editor’s pick
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Isn’t valuing
kindness and harmony above personal achievement the
right thing to do – at least by most religious and cultural
moral codes? This should merit priority on its own accord.
So what are we not doing as parents? I don’t know about
you, but I tell my kids to be kind all the time. I tell them
to be nice to each other at least 10 times a day. I even tell
them to be inclusive at school before I drop them off. But
here’s at least one litmus test: how many times do our
kids get asked how they performed on a test or how many
points they scored in a game, versus how many acts of
kindness they partook that day. After a soccer game, do
we pull our kids aside and ask them how they displayed
good sportsmanship? Or do we harp them on what they
could’ve done better?
Kids don’t take our words for face value. They don’t
value kindness simply because we tell them to when it’s
clearly evident that we care more about their personal
achievement and happiness than how they treated their
fellow peers.
If there is an encouraging note, it’s that almost all kids
say caring is important to them. Kids and parents value
caring. Perhaps we don’t try hard enough to show how
much we actually value it. If we truly want to raise the
kind of generation that values kindness and harmony
above personal achievement, then it will require enough
concerted effort to go against our knee-jerk, achievement-
obsessed culture.
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