Last year on Father's Day I reflected on how my kids turned out. The conclusion I came to was that none of my kids were superstars but they all turned out to be good people. I'm happy with that. This morning when I saw an article by Rachael Bowie on "Pure Wow" that got more specific about raising kind kids I thought it would be cool to share her tips on my blog. So here are some ways to help your kids grow up to become kind grown-ups.
1. Be patient at home. If kids see you being sensitive to loved ones, no matter how stressful your day is, they will learn to do the same.
2. Put kids in situations where they have to think of others first. Have them volunteer with you. WSUS and our sister station do a lot of free community service. When my kids were young I couldn't always afford child care so I would take them with me when I was doing community service with WSUS. I always told them we might not have as much as many of your friends but there are many people getting by with less. Be grateful for what we have.
3. Don't reward them for helping others. You want them to learn to help others without getting something out of it.
4. Help them talk and work through feelings of being frustrated. In my family there is a 16 year gap between oldest and youngest. Several years ago my oldest son and I had a very intense dis-agreement. My youngest son (who was 12 at the time) was extremely upset at his older brother's behavior toward me. I told him he should tell his big brother how he was feeling. I was very proud of how both of them were able to talk to each other about how they were feeling.
Source Pure Wow