Kindness and Mental Health
‘Your good deeds might seem invisible, but they leave a trail that is imprinted on the hearts of others.’
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the IPSHA Year 5 Kindness Convention at Queenwood, where several schools gathered to deepen their understanding of, and hopefully passion for, kindness.
Along with hearing from inspirational author Deborah Abela who wrote, amongst other titles, ‘The Kindness Project’, students worked in groups to develop practical projects around provided scenarios.
Professor John Haidt’s recent research on mental health, moral emotions and human flourishing, underscores the importance of kindness and compassion. Engaging in spiritual practices that emphasise compassion—whether through prayer, volunteer work, or simply being more empathetic—can strengthen mental health. These practices help foster a sense of interconnectedness and purpose.
Kindness and generosity are essential values to teach children, as they play a powerful role in shaping their character and the kind of world they help create by:
- Building stronger relationships - When children are generous with their time, help, or offer kind words, others are more likely to trust and respect them, so helping them make friends more easily and maintain healthier relationships.
- Encourages empathy - Learning to be kind and generous helps children understand and care about the feelings of others, making them more thoughtful and aware of how their actions affect people around them.
- Boosts self-esteem and happiness - Acts of kindness release feel-good chemicals in the brain, making children feel proud and happy, helping them develop a stronger sense of purpose and self-worth.
- Promotes a positive environment - In homes, schools, and communities where kindness is common, there's less bullying, conflict, and loneliness. Children who are generous help create a more inclusive and caring atmosphere for everyone.
- Teaches responsibility and gratitude - Generosity helps children recognise what they have and teaches them to be thankful. It also gives them a sense of responsibility toward others, encouraging them to use their abilities and resources to help when they can.
- Sets the foundation for lifelong values - The habits and values children learn early in life tend to stay with them. Teaching kindness and generosity helps them grow into compassionate, ethical, and socially responsible adults.
Last week in assembly, I reminded our boys about the structure of our powerful GoodCHAP program, which has two arms as seen below:
Class Based Service Learning - Each Year group is involved in at least one significant service learning project during the year. As well as raising money, the focus is on developing a deep understanding of the cause itself.
Small Group Service Learning (Years 4-6) - Being a Good Chap is a personal response to serving others. It consists of 10 hours of service learning activities outside of school time, where the focus is on the group serving others together (student initiated and managed but encouraged and supported by parents and teachers).
The partnership of school and home in promoting kindness and generosity is extremely powerful in helping to develop character, positive mental health and wellbeing. Along with parents supporting our GoodCHAP Program, parents can foster kindness and generosity by:
- Talking about these dispositions.
- Modelling them.
- Finding age-appropriate volunteer opportunities.
- Giving children an allowance (or having them earn the allowance by doing chores), then keeping the money in labelled jars: save, spend, and give.
- Practicing hospitality and service.
- Developing ownership by having children go through their toys and set aside the ones they don’t need to keep. Then either: sell the toys at a garage sale and give away all or some of the proceeds to a charity, or, have your children go with you to donate the toys to a charity.
In the expression of each of the School values and guided by our School Motto ‘Non Nobis Solum’, we are committed to encouraging actions infused with humility, generosity, compassion, integrity, courage and justice.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:3-5
Peter Grimes | Headmaster
References:
‘The Anxious Generation’ (2024) Jonathan Haidt (social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University).
