Post #27 Practising Kindness

Developing kindness to others helps to forge social and emotional connections. Practising acts of kindness can promote wellbeing and shared experiences. In this post I consider how we might develop an understanding of kindness in younger children.

Developing mutually enjoyable connections with others is important for social and emotional development. The shared experience of good feelings when we are kind to others promotes wellbeing and also helps us to relate to the feelings of other people. By promoting acts of kindness, we can create opportunities for our children to begin to learn about their own good feelings, the good feelings of others and to enjoy shared experiences.

Model kindness and make links with good feelings explicit

Kindness is an abstract concept for some of our children and previous posts have suggested ways to make kindness more meaningful. A starting point is to model kindness to our children. Find ways that you and family members can carry out acts of kindness which provide a model for your autistic child.

Reading stories can also model kindness through story plots and characters' actions. Talking about characters that are kind, what they are doing to show their kindness and how it makes other characters feel, reinforces the concept of kindness and links kind actions with good feelings. Likewise, watching films or cartoons about kindness is also an opportunity to talk about kind actions, to label those actions and to talk about good feelings when someone is kind. 

Build up a vocabulary of kindness - labelling acts of kindness and good feelings

Use labels to develop the language of kindness. At the same time, build up a vocabulary of 'good feelings'. Catch your children being kind, label their kind actions and the good feelings felt by the receiver. Celebrate their kindness at every opportunity.

When your autistic son or daughter receives an act of kindness, label the action as kind and the good feelings your child may feel.  For example:

We do have to be careful attributing emotions  as we cannot be certain that our interpretation is accurate, however you know your child and you will most likely know if they are feeling happy, excited and so on. Labelling good feelings is a starting point for teaching your child about their good feelings. 

Next you might teach your autistic son or daughter to give acts of kindness and to begin to recognise the good feelings felt by the receiver. You may need to use tangible rewards to begin with, to help your child associate an act of kindness with a good feeling in themselves (i.e. through their reward). For example, your autistic child might be kind by giving a favourite toy to a sibling. As they hand over the toy, you reward them with something that makes them happy - the sibling has good feelings as the receiver of the kindness and your autistic child has good feelings (due to their reward). BOTH experience good feelings together. At the same time you can take the opportunity to label the kindness and the good feelings. This is a small step towards developing shared good feelings due to acts of kindness. (More on developing social and emotional shared experiences in future posts).

Practise, practise, practise!

Seize every opportunity to use language labels for kind acts and for good feelings linked to those acts. Then practise, practise, practise! Your aim is to help your child to associate words and phrases with kind acts, such as: thank you for my hug, that's very kind. At the same time you can also teach word labels for good feelings, such as happy, excited, calm. Create opportunities for your child to practise being kind. For example, teach your autistic child to help others at home, such as completing chores. Label their actions as kind and also the good feelings they have given the person who they've helped. 

Activities to Practise Acts of Kindness

• Take photos of family members being kind and make a 'being kind' book. 
• Role play and film kind acts so these can be watched and talked about. 
• Play 'acts of kindness bingo'.

A final thought - our children may show their kindness in different ways, so always be watchful and notice their kindness. I remember many years ago sitting next to a young child who glanced at me and handed me his most precious stone which he carried everywhere, we sat quietly and I felt very emotional in that moment, he glanced again and smiled... definitely a kind act and a shared experience with good feelings.