As part of our Social-Emotional Learning, we focus on different skills throughout the year. In September, we focused on Peace (in conjunction with the International Day of Peace) and this month, we will focus on Kindness (in conjunction with World Kindness Day).
Kindness, by definition, is the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate (and is more than just being nice).
After reading “The Importance of Kindness” published in Psychology Today, we wanted to share the idea that there are different ways to practice kindness –
- One way to be kind is to open your eyes and be active when you see people in need. A sense of community is created when people are kind to those who need help. Opening your eyes means noticing when others are suffering. A kind word, a smile, opening a door, or helping carry a heavy load can all be acts of kindness.
- Another way is celebrating someone you love, giving honest compliments, sending an email thanking someone, telling someone how s/he is special to you, helping an neighbor with yard work or food, taking a photo of someone and sending it to the person, sharing homemade food, refusing to gossip, and donating old clothing and things you don’t need are all ideas about how to practice kindness.
- Kindness is a willingness to full-heartedly celebrate someone else’s successes. Kindness is to be openly happy for the other person.
- Kindness includes being kind to yourself!
Throughout the month, our classrooms will be helping children deepen their understanding of the idea of kindness. We hope you will join us!