Tomorrow on Thursday 13th November 2019, it’s World Kindness Day.
It’s a day to celebrate the importance of being kind and to be inspired to do something kind that you wouldn’t normally do. You could be kind to someone else, kind to the environment or kind to yourself.
Here are some simple ideas for children to show kindness to others:
- Do something nice for their parents e.g – paint them a picture, put their toys away, help out at home.
- Smile and say hello to others.
- Invite all friends to play – even those children they don't usually play with.
- Help a child or teacher.
- Say please and thank you.
- Understand and show empathy and consideration.
- Share something special with peers.
Here are some ideas on how Educators can promote kindness:
- Be a positive role model of what you would like the children to do
- Build up a class ‘language’ of feelings and pro-social behaviour by naming social and emotional skills and referring to them regularly
- Use naturally occurring activities to talk about social and emotional skills
- Integrate social and emotional skills into the daily curriculum
- Teach the behaviour that is expected in class explicitly, in the playground, in small groups, at transition times during the day, etc.
- Ensure children know the consequences for behaviour that is inappropriate and ensure these consequences are applied consistently
- Teach social problem-solving skills explicitly and build up a class language of social problem-solving
- Use social conflict and problems, like fights, to talk about and teach social problem-solving skills
- Provide additional help to those children who need support to learn social, emotional, behavioural and social problem-solving skills
- Use a range of resources: personal stories, art, drama, discussion of current events, movies, photos, books and technology to explore positive social behaviour
"Be Kind Whenever Possible. It Is Always Possible" - The 14th Dalai Lama
References:
Encouraging Kindness In Young Children, CELA, 12 November 2019
Kindness In The Classroom, PBS Education
World Kindness Day 2019, Lonely Planet