I read 'Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler' with all 1st grade classes this year and when I saw this article, I just knew I needed to pass it along! ~ Enjoy!!
“Beings” of Kindness
Positive Parenting by Dr. Karen
Reivich
For many of us, the end of 2012 brought a mixture of emotion. I felt joy and
gratitude as my family shared food and laughter around the dining room table,
enjoying time with friends and family that we don’t see as often as we’d like.
Mixed with that joy was an underlying sadness. The families in Newtown,
Connecticut, and the pain they are experiencing was never far from my mind. I
found myself wondering what was happening around their dining room tables,
wishing there was a way to ease their pain. Like you, I wanted to find a way to
be part of something good – something that brought pangs of happiness, instead
of pangs of pain.
And probably like you, I snuck in acts of kindness whenever I could: putting quarters in a soon-to-expire meter, volunteering at a school event when no one else did, escorting a woman down several flights of stairs when she was afraid to get in an elevator.
As I thought more about my acts of kindness, I realized that this is an area in which I could use a little fine tuning. Truth is, sometimes my acts of kindness feel a bit hollow. For example, as I was slowly walking next to the woman down the five flights of stairs, what was running through my mind was, “This is going to make me late. Can we pick up the pace a little?” My act was kind, my spirit was not. And I notice this about myself more often than I care to admit. That got me thinking about my kids. Are their acts of kindness connected to feelings of empathy and connection or are they “acting” kind but not being kind?
I talked with Shayna about it. I asked her to tell me about some kind things she did recently. She told me about helping to cheer up her friend Averi when she was feeling sad; and picking another classmate to help pass out cupcakes even though her best friend wanted to be the helper. I asked her how she felt when she did these things and she described feeling proud and happy when she saw the other person become happy. The word “become” intrigued me. Maybe that was the part I needed to work on: watching the other person become happy. I asked her how she knew the other person became happy. “I just watched her face and I could see a smile come and I saw her body get bigger and have more energy in it.”
Shayna was focusing on the other person; I was focusing on myself. Shayna was watching the spread of a smile across a friend’s face; and I was lost in my thoughts about the extra five minutes in the stairwell.
Being kind is about focusing on the other. Acting kind might miss that essential ingredient. Being kind – as opposed to acting kind – hinges on empathy. We often think of empathy as noticing and experiencing the pain another is feeling, when really it is noticing and sharing the feelings of another, regardless of what that feeling is. I know I have done a better job at teaching my kids to have empathy for other people’s pain than I have for teaching them to have empathy for other people’s joy. As parents, perhaps we can best teach kindness by making sure we highlight what Shayna taught me: Focus on the emotion the kindness created in the other person. We can ask our kids more questions about what changes they noticed in the other person’s facial expression, body, and energy level, and how seeing those changes made them feel. By asking more of these empathy-based questions, I think we will be helping our kids to experience full kindness – both acting and being.
I am quite certain that there will still be times when I am silently complaining while escorting people down staircases. And in those moments, I hope I will go easy on myself and remember that acting kind (even when there is internal grumbling) is still a good thing. And I am also quite certain that with Shayna’s reminder to focus on the other person “becoming” happy, in 2013 I have many more “beings” of kindness than “acts” of kindness.
Sincerely,
Karen Reivich, Ph.D.
For more information similar to the above, please visit http://www.goldfishsmiles.com/
And probably like you, I snuck in acts of kindness whenever I could: putting quarters in a soon-to-expire meter, volunteering at a school event when no one else did, escorting a woman down several flights of stairs when she was afraid to get in an elevator.
As I thought more about my acts of kindness, I realized that this is an area in which I could use a little fine tuning. Truth is, sometimes my acts of kindness feel a bit hollow. For example, as I was slowly walking next to the woman down the five flights of stairs, what was running through my mind was, “This is going to make me late. Can we pick up the pace a little?” My act was kind, my spirit was not. And I notice this about myself more often than I care to admit. That got me thinking about my kids. Are their acts of kindness connected to feelings of empathy and connection or are they “acting” kind but not being kind?
I talked with Shayna about it. I asked her to tell me about some kind things she did recently. She told me about helping to cheer up her friend Averi when she was feeling sad; and picking another classmate to help pass out cupcakes even though her best friend wanted to be the helper. I asked her how she felt when she did these things and she described feeling proud and happy when she saw the other person become happy. The word “become” intrigued me. Maybe that was the part I needed to work on: watching the other person become happy. I asked her how she knew the other person became happy. “I just watched her face and I could see a smile come and I saw her body get bigger and have more energy in it.”
Shayna was focusing on the other person; I was focusing on myself. Shayna was watching the spread of a smile across a friend’s face; and I was lost in my thoughts about the extra five minutes in the stairwell.
Being kind is about focusing on the other. Acting kind might miss that essential ingredient. Being kind – as opposed to acting kind – hinges on empathy. We often think of empathy as noticing and experiencing the pain another is feeling, when really it is noticing and sharing the feelings of another, regardless of what that feeling is. I know I have done a better job at teaching my kids to have empathy for other people’s pain than I have for teaching them to have empathy for other people’s joy. As parents, perhaps we can best teach kindness by making sure we highlight what Shayna taught me: Focus on the emotion the kindness created in the other person. We can ask our kids more questions about what changes they noticed in the other person’s facial expression, body, and energy level, and how seeing those changes made them feel. By asking more of these empathy-based questions, I think we will be helping our kids to experience full kindness – both acting and being.
I am quite certain that there will still be times when I am silently complaining while escorting people down staircases. And in those moments, I hope I will go easy on myself and remember that acting kind (even when there is internal grumbling) is still a good thing. And I am also quite certain that with Shayna’s reminder to focus on the other person “becoming” happy, in 2013 I have many more “beings” of kindness than “acts” of kindness.
Sincerely,
Karen Reivich, Ph.D.
For more information similar to the above, please visit http://www.goldfishsmiles.com/
