Caring & Kindness: Everyday Lessons

Habits of kindness make it so much easier to teach caring in between volunteer gigs.  And lets face it, even with the best of intentions that gap can sometimes get out of control. Establishing these habits of kindness is what Doing Good Together, and our soon-to-be launched website Big-Hearted Families are all about.

Maria Dismondy author of Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun and the Juice Box Bully hosts a character trait blog every month: Make a Difference Monthly. Bloggers from around the country link up their own ways to teach that character trait, creating a compendium of expertise on each topic.

This is my contribution, to that worthy effort. Pop over to Maria's site for the linked contributions. They are impressive in their quality, in their kindheartedness, and in their ability to inspire.

In the meantime, here are the three habits my family has adopted that make conversations about caring and kindness happen every day.

Who have you helped today? Who has helped you? Make time every day for this simple set of questions. Ask at family dinner or after bedtime stories. Be sure to offer your own answers. Even the youngest family members will learn to watch for the simple acts if kindness that make each day better, as both givers and receivers of help. In our family, we all watch for opportunities to help so we have an answer next time the question comes up!

Rubbish Race: I posted this year's ago, and it has since become a feature of every walk. I carry a plastic bag and a lonely garden glove everywhere I go, and the kids don't tolerate any bit of trash lingering in their path. We are stewards, caring for whatever patch of earth we happen to be occupying.

Happy Mail: Like Maria in her own "Caring" post, kind-hearted mail is one of our favorite ways to share kindness. Our letters make their way to nearby neighbors, far off family, and strangers in need of a pick me up thanks to Hugs and Hope.

Books: Like most families, we make time to read every day. Our latest favorite caring book is Miss Tizzy. Check it out!

Big-Hearted Gratitude: Summer Adventures

Routinely practicing gratitude is a wonderful way to pause and really notice the best bits of our everyday lives. A habit of gratitude is proven to make us happier, less stressed, and even physically healthier. Not to mention the increase in generosity that naturally comes from a feeling of contentment and thankfulness. Join me each week as my family takes a moment to practice gratitude.

We're grateful for summer hikes... for kids excited enough by bugs, branches, and burrows that a two-mile stretch of river and woods takes three hours to explore.

What is your family grateful for this week?

Bring up our theme tonight at dinner and share a sentence or two in the comments section.

Q & A Friday: Siblings and Family Volunteering

Welcome to Q & A Friday! Where big-hearted parents like you need your help!

Join me in sharing your experience, suggestions, or additional questions in the comments section.

We'll all do our best to help each other out in the spirit of raising more compassionate, civic-minded kids in an age of cynicism.

We want to volunteer as a whole family, but our kids are 14 and 6. One is constantly moving and the other is quiet and shy. One likes animals and the other is a sports nut.

How do we find a family volunteer opportunity that won't make one of them unhappy?

~Shannon, Little Canada, MN

Meals on Wheels: Timing is Everything

Ever since my third baby was born, our family volunteering efforts have been mostly confined to the kitchen table (you can find loads of ideas for at home projects right here). I know, I know... he's a year old. It's time for us to move out into the world. And we will. Both of my daughters have been asking repeatedly to deliver for Meals on Wheels again. Though it has been a little over a year since our last deliveries, the girls are full of fond memories of our former route.

Our time will come. We'll probably start that adventure next summer when a) Mr. Toddler is steadier on his feet, b) when his napping schedule no longer runs into the 10:30 to 12 delivery time, and c) when Miss Second Grader can come along to help lead him around.

Until then we'll marvel at our neighbors. My inspiring neighbor just signed up as an on-call MOW family. When the local center is short of delivery people and her family isn't otherwise engaged, she loads up the troupe and off they go.

You can see how much they enjoyed the adventure. There were smiles all around when they returned.

Because their stories are getting my girls excited about the Meals on Wheels mission again, we'll be doing a few at home mow projects. Join us! And share your story!

