A Random Act of Kindness is giving your best self to others without requests or promises of return on investment. It’s simply doing something nice for someone else, without them asking and without you doing it for anything in return.

Each year on February 17th, National Random Acts of Kindness Day is celebrated by individuals, groups, and organizations, nationwide, to encourage acts of kindness.

It is not as easy to teach kindness as you would a mathematical concept or literacy lesson. There are no step-by-step guides on how to teach kindness, and the most effective way of teaching kindness to kids is to emulate and reinforce it over and over again until kindness becomes the norm and they can choose kindness for themselves, without being led or prompted.

As parents, we need to make showing kindness a priority. Our children should see us showing kindness daily to everyone we encounter. Not only to those we love and spend a lot of time with but also to others who may be less fortunate or those who provide services for us: the mail carrier, custodians, bus drivers, food servers, and others.

Kindness is one of the most powerful and positive tools for creating a more happy and healthy society. Being generous, thoughtful, and helpful not only helps the recipient but also the giver. In fact, doing acts of kindness is more than just rewarding—it can also improve the giver’s overall health and well-being.

The benefits of kindness for children go even deeper. Experts have determined that practicing kindness changes the brain and provides physical and mental health benefits that can have lasting positive effects. This is why it’s essential for children to learn kindness at a young age.

People tend to use “nice” and “kind” interchangeably, but the words actually mean different things when you dive deeper. So it’s essential to teach children the differences between being nice and being kind.

You can be kind and nice, or you can just be nice with no kindness.

Kindness is defined as being generous, considerate, and friendly. It’s being sincere about voluntarily using your time, resources, talents, and other means at your disposal to improve your life and/or the life of another person through genuinely kind actions and behaviors.

When you are kind, you don’t “do” because you expect anything in return. You are kind because it feeds your soul, makes you happy, and it’s the right thing to do. On the other hand, when you are nice, you do something because it is expected.

Simply asking "How am I going to practice kindness today?" can be helpful.

Kids learn best through doing and observing. So what kindness activities for kids are ideal for them to do so?

Here are some activities to teach kids about kindness:

• Read about Kindness
• Choose a specific volunteering activity
• Give a toy away and teach the joy of donating
• Make kindness cards for family and friends
  
• Help someone in need
• Pick wildflowers for someone
• Share a funny story

• Give someone a compliment

• Bake a treat for a friend

• Leave a note of appreciation for the mail carrier, librarian, teacher, etc
  

United Acts of Kindness is a day for our community to come together to spread joy, hope, and love to friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors. Join us for the 3rd Annual "United Acts of Kindness Day!"

Click here https://cloud.em.firstunitedbank.com/united-acts-of-kindness-2023#countdown-section to learn how easy it is to spread a little kindness.

safeschools@durantisd.org 580-924-1276

The mission of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program is to help ensure that children are mentally and physically ready to learn and have healthy and supportive families, and to promote a safe community by equipping individuals with skills, knowledge, standards, and resources to live healthy lives