“They’re not dressing up as Native Americans, are they?” I said, wrinkling my nose. After reading about how cultures aren’t costumes around Halloween and how the whitewashed version of the Thanksgiving story is painfully inaccurate, I hope that my son’s preschool isn’t re-enacting the famous version of the Thanksgiving narrative. Regardless of their curriculum, I know we won’t be repeating it in our household. So we have to come up with an alternative.
Seeing kindness in action is one of the most powerful things a child can witness and participate in. Spending real time, money, and energy in service of someone else helps widen their perspective. Having a parent include them also communicates a powerful message about your values and priorities.
If you have a favorite local charitable organization, look into how you can get your kids involved in volunteering for it. Even if kids aren’t allowed to help in a warehouse or Habitat for Humanity build site, they can frequently raise money. When I was a kid, I set up a little stand on my front yard to sell pom-pom critters and donated the proceeds to environmental groups. Blogger Ilana Whiles at Mommy Shorts is participating in a program where her kids bake and sell cookies to raise money for pediatric cancer programs.
If you’re not familiar with nearby groups, looking into a local or regional homeless lunch program is a good place to start. Many of them do welcome children volunteering, as long as they’re coached ahead of time on expectations and responsibilities. Others may not have a direct role kids can play on-site, but have other activities they can do for their clients. For example, kids may be able to run a food drive. In addition to the normal canned goods, our food bank accepts donations of produce at the farmers’ market.
Other options may be more creative. Our local homeless lunch program likes having colorful, seasonal placemats for their meals, which can be a really fun activity for little ones.
Whatever group you work with, let the needs of the people they serve dictate your actions. In some cases, the most “fun” ways of volunteering aren’t the ones that are most needed. True service has to center the needs of the people being served, nor desires of the people serving.
Even if you aren’t able to volunteer today (short notice!), try to research what volunteer opportunities are possible with kids in your area. Most charitable organizations, especially local ones, have a “Get Involved” section on their website with the best ways to help.
For Thanksgiving, my husband and four-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) baked an extra apple pie for the homeless lunch program at our church (run by Bethesda Cares, Inc). The church across the street that co-hosts the program with us provided a Thanksgiving dinner for their clients and served the pie with dessert.
Because Sprout can’t yet use a real paring knife, Chris tasked him with taking chunks of apple and slicing them thinner. He approached his task with great gusto! Then, he helped add the other ingredients and mix them together.
Before and during the process, we explained that we were making this pie for people who don’t have homes and wouldn’t have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving otherwise. As I want to cultivate respect and kindness for people rather than pity, we just stated these things very simply. To help him empathize, we added, “That wouldn’t be very fun, would it?” but didn’t try to force any sense of sadness.
To help him see the impact, he did go with Chris to drop off the pie. Chris said he was a little intimated, but I suspect that was because it was a lot of people he didn’t know than anything else.
I hope that we can continue to help him (and as my toddler gets older, him too) get involved in ways that are both rewarding and genuinely helpful.
Kindness really shines through in the most difficult of situations. All too often, we freeze up or turn away when we’re most needed.
Thankfully, we can help our kids prepare for those situations by talking about them or role-playing before they ever happen. Discussing these situations also helps kids build emotional intelligence and practice empathy for others.
For younger kids, you can talk through a scenario where someone acts unfair or unkind. Some scenarios could include seeing one kid push another, grabbing a toy from another kid, or calling someone a name. Small children have a very strong sense of fairness, starting even before they’re a year old and peaking in third grade. While little kids frequently do things to us that seem unfair, they only do that because they lack the big picture thinking to realize it (it seems fair to them!) or they lack the self-control to stop themselves (haven’t we all had those days?). If you ask them to imagine it happening to them and what they would want someone to do, they can gain that perspective more easily than we realize.
For older kids, you can tackle pricklier situations. These can include:
Be sure to listen more than you talk. Also, feel free to admit that you don’t know all of the answers! Even the conversations with little kids can be challenging.
