The Tone of our Home

A week or so ago the concept of "Kindness Hearts" was introduced to our family by one of my Big Girls. I don't know that I thought we needed a reminder to recognize the small kindnesses each family member engaged in on a daily basis in our home. But what I learned is that we do need this reminder. It seemed to me that specific behaviors didn't particularly change this week, but recognition of those behaviors changed. It boosted each family member's self-esteem to be recognized in a positive way for a small kindness. I think each family member was conscious that they wanted to be able to award at least one kindness heart to each member of the family, they didn't want anybody to feel left out, so each night at the dinner table we had a large stack of tiny notes to read aloud. We didn't sign them, we only put the name of the person we noticed on the heart. Sometimes many hearts were awarded for the same act, sometimes something tiny was only noticed by one person. Each time a family member's name was mentioned, a huge grin spread across that person's face. I entered this activity believing some good would come out of it, that my children would have fun doing it. I didn't know it would build them up so much that it would change the tone of our home. I was amazed when my children awarded me kindness hearts for doing things like baking bread, playing barbies, or taking them to school. To me these things have just been part of "the job"...but for them to stop a moment and consider it a kindness makes the job so much more rewarding. Feeling appreciated does wonders for a soul. I think the kindness hearts have possibly run their course for the week, but they will be back, that I know. What an inspired girl to bring this idea to our home. She must have seen something I did not. She gets a kindness heart for creating kindness hearts.