‘Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.’1
Kindness is a skill that takes many years to develop and refine. Consideration, respect and generosity are among the complex skillset required to become a kind person. Children do not simply ‘learn’ kindness. They need to live it.
‘Kind and considerate children are developed where kindness and consideration are practised.’2 Kindness develops best when we are purposeful about building it, and environments that harbour and harness kindness are the most effective in building kind children.
THE BENEFITS OF KINDNESS
Kindness raises others’ wellbeing. However, studies have discovered how being kind can also increase our own feelings of happiness and life satisfaction.3 Serotonin and dopamine levels rise as we display kindness, improving mood and decreasing stress. In short, being kind boosts our own wellbeing!
There is also a link between nature and kindness, with studies demonstrating that spending time in nature encourages kindness and generosity.4 I have personally seen children being transformed by being outside – able to wait their turn, help others with a task or be more encouraging to others. The outdoors calms us and boosts our wellbeing.
It makes total sense that key skills linked with wellbeing are encouraged as we spend more time outside.
Theory of mind – the starting point of kindness
How often have you heard ‘sharing is caring’ spoken to a small child? And yet young children cannot truly do either until they have acquired theory of mind – the concept where children realise that ‘others not only think and feel differently to us, but also that they have knowledge and beliefs that differ from ours’.5
Theory of mind helps children work out how other people feel, believe or intend. In other words, children learn that other people have needs and feelings as well. At three to four years, children have an understanding of their own feelings/other people’s feelings. At four to five years, children have an understanding of other people’s perspectives, and how others’ different beliefs may affect how they behave.
Children are now able to think about ‘others’ rather than ‘self’. It alters how they perceive others and is the starting point to empathetic behaviour.
Theory of mind is triggered through the numerous social interactions that young children have with family and peers. Children without theory of mind may say and do kind things as a social behaviour but be unable to do these things out of consideration for others.
Try out the following theory of mind test with the three-year-olds in your setting:
Find a box/container that the children will instantly recognise, for example, a familiar cereal box. Put some pencils inside the box.
Ask the children to open the box and see what is inside. They will not expect pencils.
Ask them, ‘What will mummy/sibling/friend think is in the box?’
If they say ‘pencils’, they have not yet acquired theory of mind, i.e. they think everyone sees the world as they do. If they say ‘Cornflakes’ (or whatever should be in the box), they have acquired theory of mind, i.e. they have understood the perspective of someone else.
Co-regulation – the foundation for kindness
Kindness cannot grow where there is dysregulation. In order for children to become self-regulators, adults must support children’s potentially turbulent early years through steady, loving support – which is namely co-regulation. In this way, children can learn to understand their own feelings, calm themselves after an emotional episode and find strategies to help them in the future.
Co-regulation is at the heart of empathy. It not only calms and supports children, but it also models kindness. Children have the opportunity to see kindness and empathy in action on a regular basis. This builds a slow but sure understanding of the experience of kindness.
However, it is impossible for adults to model kindness if they are unregulated themselves. Self-regulation is challenging, regardless of our age or maturity, ‘…especially when feeling low or particularly anxious and our amygdalae hastily enter into defence mode’.6
Learning to be regulated is a skill. Studies say that self-regulation takes 25 years to mature. I would argue that it is a life-long skill, and we become more skilled the more intentional we are about regulating our own feelings and finding ways to be co-regulated by friends, family and colleagues. This practice is healthy, and very necessary, especially in our world of Covid and uncertainty.
THE PRACTICE OF KINDNESS
Kindness cannot be a halfhearted skill. It has to be wholehearted.
In order to build kindness in children, we need to encourage them to:
be present for others. We do this by:
- modelling responsiveness. ‘Sarah looks sad. Do you think she would like to listen to a story?’
- praising responsiveness. ‘That was so kind of you to share your book with James. You are so kind!’
- thanking responsiveness. ‘Thank you so much for fetching my scarf. Now I’m warm!’
understand their own and other people’s feelings. We do this by:
- acknowledging and labelling the child’s’ feelings. ‘You look excited!’ ‘I can see how much you love coming down the slide!’
- acknowledging and labelling other children’s feelings. ‘Sarah seems sad, I think she misses her mum.’ ‘Jack is so excited today!’ ‘Gina is crying, maybe she needs a hug.’
understand their own and other people’s perspectives. We do this by:
- acknowledging and talking about the child’s own perspectives. ‘It’s your birthday tomorrow, you must be excited!’ ‘Poor you, you’ve had a fall. Does anything hurt?’
- acknowledging and talking about other children’s perspectives. ‘Poor Ali, he looks so cold, shall we find his coat for him?’ ‘Matt is going to the zoo this afternoon, he looks happy!’
BUILDING KINDNESS
Kindness grows where there is sustained and intentional effort to build it. Supportive adult/child connections must be a priority. ‘Children are wired to connect with others and the human brain is designed for reciprocity – the back and forth of interaction and engagement.’7
Kindness is the by-product of such reciprocity, where mind and heart together have an emotional response, rather than a learned social behaviour.
Sophie, the little girl in my class, was able to grieve for her mother because she was co-regulated not just by me, her teacher, but also by her classmates (see Case study). Kindness grew that year, and Sophie’s life improved significantly because of it.
The power of modelling and building kindness is profound. It is also simple, realistic and achievable.
Let’s start building kindness ambassadors today!
CASE STUDY: building group kindness through co-regulation
Some years ago, a little girl joined my Year 1 class. She had recently lost her mother. Sophie* arrived a day after the beginning of term so that the class could be prepared for what was going to be a challenging time. Before she arrived, we spoke about how Sophie might be feeling, and the children were able to ask any questions they needed to.
Sophie settled down well, and the children were warm and welcoming. A few weeks later, we were getting ready to go outside when Sophie began to cry, ‘I want my mummy.’ All the children looked anxious. I asked my teaching assistant to take them outside and that Sophie and I would follow on. Then something extraordinary happened. The children approached Sophie, without crowding her, and quietly spoke to her, or touched her gently on her shoulder or back, before leaving the classroom. This kindness was profound, and Sophie was able to calm down from her very strong feelings of sadness.
Over that academic year, we talked frequently about Sophie and how we could help her, using times when Sophie was out of the classroom. The children became protectors of Sophie, without suffocating or patronising her. They included her in their play, made sure she was always with someone when out at play, or had someone to sit next to during circle time. Through involving them in Sophie’s sadness, they were able to become true ambassadors of kindness.
*Name has been changed
REFERENCES
- Adams S (1995) A Kind Word, DNRC Newsletter
- Helen Garnett (2017) Developing Empathy in the Early Years
- Kellon K et al(2019) ‘Comparing the effects of performing and recalling acts of kindness’, The Journal of Positive Psychology
- Zhang JW et al (2014) ‘An occasion for unselfing: Beautiful nature leads to prosociality’, Journal of Environmental Psychology
- Harland J (2017) ‘Empathy and Theory of Mind’ in Developing Empathy in the Early Years
- Conkbayir M (2017)Early Childhood and Neuroscience
- Helen Garnett (2017) Developing Empathy in the Early Years