1) Decorate lunch bags (to carry the MOW dessert - just deliver to the local MOW site for distribution)

2)Decorate Placemats (for the MOW recipients - just deliver to the local MOW site for distribution)

3) Follow Meals on Wheels on FB for updates on other short term needs they may have

Summer Bag of Tricks: Magic Wand Kindness

In my ongoing search for rewarding and FUN ways to share kindness this summer, Kindness Girl, Patience Selgado, and her Magic Wand Project for Kids is one I just have to share. This was such a great way to spend a summer afternoon... especially with friends!

The project was inspired by seven-year-old Jack when he told his sister, "Magic doesn’t come from the world, it comes from people, and their kindness, that’s where magic comes from."

That alone is enough to inspire a day full of random acts of kindness.

But I am embarrassed to admit.... I'm not a huge fan of random acts of kindness. I'm much more inspired by targeted (though often anonymous) acts of compassion and kindness.

And this project, a combination of crafty wand-making and a thoughtful pledge to carry out 3 Acts of Kindness led to a lot of big conversations and some powerful (targeted) acts of kindness.

First we assembled our materials:

1. wands from Oriental Trading Company (though you could easily make your own)
2. labels from the Kindness Girl site (since I was out of colored ink, we glued them to blue paper to make them pretty)
3. ribbon to attach the two

Then we assembled the wands. Between my two girls and their four friends from next door (and both of us moms, of course), the wand-making took about 40 minutes. We tried to get them talking about kindness and the concept of paying it forward. Mostly the kids enjoyed the glue sticks, the ribbon curling, and swinging wands around. They had a great time.

Then it was time for some real contemplation. Each kid was asked to pledge three acts of kindness. The youngest in our crew (four and five year olds) thought of a few small acts they could do for their families. The older ones (7 and 9) added the food shelf, Meals on Wheels, writing more thank you notes and all sorts of other things to their pledges. If you read the note below closely, you'll notice that #2 says "do not be mean to my sisters for a week." I'll have to ask his mom how that went!

We had them turn their pledges into driveway art with the sidewalk chalk.

They had a wonderful time hiding wands in a local park. The hope is that others will find our wands, read about the pledge, and pay forward their own acts of kindness.

The most endearing moment was watching one fearless, seven-year-old girl explain her mission to a rather skeptical gentleman. He declined to accept the wand from her, but she did an awesome job of explaining how kindness can be passed on and on and on and ultimately change the world!

This all makes me think of Extraordinary Mary (a book I originally reviewed as rather dull, but it has become a favorite over the years!)

The kids are still adding kindness ideas to their "pledge" lists, even though they have far exceeded their mandatory three acts.

Plus, we still have a few more wands to hide. What, a great project to have on hand.

Have you participated in the Magic Wand Project? Let us know how your experience has gone!

What's New at Doing Good Together?

ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... Have you noticed how sleepy Doing Good Together’s Kitchen Table Blog has been this summer?

Darn.I was hoping you wouldn’t notice, with all your travel plans, walks for a cause, lemonade stand fundraisers, and good, old-fashioned ice cream cones.

The fact is, the blog has been sleepy for a purpose.

Doing Good Together is changing. It’s growing! And the blog is changing right along with it.

The awesome team at Doing Good Together, has been hard at work developing new things for you.

New resources. New printable tools. New ways to weave kindness and compassion into your family life in ways that will make sure that today's good deeds inspire the next generation of do-gooders.

Over the next month, watch for a few new features on the blog as well:

• The kinder book club is now the Big-Hearted Book Club, and later this year we’ll add the option to have our books sent right to your door, along with a kindness activity, and a family recipe!
• Join us for the new Friday Q&A feature, where our growing, big-hearted community will help answer your questions and address your kindness conundrums. If you have a question, just e-mail them to me (sarah.aadland@doinggoodtogether.org) or leave them right here in the comments section any day of the week!
• And take a moment to share your family's gratitude with us! I’ll be posting a photo, a video, or maybe just a short sentence about something my family is grateful for each week, and I'll invite you to share yours. Check out Raising Happinessfor another great opportunity to practice gratitude!

So as you enjoy the long, hammock-swaying, lemonade-sipping days of summer, check back now and then to see what's new at Doing Good Together.

