We talk about how it feels when someone is mean to you. We talk about what they should do if they witness someone being mean to someone else. We teach them about the power of their words and actions, and how they can make good choices, and help others to make good choices as well.
When your child comes home upset, because someone wasn’t kind to him, take the time to comfort him, but also make it a learning opportunity. Ask those questions- how did it make you feel when this person treated you like that? What could this person have done differently? Have you ever treated anyone like that? It doesn’t feel good- remember this and learn from it, and be a little kinder, and hopefully others will too. Our kids will be kids. They will tease others, and they will be teased. The best we can do is continue to teach them, and lead by example. Don’t let them hear you speaking poorly of others. Don’t let them hear you judging others. They hear EVERYTHING, and they will learn those negative behaviors. Be better for them. We have the power to make this world kinder by showing our children the right way to act. Remember to constantly teach them from their mistakes, and others mistakes- even yours. As hard as it is, try not to always shield them. Let them try to sort out the hard situation on the playground, then step in and make sure it was handled kindly, and appropriately. Let them see, let them feel, let them do… and teach them what every situation, every action, every word means.
Everyone has room to improve. Where in your life can you do better? Why not start today?
Stay real. Find balance. BE KIND.
XOXO
Lyndsay and Nicole
Try to teach kindness in every day life, but also in big gestures and special days like holidays. Every Christmas we shop for all of the kids at a specific shelter. On Christmas morning we go as a family (along the years friends have started to help and come as well) to hand out the presents. Our kids play together, they see no differences, and it is absolutely beautiful. This has become such a passion for our family, especially my 16 year old step daughter. She even won an award for her work with the shelter.
