Raising Kids
Inside: Learn 60+ printable random acts of kindness ideas for kids. Plus, a 3-part guide for getting your kids on board with kindness.
I parked the car, got out and opened the trunk to a sea of grocery bags filled with food and toiletries.
I unbuckled my son, and as he hopped out, I said, “Hey buddy. You can grab a bag and carry it into the house.”
He responded promptly. “Um. No thank you.”
Calmly but firmly, I explained, “Woah. You can help. There’s a lot of bags and I need to help your sister into the house.”
He persisted, “No thank you.”
Not exactly the response I was hoping for. It’s everyday moments like this shave layers off of my patience.
And for me, it wasn’t really about the grocery bags. It was more about my kid seeing someone asking and needing help and deliberately ignoring it.
Small acts of kindness and thoughtfulness should be part of our daily life.
I wanted it to be a habit.
Random acts of kindness with kids – is there an easier way?
Teachable moments with kids are useful in the moment, but sometimes kids get locked in their emotional brains and there is no coaching them out of the power struggle.
That’s why guiding and coaching your kids is far more doable when you work on it regularly and everyone is calm.
I decided to try something new.
I desperately wanted to create a habit of kindness in my everyday life with the kids. I wanted to minimize battles over sharing, boost responsibility and create little moments (like carrying a grocery bag) that promoted kindness.
I wanted to strengthen their kindness muscle.
Using these printable chore cards work great for responsibility and helpfulness, but I wanted to take it a step further. The more I could teach values in different ways, the more likely it was to stick.
I started by printing these 60+ printable random acts of kindness cards for kids. Together my son and I cut them out and placed them in a bowl on the kitchen table. We decided to do a 10-day kindness challenge and see what happened.
Each day, we’d pick one card and do something kind for someone else.
Just because.
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Get your kids on board with random acts of kindness.
1. Describe the situation. Let your kids know what’s about to happen.
It might sound something like, “These are our kindness cards. I want to use them to spread kindness to our friends and community for 10 days. Each day you can choose one card, or I can choose one card, and we can do it together.”
Reflect your child’s response back to them (this is the SAY WHAT YOU SEE part of Language of Listening®).
So for example if they say, “Yuck. I don’t want to do those cards.” You can say something like, “Sounds like you’re not ready yet. Must be something you can do.” Or, “Sounds like you’re not sure about this. You might have another idea for showing kindness.”
In my personal experience, the kids are usually excited and say something like, “Yay. I want to try them!” And I will respond with something like, “You look really excited about this. I’d love to hear how you think we should do this challenge.”
This step immediately builds connection with your child and gets you on the same side.
2. Let the child know what they can do.
It might sound something like, “You can choose the card each day, and you can decide when we do the card.”
Kids absolutely thrive when given the opportunity to be self-directed.
Anything that offers your child a path to make decisions and works within your boundary will help your child take ownership. Your child may even choose who they do the act of kindness for or to choose a different card if they don’t like a particular one.
3. Once completed, name what the child did well.
In Language of Listening® this is called naming STRENGTHs. It might sound something like, “You created a picture for Grandma and put it in the mail special for her today. That was kind and thoughtful.”
Or, “You took 5 toys to the playground and shared them with other kids. That was hard for you, but you did it anyway. Powerful!”
Strengths always come from the child’s actions, which means your praise is never empty praise, but based on observation and facts.
STRENGTHs will help your child discover his or her inner greatness. Every child is filled with kindness and thoughtfulness; it’s only a matter of helping them recognize it.
10 Day Acts of Kindness Challenge
Each day we picked one act of kindness idea. Right away, he started calling them “the cards to help our friends.”
The goal wasn’t to have my kid be perfectly kind 100 percent of the time, but instead to give him easy opportunities to build his kindness muscle.
Day 1: Bake cookies for the neighbors.
He was super excited about baking cookies. No surprise there. He was also excited about taking the cookies to two of our neighbor friends.
He was not excited about leaving the cookies and not going inside to play.
Huge meltdown!
Day 2: Create a picture / letter for a grandparent.
This was a breeze. He loves coloring at this stage right now. And he was extremely excited about getting to send mail to someone. That was a very fun experience for him, and it opened my eyes to how much joy kids experience in the seemingly mundane adult tasks.
Day 3: Leave a balloon at a friend’s door with a kind message.
Another success! He loved the idea of creating “surprises” for friends and leaving them at their doors. He said, “This is a special kindness.”
Day 4: Share your toys at the playground with a friend.
Not. so. great.
My son didn’t want to share his Big Wheel
at the park, which was fine. Kids don’t have to share everything, but the way he handled it was definitely in need of some coaching.