For us, the opportunity to have this conversation came up in a rather unfortunate way. As a matter of fact, the ethical dilemma wasn’t hypothetical at all – it was discussing my son’s behavior from earlier in the day.
My four-year-old either keeps a huge distance from people or has zero concept of personal space. We’re really trying to teach him how to respect people’s personal space as a simple act of courtesy.
A few weeks ago, he didn’t remember those lessons at all. While he was waiting in line at a trampoline playspace, there was a kid ahead of him with a yarmulke. For some reason, he decided it was appropriate to touch the kid’s head and then get in his face. The kid was very understandably peeved. I pulled my son aside and reprimanded him, “We Do NOT touch people’s heads. We need to give them space.”
Then, later in the day, I realized I had missed a major part of the puzzle. Of course, we don’t touch people’s heads. But just like if he had touched a black kid’s head, there was much more to that interaction than just a personal space issue. Even if my son didn’t mean to be prejudiced – which I’m sure he didn’t – the kid may have not seen it that way.
So in his brother’s room, with my son in the big chair in the corner and me leaning against the changing table, we discussed what happened. I explained, “Sometimes, people who are different from you may think you’re making fun of them.” He replied, “But I wasn’t.” I continued: “I know you weren’t. But that kid had no way of knowing that. So when people are different from you, you have to be extra careful to treat them with respect. Because a lot of people don’t just because they’re different.”
Talking to my son about something he clearly did wrong was hard. Really hard. Even though he wasn’t trying to be anti-Semetic, even seeing something that felt that way hit me hard in my mama heart. But I just couldn’t let it pass by. It was far too important of a conversation to skip.
The Activity:
You can extend kindness beyond just humans! With stuffed animals and animal characters in children’s books, kids are inherently inclined to be empathic towards the natural world.
Before today’s activity, talk to your kids about their impact on the environment and animals. If they’re younger, you can start with visible impacts like how animals can eat litter and get sick. For older kids, talking about wider environmental issues like climate change or water pollution will probably be more engaging.
Then, do an activity that shows kindness to animals. One of our favorites is making homemade feeders for the birds.
Materials:
Pinecones
Peanut butter
Birdseed
String
Tie a string around the pine cone in a loop, so you can hang the pinecone from a tree branch or fence post. You will probably need to tuck it under the scales. Use a knife to coat the pinecone in peanut butter. Use enough so that the birdseed will thoroughly stick to it. Roll the pinecone in birdseed. Hang the pinecone in a tree or a bush where birds are likely to see it. Wait for the birds to show up! It may take a few days, but it will be gone quickly once they do.
Alternative activities include picking up garbage on a nature walk or setting up composting in your yard.
Our Experience:
My older son had done this activity before, so this time my husband decided to get creative. (Of course.)
They decided to make “Christmas cookies” for the birds. Instead of using pinecones as a base, they combined peanut butter, Crisco, and bird seed. They then pressed the mixture into cookie cutters to make adorable, Pinteresty shapes. Because the “cookies” were pretty mushy, my husband placed them in the refrigerator to cool. Even after solidifying overnight, they were still too soft to hang without falling apart. Instead of putting them on strings, they placed them around the yard. The birds – or maybe the squirrels – didn’t seem to mind.
To quote my husband, my four-year-old “had a blast” with this activity. Even though the logistics weren’t exactly right, he enjoyed the thought of Christmas cookies for the birds. The idea of giving them a gift for the holidays was a great way to have him think beyond what he was getting on Christmas morning!
The Activity:
Just like peace isn’t an absence of war, true kindness isn’t just “being nice” to people. It’s also about showing all people respect, making freedom from hate a reality, and providing access to opportunity. While individual actions are great, breaking down systems of inequality and injustice are essential.
A big piece of learning to be kind is understanding your own privilege. Although this can feel like a tough topic to parents, kids understand it better than we give them credit for. It’s tempting to think “just let kids be kids,” but parents of kids who aren’t privileged – like LGBT parents, parents of black kids, poor, and/or non-Christian kids – don’t get that luxury.
