Pink yard signs. Random Acts of Kindness Day. Kindness Counts campaigns. #BeKind and similar hashtags are trending.
Throughout Owensboro and Daviess County, children and youth are encouraged to embrace kindness.
Students at our local schools are recognized and celebrated for the acts of kindness they demonstrate toward others.
Everywhere you look, kindness is, simply put, kind of a big deal.
On any given day, social media and news headlines are overflowing with information about rude and criminal behaviors, despair, selfishness and meanness.
But it is important to remember that those actions and attitudes make the news because they are the exception, and not the rule.
Most people are kind, most of the time.
And the emphasis schools, churches, parents and other organizations and entities place on kindness are a deliberate, intentional effort to remind children that kindness does exist … it is possible … it is always a choice.
That message is important for all of us, but especially for children, who are still developing the values and virtues that will guide them throughout their lifetimes.
But all the yard signs, certificates, stickers, balloons, recognition luncheons and pep rallies in the world dim in light of the example children see in the lives of the adults whom they most love, admire and respect.
That certainly includes teachers, coaches and other role models … but it is especially true of parents.
I am reminded of a little girl whose teacher observed her moving her chair to sit next to a special needs child in her classroom and, in a quiet whisper, explained the directions for the assignment the teacher had given.
Nobody asked her to do this.
Not the child with special needs.
Not the teacher.
Not even the parent.
This little girl had not been instructed to be kind.
Nobody ever said, “You need to be kind and here’s how you do that.”
But she had witnessed examples of kindness every day.
Her mother – a special needs teacher at another school – was overheard talking with parents on the phone in the evenings, identifying needs and developing strategies to help her students achieve their greatest potentials.
Children with special needs often visited the family at their home, or were invited to join them at Holiday World or the swimming pool or dinner out.
If asked, this little girl would probably not have identified her initiative as an act of kindness.
To her, it was just the natural, normal thing to do: To see someone who needs a little extra help, and to provide that assistance in a gentle, discreet way.
That is just one example, but every parent has the potential – and the power – to do the same.
Our children and grandchildren hear us. They see us.
Hopefully they DON’T see the comments many adults post on social media, but they DO see the way we treat one another and the way we talk about one another, even – especially – when we think nobody is watching.
So as we encourage our children to #BeKind to others, let’s remember to be kind to our children, by setting an example we would be proud for them to follow.