What happens when we show kindness
What happens when you show kindness… and what happens when you don’t?
Our true character word of the month this month is kindness.
Kindness means I use caring words and choose kind actions. For older kids, we say, “Showing care concern and consideration for others without expecting anything in return.”
How Kindness Makes You Feel
What happens when we show kindness for other people? How does it make us feel to show kindness? How does it make other people feel when we show kindness to them?
Let’s look at a situation as an example.
Let’s say another kid who is shorter than you is trying to reach up high for something. They’re having difficulty getting it and looking frustrated. They’re getting kind of upset.
What do you do you?
Do you go over and you help get it for them?
Now how does that make you feel to do something nice for someone like that? It makes you feel pretty good. It makes you feel like you’ve done something nice that day. It makes you feel happy for a moment.
How does it make the other person feel when you show kindness to them? It makes them feel pretty good too. Kindness helps them feel like other people notice and care about them.
Now what if you take something down for them and smile and give it to them, and you then ask them to give you some money? “Hey, that’ll be $5 please.”
No, that’s not an act of kindness.
Take something down, give it to him, and give him a smile. They say “thank you,” you say “you’re welcome.” Everybody feels happier.
Make A Difference In Somebody’s Life
What if a new kid comes into school?
We’ve all had that situation where a new kid comes into class.
How do we show kindness for them? How does it make you feel when you walk up to them and introduce yourself to them? How does it make them feel to be noticed when they’re the new kid in school and the new kid in the class?
When we introduce ourselves and say “hi” to a new friend, we feel good. We feel good about ourselves. We feel like, hey, maybe we’re going to make a new friend.
The person who comes into the new school may be feeling scared. They may be feeling lonely. They’re not sure what to do or who anybody is.
It can really make a difference in their life when you’re the one that walks up to them and says, “hey, how you doing?”
Let’s say a friend is being left out of the game. How can we show kindness if a friend is being left out? Of course, we can bring them in. We can include them. When you do that, again you feel good. You feel like you’re making a real friend.
For the other person, you really feel like there’s other people out there who care about you. You feel like people do want you to be around them. It makes everybody feel happy, makes everybody feel better.
Not Showing Kindness
Now what happens when we don’t show kindness?
It happens to everybody. We’re all human.
Sometimes we get mad, sometimes we get upset, sometimes we say not-so-kind words. We might have even done that today with our family. It happens.
How do you feel when you say something not so kind?
You don’t feel real good, you don’t feel happy, you don’t feel proud. Sometimes you get that little pit in your stomach down in the bottom.
And how do you think the other person feels when you show non-kind words to them?
Do you think they feel happy? No, they feel pretty bad. They feel hurt, they feel betrayed, they feel like maybe they’ve lost a friend. They feel like they’re not so sure. You might even lose some trust with them.
Now it’s going to happen. You’re going to get upset, you’re going to use not-so-kind words.
There is one thing we can do to try to make it better: we can apologize.
How To Apologize
So, if we accidentally mess up, and we say unkind words and we say mean things to somebody and we snap at them… I want to make sure that we apologize.
When we do that, you want to make it a real apology. You want to make it sincere. That means using their name: “Mom, I’m sorry.”
You want to tell them what it’s for: “I’m sorry for yelling at you when you told me I had to clean my room.”
And then you want to do something to make it better: “So, I’m going to go upstairs and I’m going to clean my room now.”
To recap, when apologizing:
- Use their name
- Tell them what it’s for
- Do something to make it better.
Remember, making it better could be as simple as giving him a hug, writing a letter or doing something nice in return for him just to show them that you really actually didn’t mean it.
So, remember the word of the month is kindness. Make sure that you show kindness. And keep working on your 100 acts of kindness that we talked about in the previous article.
We’ll see everybody out on the mat.
-Master Helsdon