The first step is simply stating that some people have advantages over others in society. The classic text for understanding privilege is White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, but I find it a little difficult to wrap my own head around that article.
Instead, I rather like “The Dollar Bill Hanging from the Ceiling” exercise that Bailey Koch describes on the website Her View from Home. In it, she hangs two dollar bills from the ceiling and then invites two kids – one much taller than the other – up to grab them. The kid who grabs theirs first gets to keep both dollars. Of course, the tall kid grabs it first and receives both bills. Right away, kids realize that even though both kids have access to the same thing, they have different opportunities. She then goes back and gives the shorter kid a chair to stand on, making it so both students have the same opportunity. While she uses the dollar bill exercise to illustrate how students start with certain academic advantages or not, I think it’s a great physical illustration of privilege out of the classroom as well.
If you relate to video games, John Scalzi’s Lowest Difficulty Setting is a great metaphor. The article makes it clear that having privilege of any kind doesn’t mean things will always be easy. In fact, you’ll almost certainly encounter things that are hard. But if you’re privileged, those things won’t be as hard to handle as someone in a less privileged position.
Obviously, the conversation here is going to vary widely depending on the age of your child. For our four-year-old, it’s a simple as telling him that people have different lives than we do. Some people have less money, some people have difficulty walking, some people don’t celebrate Christmas, some people have different color skin than we do. We’ve also edged a bit into the fact that people treat others worse because of these differences. If nothing else, his constant questioning “Why?” has forced our hand in the best way possible. The more we as adults think “Why?” about systems we take for granted, the more we can break them down and build something better in their place.
The next step to understanding privilege is seeing how someone can be privileged in one area and not in another. Similarly, someone can be non-privileged in several ways that interact with each other. For example, a black woman is treated differently (and often worse) by society than either a black man or a white woman is. This is called intersectionality. This comic does a great job breaking down intersectionality and what it means for people.
What types of privilege you discuss obviously depends on your own circumstance. For us, economic privilege is the easiest to start with because it’s easy to see how some people have less money and the material impact that has on their lives. With race, we’re talking about the history of the Civil Rights movement and starting to provide some modern-day context about the work that still needs to be done.
The resources you can turn to depends on the sort of privilege. There are a ton of great resources for talking to kids about race: Raising Race Conscious Children, Embrace Race, and Raising an Advocate. Some of the other topics don’t seem to have as many good resources available, unfortunately.
This is a tough thing to tackle, so good luck!
Our Experience:
I admit that I completely forgot about this until we were smack in the middle of bedtime. Nonetheless, I took a break from reading books for a heart-to-heart conversation. Or as it turned out to be, a heart-to-foot conversation.
I started off with the economic privilege part. “You know that we’re really lucky to never have to worry about food to eat. Some people have to worry about that. And we’re really lucky to have a house. Not everyone has that.”
“Uh huh.”
“And clean water.”
“What’d you say?” he responded.
“Remember when we talked about not everyone has toilets? Some people have water that makes them sick when they drink it.”
Silence.
“And you know what? Some people treat other people differently because they have less stuff. Or because of the color of their skin. Or because they don’t believe in Jesus. Is that fair?”
“No, it’s not.”
“And it’s not always even on purpose. Sometimes they don’t even realize they’re doing it.”
Just then, I noticed he was licking his finger, rubbing his foot and then sticking his finger back in his mouth. “I’m making my foot all wet,” he informed me.
I decided to ignore that. Interest was clearly fading so I wrapped it up. “So we need to be kind to everyone. And if you hear someone say that they’ve been treated differently than you, you need to listen and just be a good friend.”
Listening well is the number one lesson I’ve learned in all of my activism work. I hope he can learn it faster than I did.
“To be a good friend, yep.”
Then he stuck his foot in my face. That was the end of that deep conversation. Four-year-olds!
The Activity:
The heart of kindness is empathy. As Brene Brown says in this great video, empathy is being with someone, not having pity or trying to give advice. One of the best ways to develop empathy is to see things from another person’s point of view.
