A friend recently informed me that February 12-18 is Random Acts of Kindness Week. Kind of a cool idea, I thought. Although the idea that kindliness to strangers needs to be so actively encouraged is a little bit sad…
But not nearly so sad as the idea that was explored on one of my mommy groups in the not too distant past, about how random acts of kindness from parents to children also need to be actively encouraged. Check out this little ray of sheer brilliance from a writer I really respect, Pam Sorooshian, called “Becoming the Parent You Want to Be“.
If you’re like most of us, the idea that you should proactively go do something cool for your kid doesn’t occur to you outside of holidays. I was sort of horrified to realize that I hadn’t been doing that at all. And so I began.
I am absolutely ashamed to report that the first time I brought Rowan a spoonful of peanut butter (one of his favorite treats just now) while he was watching TV, just out of the blue, he looked at me like he was confused. “I didn’t ask for that.” he informed me. “I know, baby, I was just bringing it because I thought you might like it.” He smiled and accepted it, and in that instant, I became more determined than ever to work on “Just chang[ing] the next interaction you have with the kids.” Because if my relationship with him is closer than most of the relationships I see, and if even my kid was surprised when I went out of my way for him… things were far more dire than I supposed, from his perspective, and there was not a moment to lose.
So every day since that day, at least once, I engage in some proactive parental Acts of Kindness. I bring him something, I go find him and suggest we go bounce on the trampoline together, I do something, anything, that indicates to him that I love him, care for him, and want to be with him, above and beyond sheer parental maintenance.
It had honestly never occurred to me that this exercise had any ramifications beyond simply strengthing connection, which is what people who love each other are supposed to do naturally anyway. But I had completely forgotten that children model what they see, and that even though you may forget, they see, and they remember.
Yesterday, I pulled a 12+ hour day at work. At one point, Rowan came into the office, and asked if he could sit on the bed behind me and watch Dora on the spare computer. And mid-Dora, he asked if I was OK. I’d been rubbing my neck. I explained to him that I was working, and that things at work were kinda frustrating, but he shouldn’t worry about it too much, and just then, Dora asked us to do the Monkey Dance, so that was the end of that heavy discussion.
Later in the evening, after dinner, I was sitting in the rocker, massaging my face, where the knots in the muscles around my eyes from the tension of staring at the screen all day made little bumps all over. Rowan looked at me, jumped up from the couch saying “I know!”, and dashed off. Whatever. I kept rubbing the stress points in my face (or was that rubbing my face, which was one giant stress point? Hard to say.)
Beaming from ear to ear, my son handed me my silk flax-and-lavender eyepillow. “I got it for you, Mama, to make your eyes feel better!”
Good thing it’s absorbent, because I started crying into it.
Related posts:
Touching, touching, and as always so well-written. Send it in!!!!!!!!
Repeat: Send it in!!!!!!!
Oish. Dana