Grandparent-Grandchild Volunteering

Doing Good Together is featured in the  book, Your Retirement Quest: 10 Secrets for Creating and Living a Fulfilling Retirement, encouraging grandparents to volunteer with their grandchildren. This engaging book is filled with lots of other practical, useful tips for how to intentionally plan for a meaningful retirement. Buy your very own copy (or a copy for your favorite retiree) on amazon.com today! Are you a grandparent that's done a volunteer project with your grandchildren? Do you know any grandparents who have made multi-generational service a part of their retirement plan? If so, we'd love hear about it!

3 Ways To Do Good During Dinner

Even the busiest family has to eat now and then. Dining together is not only a wonderful way to connect amid the torrid pace of modern life, it is a great opportunity to put some of your family's green-living goals into action.

Here are three exceedingly simple steps that you could start this week.

1. Buy Better Beef: Check out this New York Times article about grass-fed beef. Long story short, grass fed beef is nutritious, humane, and environmentally-friendly. My family has been committed to buying grass-fed, locally-raised beef for a few years. It's a simple way to feel good about your dinner choices. If you live in the Twin Cities, consider the Grass Fed Cattle Company. They make buying better beef easy. If you aren't in the area, check out Eat Wild to find a vendor near you. Once you've found a place that works for you, making a responsible meat selection becomes automatic. It's one less thing to think about.
2. Help your kids take notice: Reflecting on the food chain can be tough with kids. At 4, Little Miss still differentiates between our "real chickens" (the five that live in our backyard coop) and the "other chicken that we eat." Big Sis, though, struggled with our Thanksgiving conversation about the free-range turkey we picked up at the farmer's market. Here is a great video from Brain Pop about the food chain that helps put it all into perspective. At almost seven, she frequently declares herself a vegetarian only to demand hamburgers the next day. Knowing that her beef comes from local, humanely raised cattle seems to make her feel somewhat better about her burger cravings.
3. Vegetarian Variety: Because buying better meat products is, in fact, substantially more expensive than basic grocery store prices, we commit a few days each week to a vegetarian menu. Folding more brown rice and beans into our diet not only offsets the cost of grass-fed beef, it increases our dining variety. If you are looking for kid-friendly vegetarian recipes, here are three weekday staples that I love and my kids actually enjoy eating (I usually make both soup recipes in the crock pot, so they're perfect for a busy schedule).

• Giada's Lentil Soup
• Black Bean and Rice Enchiladas
• Pasta and Chickpeas Stew (I omit the chicken in this recipe and add an extra can of chick peas)

Volunteer with DGT!

If you live in the Twin Cities and are excited about helping families raise compassionate, civically engaged kids through family volunteering, consider getting involved with Doing Good Together. We are looking for folks to serve on our development or event committees – and to help out in other ways, too. We’d be happy to work with you to see how your interests and talents might help in furthering our mission. Contact Jenny at jenny@doinggoodtogether.org or 612.822.6502.

The Power of Half

Read the story of the Salwens, an Atlanta family that decided to take the dramatic step of selling their house and donating half the value ($800,000) to The Hunger Project in Ghana. Although most of us are not in a position to do something that life-altering, this family's journey to giving back, chronicled in their book, The Power of Half, challenges us to think about what we can do without in order to make a difference for someone else. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Help Earthquake Victims

Imagining the horror and devastation of the earthquake in Chile so soon after the disaster in Haiti is overwhelming. However, if your children are old enough, have a conversation about what your family can do to help -- perhaps host a fundraiser or give up something that matters to you for a month (going out to eat?) and donate the money to a relief group. The Hufffington Post has gathered a list of organizations that need your support. To support Chilian earthquake victims, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/27/chile-earthquake-relief-h_n_479426.html If you'd like to donate to Haitian relief, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/haiti-earthquake-relief-h_n_421014.html

Rewarding Altruism

Check out the thought provoking piece in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune  by columnist Gail Rosenblum about the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day promotion. What do you think? Do programs like these expand our volunteer pool and introduce new folks to the value of community involvement? Or do they send the message to our children that you do good deeds for a reward? We'd love to hear your thoughts.