choose-kindness-today-our-choices-matterLast week during a discussion around the dinner table, my daughter’s step-daughter posed a question: As a parent, what do you think is the most important thing you can teach your children?

That’s a powerful and provocative question, especially from a high school freshman. I reflected for a few minutes and then responded. I believe that kindness serves as the anchoring root of all of my values. All my other deeply held values build upon this foundation. Why kindness?

Like many profound influences, kindness is simple. And, like most profound beliefs, it is not easy. Kindness operates on many levels. It begins with kindness toward self. Ironically, we often treat ourselves more harshly than anyone else. Consider the inner dialogue that plays within our brains. Too often, the things we say to ourselves are harsh, critical, judgmental, unforgiving and lacking compassion.

We would not talk to friends and colleagues that way. If we did, they probably wouldn’t remain our friends for long. Yet we routinely subject ourselves to this negativity. It is essential for us to remember that we are all works in progress! Life is a Learning Conversation.

When we place ourselves in that context we begin to remember that everyone else is also a work in progress. Each of us is facing challenges, shouldering burdens, searching for resources, seeking new skills, and coping as well as we can. None of us is perfect. Perfection is a myth; it is also a cruel taskmaster holding us to an impossible goal and then deriding us for falling short.

As Intentional Parents we strive to think about our actions and beliefs consciously to ensure that they reflect our best intentions and authentically support our goals for self, for family and, for community. I believe one of the most powerful steps we can take on this journey of Intentional parenting is to be kind to ourselves. As this frame of mind takes root and governs our thoughts, behaviors and decisions, it influences our relationship with our children. We will strive to interact, educate, and discipline our children with kindness and love instead of impatience, harshness or cruelty. Our behavior becomes their model. Our voice becomes a through line in their inner soundtrack. We benefit from kindness to self and our families. Like the proverbial stone dropped into water, kindness ripples outward. Kindness begets kindness.

Let’s return to the previously mentioned dinner table conversation. I admit that I was pleased when my daughter affirmed to her step-daughter that she too, believed kindness was the keystone. (Just as certainly meanness, hatred and violence beget more meanness, hatred, and violence—within ourselves our families, and our communities.)

Readers of my book review blog know that I search for and promote books that highlight the importance of kindness. I highly recommend one memorable book, Each Kindness by Jaqueline Woodson. Although it is a picture book continues to resonate in my thoughts. Its provocative message will touch the hearts of all readers regardless of age.

choose-kindness-today-our-choices-matter-Each-Kindness-Jaqueline-WoodsonEach Kindness a Jane Addams Award Book by Jacqueline Woodson, also was named a 2013 Coretta Scott King Honor Book. This is truly an exceptional book. As I read it goose bumps shivered my arms. E.B. Lewis captured the deep emotion of the story in dreamy water colors. The illustrations juxtapose both beauty and heartache because they reveal the children’s lack of kindness, their unwelcoming cold shoulder and judgmental rejection of the new girl.

One might assume this story replays the classic storyline of the challenge that every “new” kid faces.

But it exceeds that think-how-the-shunned-kid-feels meme as the children rebuff her repeated efforts to break into their circle. Instead, it goes beyond empathy and asks the reader to imagine being the child who chose unkindness, who joined the taunting, who derided and jeered.

After the teacher uses a pebble-dropped-in-water to demonstrate how one act ripples in an ever-widening circle, Chloe undergoes a change of heart. She wants to include the outcast girl. She anticipates making amends, only to discover, it is too late. The girl has moved away… Chloe has lost the chance to repair the damage done.

The book ends with the words, Chloe “watched the water ripple as the sun set through the maples and the chance of a kindness with Maya became more and more forever gone.” The final illustration shows Chloe in a lush, lovely pond side spot. The beauty contrasts with Chloe’s uncomfortable realization that it is too late to make amends for her ugly treatment of Maya. The reader feels the weight of that understanding. There is no and-she became-Maya’s-best-friend easy answer.

The message is clear. Sometimes, do-overs are not possible. We—adults and children—must choose to be kind today, not tomorrow, now not later.

[ctt template=”5″ link=”Gfp9a” via=”yes” ]Some mistakes and lost opportunities cannot be corrected. Our choices matter.[/ctt]

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