How Do I Teach My Child To Be Kind?

How Do I Teach My Child to Be Kind?

Model Kind Behaviour

Kids learn by watching us. Show kindness in your actions, and they’ll follow. For example, if you hold the door open for someone, explain why you did it. Say, “I held the door open because it’s a nice thing to do and it helps others.”

Teach Empathy

Empathy isn’t something kids are born with; they need to learn it. Explain how their actions affect others. If they see a friend fall and get hurt, ask them, “How do you think your friend feels right now?” This helps them understand and care about others’ feelings.

Praise Acts of Kindness

When your child is kind, praise them. Positive words help them see that kindness is good. If they share a toy with a sibling, provide affirmation by telling them, “That was very kind of you to share your toy. It makes your brother happy.”

Address Unkind Behaviour

If your child is unkind, point it out and talk about it. Ask them, “Why did you say that? How would you feel if someone said that to you?”. This helps a child to think about their actions and learn from them.

Prepare Them for Unkindness from Others

Not all kids will be kind. Teach your child how to handle it when others are mean. Tell them, “Sometimes, other kids might say mean things. It’s important to stay calm and walk away. You can always talk to a teacher or an adult if you need help.”

Raising kind and strong kids takes time and patience. By showing kindness, teaching empathy, and preparing them for real-life social interactions, you can help your children become better individuals.

Watch Donna and Angela’s Video

Kindness Lessons for Preschool

Teaching kindness to preschoolers or toddlers doesn’t have to be complicated, and there are lots of simple ways you can help your child learn to be kind.

At Kids Club Early Childhood Learning Centres, we use activities to teach kindness to preschoolers and methods that help them develop good social skills from an early age.

Story Time with a Message

We read storybooks that talk about kindness, sharing, and caring for others. After reading, we talk about what happened in the story and how the characters showed kindness.

Kindness Activities for Kindergarten and Preschool

We initiate fun, interactive activities like group projects and role-playing games to help kids practice being kind.

Positive Reinforcement

We always notice and praise kind behaviour. This could be through saying nice things, reflecting on positive actions at the end of the day, or giving special rewards.

Social and Emotional Learning

Our teachers use social and emotional learning (SEL) to teach kids about feelings, empathy, and how to talk to others. SEL activities help kids understand their own feelings and the feelings of others, making our community kinder.

These are just some of the ways Kids Club Educators are helping children become kind, compassionate and resilient individuals.

If you want to know more, arrange a chat with one of our team.

About Kids Club Early Childhood Learning Centres

At Kids Club Early Childhood Learning Centres, we’re here to support you and your child every step of the way.

With child-led learning, healthy nutrition, experienced Educators & stimulating play spaces, you can be sure we’re giving them the best start.

Take a peek inside our centres and see for yourself whether Kids Club is the right centre for your child.

Call 1300 KIDS CLUB today and book a tour of a centre near you!

Video Transcript

Okay. How can I teach my children to be kind? I think it’s a matter of role, role-modeling and play and showing them and demonstrating how to be kind. I’ll give you an example of children at preschool. If a child has hurt themselves, I always say to them, everybody else come and help them come and look over here. Let’s see if they’re okay. I did have a funny situation where I walked down the lower playground. The boys were playing soccer and there was a child on the ground and they were kicking the ball around the child who was on the floor crying. And I said, stop the game. I said, what’s, what’s wrong here? And they all went, Huh? They didn’t even notice that. And so this is where we need to teach it to them, which is age appropriate.

And it’s okay because they’re not born with that empathetic skill to be kind. They’re not actually born with it. So I said to them, all right, can everybody see that this little boy is crying? This little boys crying and they all went, yeah, he fell over. And I said, but how come you didn’t stop and help him? You needed to come and tell me? I said, come on everyone, let’s go and help him. And they all gathered in and they all gave him a little pat and we all said to you, okay, can we help you? Let’s go get you a bandaid. And I made them all come up to the top and we put a little bandaid on. And I said, okay, that’s so nice. It’s so nice that you’ve got friends that are gonna look after you.

And just from that one teaching opportunity, they’ll do it again and they’ll do it again. And every time they do it, we praise and praise them. So I’ll whisper in a child’s ear, thank you so much for being kind and looking after your friend. I really appreciate that. That’s lovely. So that then their little chest goes, oh my goodness. I did that. I did do that. And once they do it once and they know that’s the right thing to do, they want to do it again because they love being good. Okay. They want to be good. So we need to teach them that. We don’t need to teach them that, but we also need to be mindful that, they are going to come across people that are not going to be kind. Okay. That’s a reality of life. We all work in working environments and I know in my experience in working that, I’ve come across some people that haven’t been kind and it’s about how I’ve managed and how I’ve handled it.

So we need to equip them with skills and tips and offer them strategies on how to cope when someone isn’t kind to them and just build that resilience so they just dust it off cause people will go up to them in the playground. We actually had a lady contact us through Facebook, a couple of weeks ago saying that her daughters come home from school saying, mummy, I don’t want to be your friend anymore and you’re not coming to my birthday party. Okay. I would just like to mention that mom’s organising the birthday, and she’s organising the food and the entertainment. So I’m pretty sure mum’s gonna be there firstly. So she doesn’t really have to worry that her daughter’s going to be evicted from her own birthday party. But the thing is they pick the kids, we’ll save this and they will come home and they will say it at home.

It gets said to them in the playground with other children and role-modeling behaviour and then the child is coming home and role-modeling that to mum and dad. So the mum was asking us how, how can I deal with that? How can I cope with that? And we basically just central her to say to her daughter, you know what, those words are not very kind. It’s not very nice that you’re uninviting mommy to your birthday party cause Mommy’s obviously looking forward to it. Um, and then she said to her, has someone said to that to you at Kindie? And she said, Oh yes, they say it all the time. So that was her opportunity then to swoop in and say, well, when one of your friends says that to you, you just need to say, well that’s okay cause I’ve got lots of other friends. Okay. So she was giving her a tip and a strategy that the child can then use in the playground so that she doesn’t take it so personally. And also explaining to her daughter that that child won’t remember what they’ve said mostly anyway. Okay. And to be honest with you, most three and four year olds only have very small birthday parties anyway. You know, it’s not a major social event. We just need to remind our children that, yes, people are not going to be kind all the time.