One of the most important parts of being in a community is having people watch you grow over time. Most children can be caught engaging in random acts of kindness, as their natural impulses meet the reinforcement of their community. At first, the community is the family. From their interactions with family members, children learn how to navigate the world of connecting with others. No matter the natural proclivities and family reinforcements that occur, we see them arrive at school with preexisting appetites for kindness. 💖

Giving & Receiving Kindness — Just Look At The Good Stuff That It Does:

• Improves mental health

• Reduces stress

• Lowers blood pressure (yep - good at any age!)

• Boosts your immune system

There is of course a spectrum of behaviors we can witness when it comes to kindness. Some appetites are more generous than others. But it seems clear that when it happens, all parties involved are the better for it. As educators, we are in a position to be a part of the broadening of that which begins at home. Giving and receiving acts of kindness aligns with the social emotional learning goals for the education of children, because kindness represents the behavioral learning that is necessary for the development of empathy.

When communities place kindness into this spectrum: from kindness to sympathy to empathy to compassion, it presents a set of goals for community reinforcement in the school. Compassion on the other hand is a complex feeling, one that requires but goes beyond empathy - even adults wrestle with how to express compassion. 

Rewarding simple acts of kindness in a public way can reinforce the future social emotional learning developments toward empathy and compassion. Asking kids who has been kind to them, creating a “Kindness Calendar,” and acknowledging “best in class” can add a fun gaming element to their experience. Even kids with a low appetite for kindness (giving or receiving it) will often open up to these simple behavioral tasks when structured well. 

Classroom Planning & Kindness-Related SEL Activities:

The Great Kindness Challenge - Ongoing Daily Checklist

• What: A checklist for your classroom. Print one document per student and encourage them to check off one item per day. This is a fun way to create community through kindness and the motion of giving and receiving.

• Promotes: community-based challenge, giving and receiving kindness, social emotional development.

• Download ‘The Great Kindness Classroom Challenge Checklist.’

Sharing Kindness - Writing & Art Worksheet

• What: Writing and drawing / color worksheet to help students explore how they can share kindness for the people in their lives including themselves.

• Promotes: creative thinking, writing, art, thinking about how students, as individuals, can share kindness within their own communities, social emotional development.

• Download ‘sharing kindness challenge’

  By Happy Sad’s Chief Resident Psychologist, David Zeitler