Teaching Thoughtfulness in a Family

“So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do to you.” – Matthew 7:12

I feel like Sesame Street when I say, “Thoughtfulness is the word of the week.” Here at Meaningful Mama I do a character development series focusing on one character trait for each week. We have 52 traits to cover the entire year, and there is a lesson, craft, activity, word picture or book collection to give you daily (+) ways or working on character with kids. Teaching thoughtfulness in a family is so important for kids. After all, we often treat the people close to us worse than we treat others, which needs to be combatted. We need to learn that our family relationships are the ones that are important to cultivate over the years.

Today we talked about thoughtfulness some more by working on memorizing our verse and the meaning.  This conversation happened as they were sitting on my lap first thing this morning.  As we were sitting there I told them that today they were going to try and think of something thoughtful they could do for their sister.  I spent some time explaining that it should something sacrificial and not something you want.  I said, “Do you think it would be thoughtful of Mommy to invite you to play ‘Words with Friends’ with me?  or have you help me with the dishes? No, that’s something that I would want, but it’s not very thoughtful of what you would want.”  I then gave them some time to think.

Abby decided that she would read to Kenzie for a bit.  Kenzie decided she would share her food with Abby. At a young age we can teach our kids to think of others and what they might want. All it takes, is prepping kids a bit, giving them some ideas and then brainstorming together. As we continue to focus on this daily, it becomes more of a habit in their lives. Take some time today to be intentional about teaching kids to be thoughtful with one another.