Kindness

When we are little, no matter what religion we follow, we’re all taught the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s solid life advice, and it’s also straight from the teachings of Jesus. It’s a simple phrase, but it’s a hard lesson to live by.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are rude. I think there’s zero excuse for people to be unkind to one another. That belief overflows into my parenting. It’s one of the things I’ve worked really hard on with my girls—how to be kind with their words to each other, to themselves, and to their friends. 

Years ago, we were going through an especially hard season where they were just awful to each other. They went out of their way to pick at each other. They did anything they could to get under the skin of their sister. I was at my wits end! I called my husband crying because I didn’t know what else to do. I had tried everything!

Then I had an idea. We decided that when he got home from work we’d give them a taste of their own medicine. 

From the moment he got home from work, I was crabby and he was crabby. We sat down to dinner with our girls and he said he didn’t like what I had made. I responded by letting him know he could cook dinner himself next time! We kept going back and forth, back and forth. Our girls were in shock. 

They stopped us and gave our exact words back to us about being kind. They said things like “you should be grateful” and “you should be kind” and “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” They had been listening to what we tried to teach them, even if they weren’t putting it into practice. 

Later that night, we explained our whole experiment to them and reminded them that Jesus calls us to treat others the way we want to be treated. We want to be treated with kindness, so that’s how we should treat others. We talked about Proverbs 18:21, which says that our tongues have the power of life and death. We stressed to them that we always want to be known for encouraging and lifting others up, not tearing them down with our words.

I recently asked my girls if they remember that night. Every one of them said yes. While I don’t necessarily recommend our method, I am glad the lesson stuck with them. 

As parents, we won’t always get everything right. In all honesty, we might consider it a win if we get it right half the time! However, if we lean on the teachings of Jesus as the foundation for what we teach our kids, we can be confident we’re on the right track. If you’re feeling unsure in your parenting, take a breath and look to Jesus to guide you.