When he went off to play with something else, and a friend tried to ride his Big Wheel
, he’d run over and attempt to thrust them off the bike.
Kindness…building a muscle takes time. 😬
Day 5: Give a hug to someone you love.
Easy. Takes only a minute. And serves as a quick kindness reminder when you’re short on time.
Day 6: Pick up litter and put it in the garbage.
Both my kids loved this one! And I secretly loved it too.
The beach near our home is always littered with trash. After filling a garbage bag, we laid in the sand admiring our handiwork.
Day 7-9: Donate clothing to charity, hold the elevator and read a book to a sibling.
All successes. The kindness muscle was growing.
Day 10: Offer to help carry a bag of groceries.
As I parked the car, got out and opened the trunk to another sea of groceries, I was ready to see if our little kindness challenge really did create a habit of kindness.
“Hey buddy. There’s a lot of groceries in the trunk. You can come pick out a bag to help carry inside.”
His blank stare was ambivalent at best.
As he hopped around to the trunk, I handed him a bag that contained cherry tomatoes and a roll of paper towel.
“No, I don’t want that one,” he said handing the bag to his sister.
I paused using ‘wait time’ — where you give it a minute or two before saying anything.
(Because kids will surprise you in the most amazing ways.)
He said, “Sister, you take the small bag. You help too. I’ll take this bigger bag. C’mon mom, let’s go!”
The magic was just beginning.
In the weeks following our kindness challenge, we would pick a few cards per week.
Most days, kindness wove into our days without using the cards.
It wasn’t without bumps in the road.
Sometimes there were tears. Or he’d change his mind. This was part of it. It was the building of a kindness muscle. Learning to give to others when you don’t especially feel like it is extremely hard for a child.
This was a beautiful life lesson in the moment, despite the messiness. Doing an act of kindness everyday wasn’t meant to look cookie cutter or like the movies. It was meant to look like real life.
And it did… Just picture a 1 year-old dragging a bag of cherry tomatoes on the concrete sidewalk, a 4 year-old sobbing that he can’t carry a gallon of milk and a bag chock full of veggies, and a mom who is simply trying to keep it together.
A simple acts of kindness challenge for kids is a powerful tool. I never expected to see my kids get so excited about doing things for others. You can help your kids build their own kindness muscle too.
Grab your own random acts of kindness cards for kids here!
Print this free printable!
This post comes with a free printable to give you an easy step-by-step guide to raise independent kids. Plus, remember what independent skills are age-appropriate for your kids!
Here’s a sneak peek…
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- Download the checklist. You’ll get the printable, plus join my weekly parenting newsletter!
- Print. Any paper will do the trick, but card stock would be ideal.
- Place it on your refrigerator. Use it as a quick reference to keep parenting simple!
Want more on parenting?
- One Surefire Way to Raise Responsible Kids
- 10 Powerful Responses When Your Child Whines or Complains
- How to Get Your Child to Stop Whining — Immediately
- 8 Remarkable Phrases That Will Help You Raise a Grateful Child
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I Just want to say Thank you for posting both the good and the not so pretty here. I have participated in many, many, many parenting blogs, books and resources and most state the ideal and you are left to deal with the actual reality-sometimes piling on more guilt when we cant seem to get those perfect results. I appreciate that you show the successes and the steps it takes to get to those. Well done! This post is a perfect example-the meltdowns, the shoving all appropriate reactions and the dragging of the groceries all for the one lesson of kindness helps put into perspective what we are trying to achieve. Many times others have said that I end of making more work for myself and sometimes creating more stress by letting my kids do for themselves-and it’s true! It wears me down at times and has me questioning myself but this post has really bolstered my spirits and resolve to persevere bc even if it is something seemingly small like the results are big and really will make this world a better place! Thank you for being “real”.
Diana,
I’m so glad the real life messy moments in this post spoke to you. I couldn’t imagine working through anything worthwhile with my kids without some type of meltdown, challenging behavior or nearly losing it myself. No acts of kindness challenge is perfect…and that’s the most important part because that is where the real learning happens. Thank you for reading and leaving such a thoughtful comment!
