Random Acts of Kindness: Little Artists

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

Be sure to share your own experiences with committing random acts of kindness on our Facebook page, to be a part of our final series post tomorrow, December 21.

This week’s post comes to us from Varya of Little Artists (now Creative World of Varya),  who shares about her Random Acts of Kindness Day in China. Visit the main Random Acts of Kindness Challenge page for a full schedule of the posts in this series.

Random Acts of Kindness: Little Artists

Random acts of kindness – it all starts at home!

As I was thinking of writing about our Random Act of Kindness, there are so many things that flooded my thoughts. First I wanted to write about a random cloth donation drive I organized. Then I thought of making some Christmas decorations with my daughter and leaving them on the door of our Christian neighbours (like Secret Santa) but learned they had probably left for holidays.

Then I was going over some old pictures and stumbled upon one video where my daughter, at that time just over 1 year old, carries around a bag of tomatoes from our grocery shopping trip. And another picture of her dragging a big bag of her own diapers towards me so I can help her change them. As I kept looking, I realized that all these gifts of kindness start from a very early age and we actually look upon them as something cute and adorable our children do. And it is! But if you really look into it they are merely trying to help with all their sincere innocence hence performing the very acts of kindness.

So here are some Random Acts of Kindness my daughter came up with on her own, without either of us realizing, and through them she learned and continues learning so many other virtues (patience, helpfulness, staying calm, excellence and many more!):

1. When we were out, she always insisted on grabbing a big or small cart and pushing it. She also wanted to have something in her cart in order to help us shop. She still does that and she asks to carry various items.

2. That thing kids like to do with taking clothes in and out of the boxes? They are learning to organize! I remember being frustrated with my daughter constantly dragging all her clothes out of the drawers and urging her to put them back in. On her 4th birthday she suddenly started singing: “Clean up the house! Everybody clean up the house!” (from a DVD “Bear in the Big Blue House”). And as she sang, she picked up every single one of her toys, all on her own, without anyone asking, and arranged them nicely in boxes! That happened to be the day I wasn’t feeling very quite fine. Well done, Miss T!

3. We live in quite an old compound. So sometimes the water pipe here or there bursts and the water is gone for the day. So we have to go downstairs to fetch the water and bring it back. The first time my daughter learned about this consciously when she was 3 years old. She grabbed 2 buckets and said she was going to fetch the water! Isn’t it just something that would make a mom’s heart melt?

4. My husband got new gloves for washing dishes. And that’s when our daughter decided she wanted to help! So, here’s another one for you – 4 year old assisting her father in dish washing!

Look around and observe your children – their random acts are not so random. They observe and learn from us. Encouraging them through creative play, personal example and simply by teaching them and guiding in every aspect of their lives is what will guarantee them taking it out beyond your household. And before you know it, they’ll be out there helping others without giving it a second thought or expecting anything in return!

Creative World of Varya

Varya is the mother of 2 beautiful girls, an ESL teacher, a Montessori teacher and a dance teacher.  She enjoys music and singing and grew up on Classical music and fairy tales. One of her strong desires is for the younger generation to keep developing their talents and abilities not only through the means of technical progress (TV, computers and so on) but through the traditional art and crafts.  Creative World of Varya is about creative development of children.  Varya trained with Baby’s First Massage and Oh Baby! Fitness.  She also draws upon the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, including the principle that the world is but one country.  You can find Varya on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.