Teaching Our Kids Kindness
As printed in My Village News October 2020.
I had a moment with a kind stranger that felt divinely timed recently, well as recent as the Easter Covid lockdown but 2020 feels like one very long month to me.
I had taken my two year old out for a walk after another morning stuck at home. For two unrelenting months I had been serving as mum, wife, housekeeper, cook, cleaner, childcarer and stand-in Wiggle. I was fast running out of craft supplies plus the energy to do anything remotely educational and I’m certain screen time was exceeding the recommended one hour. Matilda had also started throwing tantrums that involved her lashing out and at times hurting me (what I now realise was a language development phase). The lack of control and relentlessness of my varying roles was fast draining me.
As our walk turned into rock climbing and my mind wandered, fixating on what I was doing wrong to cause these new tantrums, when a kind and perceptive older woman walking past said, “You’re doing a great job.” She was smiling at me and it was like drops of water on a drought-weathered plant, she said it with sincerity.
The lady went on to tell me about her background in early childhood and assured me climbing rocks in the company of her mum was exactly what a two year old should be doing, that I shouldn’t be worrying about her missing out on anything due to the forced isolation. My eyes welled as I said, “I think God sent you.” I tried to explain my feelings further but couldn’t find any other words.
It moves me that a stranger can say or do just the right thing exactly when you need it. I believe these random acts of kindness connect our world giving it a mysterious sparkle that helps us push through the toughest of times.
What’s the nicest thing someone has said or done for you? At my daughter’s childcare centre there’s a sign on the toilet stall door, “Kindness can be replacing the toilet roll on the holder for the next person”.
Illustration and other random acts of kindness ideas via Free People.
