Kindness is a theme in our house. I find myself using the word a lot with Lucille when I talk about her interactions who her brother (and us - for that matter.) She is a very kind and loving almost 3 year old... but she is almost 3 and has times of crazy, times of shyness and times of sadness.

When I heard from Dignity Health about their Great Kindness Challenge (going on this week) I thought it was worth sharing. I started by asking Lucille what kindness was. Here is her video. Sorry for the not so great quality. ;)



They have a wonderful checklist of tasks they challenged their employees to do - and you can easily challenge your kids to perform a few of them in order to promote kindness. I think this is totally worth doing -- and I've even picked out some that I'm going to challenge Lucille to do, with my help of course.

Here are some that we'll be aiming to check off.

• Say 'good morning' to 15 people. - I'm going to challenge her to do this at school in the morning because she tends to clam up and get shy.
• Read a favorite book or look at a photo album with an elderly inpatient. - We will take one of Lucille's favorite books to read to her great-grandmother who is in a convalescent home with Parkinson's.
• Take a treat to night shift operators or security guards. - Maybe take some treats to the night shift at daddy's work one night.
• Learn to say "thank you" in a new language.
• Donate something to a local animal shelter.
• Take a deep, cleansing breath each day. Any regular reader knows how much I love deep breathing.