Have you ever had someone ahead of you in line to pay for your coffee? Or just had someone simply smile at you or hold open a door for you? Even these smallest, simplest acts of kindness can make a huge impact on a person, and acting kindly can inspire others to do the same. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has celebrated Random Acts of Kindness week and day since 1995! Random Acts of Kindness Week is celebrated from February 14th through the 20th, with February 17th designated as Random Acts of Kindness Day.
How Kindness Impacts Us
Research shows that being kind boosts the production of the feel-good hormones, serotonin and dopamine. These hormones give feelings of satisfaction and happiness while activating the reward center of our brain for the receivers and the givers as well. Kindness also helps reduce stress and improve mood and overall emotional well-being. Performing acts of kindness benefits your physical health by lowering your blood pressure. With everything going on in the world, what better time to be a part of making the world a kinder place?
Ways to Spread Kindness
Being kind is just as important of a skill for a child to learn as it is to learn math, science, or reading. To spread understanding about the importance of kindness there are various ways to involve your children throughout the week and every day. These opportunities will teach your children what it means to be compassionate, and thoughtful, and how to help others. These acts can be at home, at school, in your neighborhood, or even within your community. Below are some ideas:
- Send a letter in the mail to someone we love
- Donate books to our neighborhood little library
- Surprise a neighbor with some freshly baked cookies
- Put your toys away without being asked
- Paint Kindness Rocks, then leave them near our mailbox for others to enjoy, for people to take, or encourage them to leave one as well
- Donate Beanie Babies to Operation Gratitude. This opportunity provides us the ability to express kindness and thanks to our military and first responders.
- Help sort through and deliver clothes for donation
- Donate food to Worcester County Food Bank
- Donate to a local medical center
Books for Children About Kindness
I have also read various books to my children to teach them more about the concept of kindness. Listed below are some of our favorites:
- Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler, By Margery Cuyler: This cute little story is about a teacher who talks to her students about how it’s important to be kind to each other. They discuss how to be kind at home, to each other in school, and within the community. The children in the story demonstrate how quickly kindness can spread from one small act of kindness.
- Be Kind, By Pat Zietlow Miller: This is a sweet, short story about a little girl understanding what kindness is and how any act, big or small can help someone.
- Harry the Happy Mouse, By Janelle Dimmett: A story about a sweet mouse named Harry. He helps a frog and then asks the frog to help someone else. The story emphasizes the importance of helping others and how helping someone else can also make them feel happy in the process.
- A Sick Day for Amos McGee, By Philip C. Stead: This story is about a busy zookeeper who always makes time to spend with the animals of the zoo and when he gets ill, they step in to take care of him. It shows the value of kindness and caring for one another.
- The Little Blue Truck, By Alice Schertle: Little Blue Truck and his animal friends demonstrate the power of friendship and the reward of helping others.
Kindness Activities
With my children being younger I came up with our list of ways to be kind together and then I created a Kindness Flower. I designed a flower and then duplicated a picture of a petal so that I could cut each one out and write our acts of kindness on them. The petals will go in a jar so that each day we can select a random act of kindness to do and then place them on our flower.
You could also do a Kindness Tree, with a drawing of a tree trunk and bare branches. Then you can cut out leaves or even hearts, with random acts written on them to place on the branches. Another way you can do this is to have older children write the random acts they have completed on small pieces of paper (or hearts), place them in a jar, and at the end of the week go over them together.
Regardless of how you decide to celebrate this week, the theme is aimed at doing small acts of kindness for others. The most important thing to me is teaching my children how it is important to be kind to others every day not just during this particular week! Feel free to use our Kindness Flower Template and Kindness Tree Template.
We would love to see what you have done to celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Week, so feel free to share it with us by tagging @centralmassmom!
