It's About the "Good Joy"

"Kindness brings good joy to your heart."
― My 7 year-old son

Today marks two weeks since we began the kindness project and I decided it was time for a check-in.  How have we been doing?

When I asked my youngest, who is 7, how long we had been at this, he responded, "20 days?"  And when I asked him what he had learned, he told me about the "good joy."

For our family, our kindness project is giving a theme to our summer.  It has made it easier to talk about the virtue and value of kindness.  (Don't think that I don't get some eye rolling, but what would parenting be without it?)  My hope is that this project is giving our children a good sense of the many ways that we can be kind and perhaps encouraging a life-long habit.

For my part, I learn every day.  One of the things that has struck me is that kindness is usually a choice -- not between being mean and being kind, but between doing nothing and being kind.  Kindness requires a little thought, a little action -- "intentionality" (as a friend of mine wrote me early this morning).  Our kindness journey reminds me of how we can make little changes in our world and how much "good joy" kindness can bring to others' hearts and to our own.