If there is one thing that most parents want to instill in their kids, it’s respect for others. We all want our children to grow up to be kind, caring and loving people. If we do our jobs as parents right, we could help be responsible for incredible change in the future. After all, our kids will be taking over this world pretty soon! I’m proud to be a Hasbro Kindness Ambassador so that I can share their amazing generationOn ‘Rules of Kindness’ campaign and help you inspire kindness in your own children. Read on for a simple project that will help your tween develop a stronger sense of compassion and empathy, then make your own kindness jar together!

Inspire a stronger sense of compassion and empathy in your kids with this easy kindness jar DIY project!

Inspire Compassion with a Kindness Jar

First, maybe you’re wondering, what exactly is a kindness jar? I actually got this idea from generationOn’s Empathy Toolkit. It’s filled with easy projects that you can do with kids of all ages to help develop their compassion and empathy for others. One of the ideas was to create “Kindness is Cool Notes.” Basically, every time you see someone doing something kind, you write it down. Then a teacher reads the notes at the end of the day. I thought it would be fun to adapt the project for our own home.

Supplies:

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  • A jar of some sort (can also be a box, bag or anything else that you have on hand, no need to go out and buy anything fancy!)
  • Paper (again, it’s up to you! I’m using little cardstock papers that I got when I bought a paper project box on clearance, you can use whatever you want)
  • Markers, colored pencils, crayons, etc.

 

How to do this kindness project:

Keep your supplies in an easy-to-grab place for your kids. Every day after school, ask them to sit down and write three kind things: one about something nice they did for others, one telling something nice that someone did for them and one that is just a nice comment or compliment about a person in their class. For the last one, ask your child to choose someone different every day. Bonus points if your kids can say something nice about someone that they don’t really get along with too well! It gets them thinking about how everyone has good traits. If your kids are too young to really write much on their own, they can dictate to you and you can write it down.

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After your kids write down their three “kindness notes,” have them put it in the jar. At the end of each week, sit down with your kids and read all the notes. Talk about how these acts of kindness made them feel. Did they make a new friend because of a kind act? Did they feel differently about kids who they didn’t particularly like before? If your children’s teacher is open to it, send the jar in with your kids so the rest of the class can benefit. Maybe it will even inspire them to make their own kindness jar!

This project is great for building empathy and compassion because it really gets your kids thinking about everyday acts of kindness. After a few days, they’ll be more conscious of how they treat others at school because they will want to have something great to share. It’s really such a simple yet engaging way to spread peace and harmony.

More about Hasbro & generationOn’s Rules of Kindness Campaign

Hasbro and generationOn partnered together to launch the Rules of Kindness campaign, which is designed to build caring and empathy in today’s youth. Now through October 17th, you can visit the Rules of Kindness website and take the pledge to create your own kindness rules (or share the rules you and your child already came up with together). While you’re there, you’ll also find tons of great resources to help build compassion in your own children, from simple projects you can do at home to fabulous ideas for teachers and community leaders.

Here’s some really exciting news: sharing your story enters you for a chance to win grants to help put your ideas into action.  Four grand prize winners will receive a $500 grant and an additional 20 will get a $250 grant!

Learn more at generationOn.org/rulesofkindness. Follow both generationOn and Hasbro on Twitter and follow the #RulesofKindness hashtag to see what others are saying!

Sign up to share your kindness rules! 

 

How do you inspire kindness and compassion in your kids at home? Share in the comments!