Teaching Kids Random Acts of Kindness

My dear friend tonight told me that I am the type of person that has a thought and then acts on it. I had never really thought of myself in that way, but I will own that. I do tend to act on thoughts and fairly quickly. It's my way of receiving inspiration on how to interact with my family, friends, etc. I have found that this has rubbed off on my almost seven year old son. If he has a thought about someone, he usually sits down and draws them a picture, or writes them a note. It's cute and usually appreciated by the recipients.

If you are like me, you are crazy busy. Everyone I know is busy - either with work, school, kids, and maybe even all three. I have never said, "How are you doing?", only to have someone say, "I'm good. I love just sitting around all day doing nothing. I'm not busy at all." Life just doesn't work like that. But, what do our busy lives teach our kids? Especially if we don't take time to act on the thoughts we have during the day?

We are coming up on the 9th anniversary of 9/11. I propose that it be a day of following random thoughts and acting on them. Say something pops into your head like, "I think I'll take Heidi a cookie." I am totally in favor of you acting on it. Just to give you an example.

What if we use that day to teach our kids to act on random thoughts? Turn random thoughts into random acts of kindness. And then the next day we do it, and continue it through the Holidays? Maybe your corner of the world will be a happier better place.

I'm going to start with random thoughts about my children. I'm going to turn them into random acts of kindness for my children. Perhaps stopping for a few minutes that day to read to them, or sing them a song when they aren't expecting it. Or take them on separate Mommy Dates. I'll let you know.

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