A school in Ireland is teaching kids some important lessons by replacing homework with random acts of kindness for one month.

On Mondays, the students are asked to reach out to an elderly individual and communicate with them. Tuesdays, the kids are tasked with making a family member’s life easier by taking over a chore or helping without being asked. Wednesdays are for random acts of kindness of any kind. Thursdays are for doing something for themselves to take care of their own mental and physical well-being. They  keep track of their kind deeds in a Kindness Diary which can be entered in written or pictorial form and then signed by their parents.

The school also set up a Kindness Bucket where students write down positive observations to boost their fellow classmates’ esteem. On Friday mornings, a teacher randomly selects a handful of notes and reads them out loud.

Each …
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After a woman bought meals at a McDonald’s drive-up for the Dad and his four kids in the vehicle behind her, 167 others duplicated her act of kindness by paying for the person behind them, according to an article in the Washington Post. Each action spurred someone else to be kind.

A study concluded that volunteers shown a video featuring kind acts were more generous donating to a children’s hospital than volunteers who watched a person doing sporting activities. Being exposed to an emotional experience of kindness often results in a greater likelihood to respond in kind.

Research at UCLA has shown how kindness can reduce heart disease, depression and risk for developing cancer. Another project underway is to determine why some people choose to risk their lives for others in life-threating situations.

If we can predict who will be kind, what impact might that have on where we choose …
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They deliver our most precious cargo to school.
We trust them to get us there on time.
Their smile can get our day off to a good start.
Not a lot of glory comes their way.

Before departing your next bus adventure,
Give a few words of appreciation.
And teach children everywhere
To treat their bus drivers as the heroes they are!

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November 13 is an international observance of World Kindness Day.  Will your scattering kindness make the world a better place?  I think so.

When a trash collector finds an anonymous note on his trash cart that says “you are appreciated” how will he feel? If it’s a cold, snowy evening and you come out of your office to find your car windows completely free of snow, how thrilled are you?

 It’s the little things we do that make our world a kinder place.  Who will you shower with kindness today?

(Photo by Random Acts of Kindness Foundation)

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What word comes to mind when you think of November?  Often it’s Thanksgiving. A day when we “gather together.”  And it’s when we hear about the narrow escapes, newfound friends and never-ending appreciation for families.

But why just a day?  Why not a month of giving thanks for all the good things in our life, whether it’s neighbors who offer to help, our favorite tv show, or that special someone.  Maybe if we start practicing early in the month, we will be wondering why all the fuss about a turkey when we’ve been cherishing special moments for weeks.

Just give a little thanks today!

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