While in-person conversations and real relationships are the best way to do this, books can also play an important role. Reading about people who have radically different experiences than me has opened my eyes to so many perspectives.
Fortunately, children’s literature offers a wide variety of experiences if only you look for them. Obviously, which characters will be different from you will depend on your own situation!
But here are a few ideas for great picture books featuring children from a variety of backgrounds and experiences:
Unfortunately, my knowledge of current chapter books is pretty limited right now! A librarian in the children’s section of your local library can be an invaluable resource though.
Tonight, my four-year-old and I read Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen together – three times. I’m thankful this was an easy one because I probably have the flu. Reading together was the perfect activity, in fact!
Unlike previous times we’ve read it, tonight we talked a little bit about how Sally Jean’s life is different from ours. In the book, Sally Jean loves her bicycle. That is, until she outgrows it. She wants a new one, but her dad needs new glasses and her mom has to pay the dentist. I asked, “How would it feel if we didn’t have enough money to buy you a new bike?” He thought for a moment, then responded, “Sad.” I think it’s important for him to know that not everyone has the same things we do, even other kids. She ends up taking a junkyard bike – which her friends make fun of her for – and fixing it up. We also talked about how it would feel to have people make fun of you for having less or having things that aren’t as fancy. I hope that by looking at the situation from her perspective that he can see why words like that can be so hurtful.
With Christmas coming up, we plan on participating in an Angel Tree program, where you buy presents for kids whose parents are in jail. Reading stories about people who are of a different socioeconomic class should help set the stage for an understanding of those children’s situations.
If you want to buy fewer toys and enable more adventure, here are 12 outdoor gifts for the kids of all ages in your life.
“We are not buying a whole bunch of toys for Christmas,” I said to my husband last year. In fact, that’s pretty much what I say every year. We’re not always successful, but generally try to focus on gifts that support our values of simplicity and adventure. Outdoors gear does both while also getting our kids more excited than ever about going out in what can be frigid weather in our area.
Adding some of these gifts to your kids’ (or your own) Christmas lists can help winter feel more fun and spring feel closer than ever. Here’s gifts that are great for our three favorite outdoors activities: hiking, biking, and camping.
Do you want to do what you can to help the environment but can’t find the time? Here are eight ways you can do both!
“I don’t have enough time!” I lament to my husband, as I stay up too late washing the dishes yet again. I’m certainly not alone in this cry, as anyone who raises small children knows. The days may be long, but it still feels as if there are never enough hours. But despite all that, our family still lives in as environmentally-friendly a manner as we can. As many “green” activities take more time than conventional ones – I’m looking at you, dish rags that we need to wash – how do we find the time to help the environment?
Some of it is reorganizing our priorities. But in many cases, I’ve found some shortcuts to save time and still help the environment.
“Do you want socks on?” I asked my nineteen-month-old son, raising an eyebrow. His feet were cold, but that was a pretty sophisticated question. He wouldn’t be able to understand it. Right?
He bobbed his head up and down, blond hair flopping. An unmistakable yes.
I moved my own mouth up and down wordlessly a few times. I finally said, “Okay,” and went to get him socks. My baby wasn’t going to be a baby for much longer.
Want to give effectively to a food drive to a local food bank?
You rarely have the opportunity to decide how to spend your co-workers’ hard-earned money. But as the one responsible for running our yearly food drive, I wanted both them and the food bank to get the best bang for their buck. Just randomly picking out whatever I felt like at the grocery store wasn’t going to cut it. But how could I donate in the most effective way possible?
I’m not the only one who struggles with this question. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the “food drive holidays,” where everyone from churches to Boy Scouts troops are collecting cans to donate to food banks. Unfortunately, the donations to these drives aren’t as helpful as they could be because people just aren’t aware of the most effective ways to give.
Between my experiences running the food drives and reading up on the subject, I’ve found some really handy rules to guide your food drive giving.