When We Teach Kindness

As parents, we begin teaching our children important life lessons from the start. We foster independence and we help them understand right from wrong. We instill in them the gravity of personal safety and remind them to always look both ways before crossing the street.

We try our best to cultivate good manners.

We make sure they know their colors, shapes, ABCs and 123s.

All these lessons are valuable and meaningful. As a mother of two, having a front row seat inside the world of complex disabilities and neurodivergence, it’s clear that there’s another message we all could emphasize more with our kids.

A paramount quality that we can model for them, to carry over into adulthood, is KINDNESS.

Being kind doesn’t have to be any grand gesture.

Kindness is smiling at someone you meet on the street. It’s actively accepting and including others who are different from us. Simple acts go a long way.

On a recent trip to the park with our daughter, my husband and I were strolling, her in her wheelchair. There were children running and playing as we made our way around the paved path. Suddenly, we heard, “Hey Ryleigh!” A little girl exclaimed to her mom, “She goes to my school! She has the cute, pink wheelchair!” A group of young children RAN over to us.

They all started speaking directly to Ryleigh (I love that) and then they greeted us adults. One child explained that they all go to school together, while another took my daughter’s outstretched hand and held it. They asked if they could walk with us, and they told us all about their summer plans.

One sweet girl asked if Ryleigh could come along with her to summer camp. They clapped along with Ryleigh as we strolled; she adored all the attention! When their parents called them to go, they reluctantly said goodbye and gave hugs, not knowing how they had just impacted us.

It didn’t matter that my daughter was in a wheelchair. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t verbally respond.

They were kind and loving. They only saw her as another friend, despite the differences among them. The gestures from these children, and their easy acceptance and inclusion, brightened our day.

We must teach our children to say, “Hello”, instead of staring. They don’t have to fear or look away from differences. It’s our duty to show them that it’s ok to ask questions and to be curious. It’s our responsibility to reinforce that calling others “weird” or laughing at another’s uniqueness is hurtful and unkind.

Our job is to start early and set them on a lifelong path to kindness. I wanted to hug the parents of the children we met at the park that day. I wanted to tell them what great little humans they were raising. When we teach kindness, we make the world a little warmer and more welcoming for everyone.