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Liza
Weidle
"Kind
words can be short
and easy to speak, but their
echoes are truly endless." - Mother Teresa
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Above
All Else,
Be Kind to One Another
The measure
of kindness is that you are kind without measure.
This is a bit of a twist on an old quote about love and
an appropriate one to set the stage for North
Carolina’s December Character Education trait of
kindness.
The curriculum
matrix developed by the North Carolina
Character Education Partnership includes
tips on encouraging kindness. The most
thoughtful discussions center on how you can disagree
with others and still be kind.
The notion
of paying kindness forward recently made the front burner
of home discussion after the move “Pay
It Forward” hit the top ten. Its philosophy lingers
and is one that has folks trying to make positive changes
in their lives. A random act of kindness is defined as
a kind, respectful or considerate
act performed from one person to another without any expectation
of return, reward or recognition.
In
doing research for this column, I tuned my inner antenna
to folks practicing random acts of kindness. The first
one I spotted was our neighborhood mailwoman delivering
special treats to dogs and encouraging thoughts
to the children playing. She
is a rarity in a time when most folks complain about the
yappy dogs and out-of-control children.
She is also one of those wonderful folks who believe in
paying kindness forward.
My Dad always encouraged
my brother and me to accomplish greater things. He
wasn’t one to dish out punishment with a swat on
the rear. Dad’s idea was to raise
our consciousness by engaging us in debates
on the thoughts of Plato, Aristotle and the constant pondering
of “what would Jesus do?”
Dad’s style would run
the course of quick quizzes. Here’s
a typical example: What is the source of the following
quote: “We mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our
sacred honor.”
Give up? It’s the last
line of the Declaration
of Independence. Most of us remember the
first one, which establishes the rights to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. But how many of
us get to that last part which focuses on the joy in giving
to others?
Here are some tips to encourage
our young people to care for others and to build a strong
inner core of positive values that is based on kindness.
Parents
can encourage kindness at home by:
• Looking for ways to help out a family
member who is having a bad day.
• Baking bread or
cookies together to take a friend or neighbor
who needs cheering up.
Teachers
can encourage kindness at school by:
• Having students read “The
Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein.
Use the giving tree example to begin a classroom
bulletin board project with tree trunk and bare branches.
During the month of December, have
students design leaves to record acts of kindness that
have been observed. At the end of the
month, the tree should become your class's version of
the giving tree.
• Participating
in the Do Something Kindness
and Justice Challenge of performing acts
of kindness (helping others) and justice
(standing up for what's right) in honor
of the Martin Luther King
Jr. national holiday. For a $500 grant
to get you going, visit www.dosomething.org website. Organizers
say, “Young people
have the energy, creativity, and motivation to rock the
world. By giving grants to young people
who want to get up off the sofa and do something, we’re
allowing them to unleash their power and turn their ideas
into action. We’re telling them that they
really can make a difference, and we’re
putting our money where our mouth is to prove it.”
Recommended
books to read:
For early readers:
“The Grinch who Stole Christmas” by Dr. Seuss.
For middle school
students: “The Gift of the Magi” by
O. Henri.
For high school
students: “Walking
the Talk: Building Assets in Organizations that Serve
Youth” by Neal Starkman. This book
features Cary High School students Hannah Litzenberger
and Jeremy Guzman.
For parents: "Teaching
Character; Parent's Idea Book for Middle School Grades"
by Anne C. Dotson and Karen D. Dotson.
Generosity
of spirit is something that incorporates many character
traits and should last throughout the year. For
more free ideas, guidance, and other resources, visit,
http://www.actsofkindness.org/.
Liza
has been writing parenting columns and articles for almost a decade. She
takes all the wads of education news that come home in her children’s
backpacks, in the mail, on the news, sifting them down to easy-to-read
features and parenting tips that appear regularly in The Cary News, News
and Observer and PTA newsletters in Wake County. 