Research Question #3
How can parents and families raise kind kids with a concern for all humanity?
It is said that hurt people hurt people. Parents want to raise kind kids. The procreative family is the foundation of flourishing across the generations. Can there be any real success without kindness? Most parents have, from time to time, said to their child, “Maybe you could try to be a little kinder.” It will only be a better world when every family places a value statement in the living room or on the refrigerator that says, “Kindness before career.” Or, to put it a little differently, “Be a success with kindness.” The first kindness we receive is from our parents. Raising kind children requires immense emotional control. It can be very helpful to involve the family with a spiritual community that teaches love and kindness for young and old, values families, and offers some collective resistance to the degrading aspects of our wider culture. Kindness should be the core family value. Volunteering as a family can be a formative experience for children, showing them that kindness extends beyond the near and dear to the neediest.
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
—Anonymous
“Be kind to all creatures.”
—Buddha
“Hurt people hurt people.”
—Anonymous
“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the homes that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of humans, are created, strengthened and maintained.”
—Winston Churchill
Our Seven Unchanging Research Questions
Further Writings on Children & Love
Jo-Ann Triner on The Teaching and Learning of Love