Have Courage and be kind

Each Holiday Season comes and goes and I wonder if I did enough to teach my children the gift of giving instead of receiving.  I know I don't do enough but this year we started something new.

It began on Black Friday.  My girls persuaded me to take them to the mall to go Black Friday Shopping.  (They felt very left out when Bart and I escaped to Wal-mart Thurs night).    I've never been to the mall on Black Friday and boy was it packed.  Long lines but plenty of deals and we were there longer than expected.    So combine that experience with an early morning adventure to Home Depot (again my girls idea of fun because they serve Cocoa and donuts) Jane had been up way too long and was tired and hungry.   I suggest we stop by McDonald's and do my usual ( but only if you don't ask me for a Happy Meal speech)  which being tired and hungry sent Jane into one of her spells about the unfair life she lives etc.  Anger rose inside me and I ended up just driving home instead of stopping by Mickey D's.  Jane who now realizes she not only doesn't get a Happy Meal but doesn't get any McDonald's is inconsolable with feelings of being picked on.   Nothing I do or say is helping and I tell her enough go to your room and come back when you've calmed down.  She stomps away crying "I just want someone to be kind to me that's all".

A few mornings later I'm making me a lunch before heading off to work.  I take some turkey and notice there is enough left for one small sandwich.  Knowing if I put it back in the fridge it will probably get shoved behind or below something and won't emerge until who knows what is growing on it.  So I make Jane, the only kid in my house who will eat a turkey sandwich one.  In my house my girls make there own lunch for school.  I've got enough on my plate in the mornings and feel they are self sufficient enough to do it themselves and if they can't then there is always school lunch to fall back on.   I remembered her fit she through a few days back and decide to show Jane some "kindness".  I pack her a lunch complete with a note that says "Jane I packed you a lunch because I wanted to be kind to you".      Later that day I returned home a little later than usual because I was meeting with a parent after school and pulled in the driveway to discover Jane racking the leaves.  I commended her for helping without being asked and she said "I'm doing something kind for dad"  After she was finished  she wrote him the same note I gave her and put it where he places his laptop when he comes in the door.

Jane loved surprising her dad and I thought about how so many times in life we are less kind to those we love the most than complete strangers.  Maybe this Holiday doing "charity" to others could be right in our own house.

So I invented the kindness game for us to play all of December.  I printed off a bunch of these tags of kindness.

I added all of our names on the back of the tag and divided them up so each of us has 4 kindness tags for each person in the family and put them into an envelopes labelled with each of our names.  The point of the game is to pick one tag out each day and do an act of kindness for that person and leave the kindness sticker behind so that when found the person could guess who it was who did the kindness.     The first day of the game was a crazy Saturday where I found myself running from thing to thing.  Coming home from Emily's Viola lesson with a car load of groceries gearing up to make some soup for the ward Christmas party and I walked into the kitchen and found that the disaster of a kitchen was no more and a kindness sticker from Jane left on the counter.  Boy did that make my day!!
Some other acts of kindness
* Bart replacing all of the light bulbs that all blew out one day on our tall ceilings in the music room.
*Aaron loved it when I offered to tie his shoes one morning and told me I could use my kindness sticker for doing it.
*Jane was tickled pink to come home from school to find a chick fil meal just for her.
*Emily was relieved to see all of her clothes had been put away and her closet organized before she got home from school.
*Bart sort of appreciated but I was blown away and proud of my mini me when Jane spent a great deal of  time  thoughtfully reorganizing and labeling  his shelves where he keeps his clothes.
*Aaron cleaned Jane's room and made her bed one day
*Jane secretly and quickly cleaned out Emily's locker in the mud room.
*After Bart pulled Aaron's second tooth out he gave him a kindness sticker.
*Our Elf Zoey got really ambitious one night after the kids went to bed and scrubbed the kitchen/family room and left behind a kindness sticker for me
* Emily and Jane made me my very own cake on their first day of Winter Break and I was still working.
*Aaron swept and organized the garage one day while I took Emily to Viola lessons
*Emily made mine and Janes bed a couple of times
*Jane opted to stay home one evening instead of come along to take Emily to Symphony rehearsal and when we got back she had done something for everyone in the family including clean my room, clean Aaron's room, do the dishes and take in the trash for Bart.


I love how this game helped us all remember to show more kindness.  In speech therapy we often talk about if a skill we've taught someone has been generalized, meaning can the kid do it outside of therapy without any prompting.    I'm hoping this game gets generalized and my kids can see acts of kindness to do as well as appreciate  kindness from others.     Such as when Jane made and left this thank you note to our Elf Zoey on Christmas Eve before Zoey took off to the North Pole to stay until next December.