Last blog post, we shared some ideas to inspire you for Random Acts of Kindness Week. But don’t stop there!
After the week is over, consider building kindness into your family’s everyday routines. The less you isolate service projects and acts of kindness into their own once-in-a-while calendar slots, the more generosity simply becomes a way of life. Guest blogger Sarah Aadland of Doing Good Together™ shares tools to help your family practice empathy and make a difference all year long, all while creating wonderful family memories!
Here are six of our favorite, incredibly simple ways to get started.
- Adopt a Food Shelf: Make it a habit to pick up a few extra groceries (especially good staples when they go on sale) each time you go. Decorate a dedicated box, add to it often, and deliver when full. Don’t forget to start a conversation with your kids about who you are helping… and why.
- Create a card-making station: Fill a small box with folded paper, envelops, magazine cut outs, stickers, glue, and markers. Then invite your kids to make cards to cheer up others. Follow our project link to connect with sick children who could use some mail, or tune in to the needs of those around you. Make cards for an ailing neighbor, or leave a thank you note for your garbage collector. Make the box easily accessible so kids can redo this project on a whim.
- The Rubbish Race. Pack plastic bags and gardening gloves in a special backpack, and turn every walk to the park into a neighborhood cleanup effort.
- Sign up for Free Inbox Inspiration: Our monthly newsletter is full of seasonal family service tips. Sign up – and open it when it arrives once each month – you are sure to find one or two simple ways to turn family time into an opportunity for kindness.
- Read Together: A good book provides the perfect opportunity for a conversation about kindness. Check out our list of favorites, along with the discussion questions we offer, and turn story time into an opportunity to exercise your child’s “empathy muscles.”
- Create a Family Mission Statement: Turn mindfulness into an artistic keepsake with these simple project instructions. Setting goals as a family can inspire your youngest family members, along with your most resistant skeptics, to keep kindness on the priority list.
While occasional volunteer projects in the community are wonderfully rewarding, everyday habits of kindness will empower our kids to become lifelong volunteers and will impact our communities for generations to come.
Sarah Aadland is the director of Doing Good Together™’s Big-Hearted Families™ program. Her own family of five provides ample inspiration and field-testing for the ideas, stories, and links she shares. While they may be covered in glue, glitter, and grass clippings most of the time, she keeps her grade-schoolers and preschooler steeped in lessons of kindness and empathy amid the dizzying pace of family life.