Being a parent can cause you all kinds of worry.Many of those worries revolve around physical injury and illness, finances, and general wellbeing, and sometimes, they can be about who they will one day become as an individual.
Knowing how to raise kind kids will be a worry for many parents.
As parents, we see our children getting frustrated and having resultant outbursts on a near-daily basis (if not, multiple times a day).
If you’re constantly stopping your children from bickering and worrying that you’re raising mean children as a result – don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
An important point to remember is that children are, at the end of the day, children/ We all have the ability to be mean at some point, and a child’s ability to reign this urge in can be non-existent. Often, the problem is that the child doesn’t understand that they are being mean.
If you’re determined to raise kind children, there are a few things you can do to ensure that you are always encouraging your children to be kind, no matter what – carry on reading.
How To Raise Kind Kids
Let’s take a look at some tried and true methods to know how to raise kind kids:
Talk To Them About How They Can Be Kind To Others
Educating them on ways that they can be kind to others will always help, as it gives them a place to start.
You should explain that being kind to people can make them happy or cheer them up when they are having a bad day, whereas being mean to someone, even if it might be joking about, will make them sad.
Giving examples, such as explaining that it’s polite to open a door for someone, or that sharing is a nice thing to do might encourage them to do things like this, the next time that they get the opportunity.
Helping them to put themselves in others’ shoes, and imagine what they would want or need if they were in that situation is another good way to help them to come up with ideas on how they can be kind. This is a key feature in learning how to raise kind kids.
Teach Them To Share With Others
Another way you can learn how to raise kind kids is to instill in them the importance of sharing. “Sharing is caring” is a popular phrase for a reason.
Explaining that sharing is important, as it encourages friendships and it means that nobody is left out is a good way to get your child on board with this concept.
Make sure to explain the difference between owning something, and borrowing it – you don’t want them accidentally giving away all of their toys, thinking that they were sharing.
A plus side of encouraging them to share is that it can avoid meltdowns. Without the skills to share, your child will struggle if another child just came up and took their toy – kids don’t always ask permission, and they certainly don’t always follow rules.
However, provided that your child understands that sharing is a kind thing to do, this may lead to an opportunity for them to socialize with the other child and strike up a friendship.
By encouraging them to share, you’re also helping them to learn how to consider other people, and ensuring that they don’t put too much weight on an object. And the best part is that they’ll most likely make some friends as a result!
Show Them How To Boost Others Confidence
We all have bad days, where a small compliment could completely change the way everything feels. A way in which you can raise kind kids is to teach them the ability to praise others.
One thing that you can encourage your children to do in order to be kind is to boost other people’s confidence and encourage them to compliment others.
Explain that compliments can make people happy, and if someone is having a bad day, or if they are unhappy, paying them a little compliment can make them feel a little better.
Also explain the importance of encouraging others, in all aspects of life – encourage them to boost their friends up when they don’t feel like they can do something.
You can do this by explaining that sometimes people need a bit of an extra push to do something that they are feeling worried about, but a lot of the time that’s all they need.
Next time they have a friend that feels anxious about reading in front of the class, they’ll know how to give them the words of encouragement that they need.
Teach Them To Help Others
Part of raising kind kids is encouraging them to be one of the first to jump up if someone is ever in need. This shouldn’t ever be done forcefully – you want them to help because it’s kind to, not because they’ve been forced to.
This could be anything from volunteering, to simply helping bring the grocery bags in from the car without being asked. By encouraging your child to do things like this, you will soon see that other people also get to experience how kind your child is becoming.
Helping others can also aid them in making friends, as it helps to encourage them to socialize, as they have a reason to approach the people that they are helping.
Set A Rule To “Always Be Kind”
It’s important to always be firm, but fair, and being kind is no exception. A rule to “always be kind” really means the opposite – “don’t be mean,”. By phrasing it with positive language, this rule doesn’t seem so harsh, and it’s much easier to reinforce.
If you find your children refusing to share with each other, for example, you can intervene by using this rule, as it will allow you to show them how they are not being kind to each other or considering each other’s feelings.
Talking about it in this way will allow the children to put themselves in each other’s shoes.
Don’t allow them to use bad language with each other, and the same goes for violence or being mean. “Being kind” means considering each other’s feelings, and communicating your own in a way that the other person will be able to understand, without being mean to them.
By refusing to allow unkind behavior to the normalized, you will encourage your child to be a kind person. Simply telling them to be kind all of the time can prove ineffective, and sometimes it’s important to intervene.
Simple words, like “that’s not nice, I think that’s hurt her feelings” can often be enough to provoke an apology. This strategy is a great tool in learning how to raise kind kids.
Show Them How To Be Kind Without Expecting A Reward
Raising kind kids is not always simple. Teach them that being kind isn’t about being rewarded at the end – in fact, the knowledge that you’ve made someone a little happier is the reward.
Explain that this is much different from doing some housework for a little pocket money – you can use birthday presents as an example.
Explain that if you buy someone a birthday present, you are doing that to ensure that they have a really good day celebrating their birthday. The same goes for attending their party. None of these acts of kindness are rewarded, but often they are worth it, nonetheless.
Encourage Random Acts Of Kindness
Another great way to raise kind kids is to encourage random acts of kindness. This is a brilliant thing to do with children, as they can have loads of fun coming up with ideas on what they can do.
Here are some suggestions of things you can do with your kids!
Pay for someone’s gas or shopping
Donate food and clothes to a shelter or a homeless person
Write someone a nice card to make their day
Surprise someone by helping them out with a task that they’ve been putting off
Final Thoughts
Raising kind kids is every parent’s dream. Luckily, by ensuring that you surround them with positivity and encouragement to be kind, as well as ensuring that you are also being kind yourself, you can help your children to develop into wonderful, caring people when they are older.
My name is Joyce Bailey, and I am a mother of two wonderful children. When I had my first child five years ago, at first I struggled to know which method of parenting I wanted to adopt. Traditional parenting just did not seem right for my family.
