This week's P2 trait is Kindness. We hope you'll take a few minutes sometime this week and use the links at the bottom of this message to talk to your child about this character trait.
What it is.
This character strength is grounded in the belief of a common humanity in which others are worthy of care, attention, affection, and compassion. Aristotle defined kindness as, "helpfulness towards someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped."
Kind people think about the feelings of others, and then act to help those people. Kind people act selflessly. That is why a true act of kindness is distinct from helping another person in order to simply gain something for yourself. An individual with the strength of kindness helps others because it's the right thing to do.
Why it matters.
For individuals, kindness is correlated with desirable developmental outcomes. It is related to other-oriented emotions, like empathy (the ability to experience the emotional state of another person) and sympathy (the tender emotion of concern for another's difficulty).
On a group level, kindness is very important. In addition to empathy and sympathy, the character strength of kindness is indicative of an individual's moral reasoning capacity and level of social responsibility. That means people who develop kindness possess a strong personal ethical responsibility to care for other people. And, their acts of kindness lead to additional acts of kindness by those who have been helped.
Practice at home.
To practice this character trait at home, please visit P2 for Families, where you will watch a video together and discuss a quote a three questions. Click the link below appropriate for your child's grade level.