practicing kindness

The Dalai Lama said:  Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible.

But kindness does not always come easily.  Practice generally makes things easier. 

So, I like to give my kindergarten kids opportunities to practice being kind.

To give of themselves.

Without expectation.  

We read a book called Somebody Loves You Mr Hatch.  

Mr Hatch was given a box of chocolates (due to a postal error).  Attached was a note - Somebody loves you.   The unexpected gift made Mr Hatch feel really good.  He smiled. He laughed.  He changed his entire outlook on life.  He changed from a  cheese and mustard sandwich eating recluse, to the neighbourhood go-to guy and provider of brownie and lemonade backyard parties. 

What would happen if we gave a yummy surprise to people on purpose - no postal error. 

How would it make them feel.  Would they feel special, like Mr Hatch did when he received a gift. 

We decided to try it.

First question:  what could we give away.  Kindergarten kids don't have a lot of money, so we could not buy anything.  Solution: kindergarten kids  are excellent rice crispy square cooks.  

Every child in the class helped make a batch of rice crispy squares.  Melting butter, counting marshmallows and mixing in the rice crispys.

To make them special to give away - and because they were a "Somebody loves you" gift, we used a cookie cutter to make them into hearts.

They were slipped into Valentine's snack bags, ready to give away.

We chatted about who we could give them to - someone that we love, a friend, someone who we thought needed to know that "somebody loves them".  

We gave some away at school.  Our custodians were loved, the school district delivery truck driver, maintenance workers - basically any adult that we saw that was was not attached to a large group of students.  

Each kindergarten kid was given a somebody loves you heart to take home and give away.  (I sent an email home first explaining our project - that we were learning to give something away for the joy of being kind without expecting anything in return.)

Hopefully we spread a little love around - and enjoyed practicing being kind.