Random Acts of Kindness: Kid World Citizen

This is the fifth installment in our new series on Random Acts of Kindness. Each week a different blogger will share about a day that they and their little ones dedicated to committing random acts of kindness.

Readers will have a chance to share their own experiences with committing random acts of kindness on our Facebook page, to be a part of our final series post on December 20.

This week’s post comes to us from Kid World Citizen, who shares about her Random Acts of Kindness Day in the US with her children. Visit the main Random Acts of Kindness Challenge page for a full schedule of the posts in this series.

Random Acts of Kindness: Kid World Citizen

I woke up on Saturday early, and glanced at our busy schedule for the day: soccer games, a birthday party, and I needed to run some errands. While we ate breakfast, I explained that amidst our activities, we were going to learn about “random acts of kindness.” I tried to describe random acts of kindness by giving examples: “it’s like giving someone a compliment, or sharing something with them without expecting them to give anything back to you. It’s when you want to help someone, or cheer them up. How can we be extra kind today- and maybe do some little surprises for our friends that would make them happy?”

The kids came up with a lot of great ideas, with some prompting and help with the brainstorming. Here were their ideas:

• being polite and saying please and thank you
• helping someone carry something heavy
• saying that someone looks pretty or giving them a compliment
• smiling at people and saying hello
• being a good sport in soccer and helping the other team (or our own teammates) if they fall down
• picking up litter that isn’t ours

As we went through the day, I tried to model random acts of kindness. At the store, I let 2 elderly women go ahead of me because they hadn’t grabbed a number. We helped another woman find something she was looking for, and held the door open for a mom and her stroller.

At the soccer games, the kids made sure to congratulate the other team on a good game, and pick up trash around the field. To my surprise, my sweet little one brought me a cough drop and rubbed my back, since I had lost my voice.

We wanted to do one really nice act for our friends, and so we decided to make cookies and go caroling at their house. Some of the cookies get a little crisp, but we salvaged enough for some of our friends and headed up to surprise them. The kids were really nervous to ring the first doorbell, but once their friends came to the door, they started singing and laughing. Smiles all around!

I asked the kids: “did we cheer them up?” “YES!!!!” “Did we make them happy?” “YES!!!!” We talked about how it makes the other person feel good, and doing kind things also makes us feel good! We drove to different neighborhoods, hitting many friends’ houses. Some weren’t home— but they might get a visit another night. As we got home a little voice piped up and asked if we could go back out and do this again tomorrow:).

Kid World Citizen

Becky is the mom of 4 bilingual, multicultural, active kids ages 4-7; she and her husband are doing their best to raise them as compassionate world citizens, and lifelong learners. She founded Kid World Citizen, where parents and teachers can find global activities to do at home that help enrich little minds. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. In her free time loves to cook and travel and is a wannabe triathlete.

Watch for a post next week from Vibrant Wanderings! You can see a full schedule of the posts in this series by visiting the main Random Acts of Kindness Challenge page.