Lauren
We experienced this just the other day… We are all in *quarantine* due to Covoid and my best friend’s daughter (6 as well) dropped him off a letter for fun surprise, he lived it and immediately wanted to reply so we did. The next 2 days it rained so, sadly the note got lost in the shuffle of everything. So the following sunny day when we were about to go on our walk we remembered we needed to drop it off (this is when realized it was gone) so he was going to color her a pic instead– he did. ***When he finished he decided he didnr ‘want’ to give her the pic, he suddenly wanted me to have it (which sounds sweet, but in reality this was now the second pic he liked too much to give her- it has nothing to do with me though he tried to switch it as if I was being ungrateful– yeah)… Anyways, I just gave up told him ok he didn’t have to give her something right then (as his anxiety started to rise and solo mom in quarantine= pick your battles) but here we are a week later and thought hasn’t crossed his mind. And it truly breaks my heart that he is so sensitive yet is becoming so entitled. *SO the question is, when your son did struggle to not follow through, how did you handle it?
Taylor,
I tend to default to following the child’s lead here. After all, you can’t “make” someone kind. But you can continue to offer the opportunity and model it yourself. The more a child shows an interest in a specific act of kindness the more I will follow that, support it and nurture it. Do whatever act of kindness feels easy and successful, and the child will show more motivation and less resistance in the long-term.
Warmly,
Lauren
I am a new Mum and I am still attempting to develop my parenting skills. I want to do things differently than how I was raised. I would like to know what you did when your toddler said no thank you to carrying in the bag. Were there consequences for his action? What specifically did you do in that moment to let him know that he was making an unkind choice. I know what my mom would have done and I want to do things differently.
Great question Kate! So my response in almost all parenting situations is to use Language of Listening, which is a 3-part parenting framework that I use. In the situation with the grocery bag, I responded with…”You don’t want to carry anything. Hmmm…there’s a lot of bags here and I need help getting everything inside. There must be something we can do!” When he said, “No thank you.” I responded, “There’s some reason you don’t want to carry anything inside. There’s got to be some way you could help with something.” This immediately puts you on the same side as your child. My strategy is always long-term success training. That first day he didn’t carry the grocery bag. I said, “You’re not helping and I’m not okay with that. I carried all the bags myself and I didn’t like that at all.” There wasn’t a consequence, but rather, more work on guiding him towards helpfulness and kindness in future situations that day and onward. In 5 years, a consequence for a grocery bag likely won’t matter or stick with him, but working a kindness muscle and creating a habit…that will stick around into adulthood.
You can read more about Language of Listening by grabbing SAY WHAT YOU SEE at the bottom of this post here: https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/practical-parenting-resources/.
And how I use Language of Listening in action here: https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/positive-discipline-for-kids/
Hi there! Thanks for sharing! I have three kids, ages 4, 10 and 14. I know this activity will resonate with each of them. Everyone could stand to strengthen their kindness muscle. I do have a question. How did you respond when your child would run over when another child would try to ride their Big Wheel? I am never sure how to handle that. Often, I say you have a certain amount of minutes or two more slides or whatever and then it is so and so’s turn. But I never feel very confidant that I’ve handled it well. Thanks so much. I very much enjoy everything you share here.
Great question, Kim! So in my particular situation, my son gave up his Big Wheel to go play with his friend’s toys. Meanwhile, his friend grabbed the Big Wheel. Essentially my son wanted his friends toys and his toy all to himself. Language of Listening, the 3-part parenting framework that I use, always starts with one thing…SAY WHAT YOU SEE. So in my situation it sounded like…”Your friend is riding the Big Wheel and you don’t like that. You want his toys and your bike ALL to yourself. Sharing is really hard! Hmmm…there must be something you can do to wait until he is finished. Hmmm…NOTHING seems to work for your right now. You just want it all! You’re trying to push him off the bike AND I’m not okay with that. Hmmm…you could ask him for the bike. Or you could come up with another fun game to play. Or you could go back inside. There must be something that would work.” It that situation the other child played with the bike for a while, and when he was finished, my son took back the bike.
With sharing, there are infinite ways to use SAY WHAT YOU SEE between both kids. In a hypothetical playground sharing situation, it might sounds something like this…
you to kid #1: “you see that boy playing with the ball and you really, really want a turn.”
you to kid #2: “hmmm…looks like you’re having a fun time playing that. I wonder how many more times you need to bounce the ball before you’re ready to share it.”
you to kid #1: “looks like he needs to play for a few more bounces. waiting is hard!”
And you can continue going back and forth. You never have to know exactly what to say. You can simply SAY WHAT YOU SEE. You can continue going back and forth between the kids until they find a solution. Kids come up with the most creative solutions. And if it works for both kids, then it works!
Hi, Lauren, thanks for this post. I have 2 years old daughter. Are this printable cards suitable for her? She is very cooperative and kind with one exception – she doesn’t want to share her toys. It doesn’t matter if the other child is complete stranger or her own cousin. I’m pregnant now and don’t want to buy another 100 toys for the second child. How to encourage her to share her stuff?