Random Act of Kindness-Pettiness

One of the goals of the Random Act of Kindness blog post is to give Parental Units tools and ideas on how to teach, guide, imitate, inspire and show kindness. It also helps this Viking Mom develop tools, too.

An area this Viking Mom really struggles with is dealing with pettiness. I have little patients with narrow minded people.

The Webster Dictionary defines "pettiness" as: 1. being small or minor and of no importance. 2. narrow minded or unsympathetic. 

I am going to speak about the second definition. This world is full of narrow minded and unsympathetic people. We see it in the media and how we interact with each other. It is really easy to fall into the same pit fall of pettiness and retaliate with harsh words. However, what is the message we are sending to our own children who watch our every move? Harsh words only adds to the ill feeling we create in any social setting.

How does one illustrate to children why harsh words are so dangerous?
Here is a physical metaphor to use:

TOOTH PASTE AND WORDS... A teaching lesson

Get a small travel size toothpaste. A large one will work too. 

Ask your child if they thinks they can squeeze the entire tube of paste out... and then put it back into the tube? 
No one will think they can...Proceed to squeeze the entire tube onto a paper plate and show how it cannot be put back in.

Compare it to our words and how  we treat one another.  Your kids will get the visual of how once we say unkind words... we can't take them back.  We can apologize but it's still out there and has hurt our friends. 

This is a wonderful visual; refer back to it throughout the year.

Bless Bless

Viking Mom