Kindness: Can It Be Taught?
A School Counseling Department Production
A guide for families and educators to learn what makes someone develop kindness: What theories of child development, protective factors , risk factors, personal to the child factors, and environmental factors stand to tell us about how much a child gets kindness, guiding us with insight into how we respond in teaching.
Table of Contents
Tips to Improve Student Motivation
Impact of Culture on Academic Performance
Diversity
TedTalk on Diversity and Inclusion
Theories of Child Development
Moral Development
Moral Development
What theorists call "Our Sensitive Responsiveness"
Discerning the difference between right and wrong
Core Virtues
Courage
Justice
Humanity (interpersonal attributes such as kindness)
Temperance
Wisdom
Transcendence
Approach to Values
Includes values we can teach, promote, and develop. Powerful over our characteristics
How do we self-reflect on our strengths and weaknesses? How do we model students to?
How to Develop Morals
Moral development boils down to being a prosocial, positively contributing member of society
Cultures differ on what moral development looks like
=> Moral judgement can only be made in context of our motivating beliefs and an understanding of the formulative culture
Lawrence Kohlberg
Advanced work of Jean Piaget in Moral development
Kohlberg's three levels:
Robert Coles
Psychosocial Development
Erik Erikson
Psychosocial theory of development- stages, 8
Developmental crisis in each we must confront before advancing
Thought crises to be turning points of increased vulnerability and enhanced potential simultaneously
Healthy development requires successful resolution of each crises
(Bernstein & Nash, 2008)
6 core virtues.pdfErikson 8 stages.pdfAttachment Theory
Mary Ainsworth
Attachment Styles
Based on “strange situation room” where researchers studied how infants reacted to separations and reunification with primary caregiver (typically mother in this research)
3 styles
Avoidant attachment (group A) (20%-25%)
Secure attachment (group B) (65%-70%)
Ambivalent-resistant attachment (group C) (10%)
Developed later work on adult attachment styles
(Salter Ainsworth, 1979)
Nature and Nurture
* Early Life Experiences Can Dramatically Alter Our Expressed Character Traits *
Article below published in 1965 describes groundbreaking findings based on experiments with social isolation impact on monkeys.
Monkeys and Mortality Crash Course Psychology
Resources for Parents and Educators
Books to Read
Kindness_book_list.pdfArticles to Read
Conclusion from Wood et al., 2021 Article Below:
"Overall, these findings are an important step in understanding the impact of a caregiver that responds sensitively to its infant’s psychological needs early in life, leading to normative overall neurobiological development."
(Wood et al., 2021), pp. 30)
Bronfenbrenner.DP.1986.pdfWebsites to Learn More
ICF Beginner's Guide: Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health
ICF - The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health
1 January 2002 | Standards
icfbeginnersguide.pdfICF Checklist For Clinicians
icfchecklist.pdf"This is a checklist of major categories of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) of the World Health Organization . The ICF Checklist is a practical tool to elicit and record information on the functioning and disability of an individual. This information can be summarized for case records (for example, in clinical practice or social work). The checklist should be used along with the ICF or ICF Pocket version."
A New Take on Moral Development
Carol Gilligan
This pioneer gave the field more diversity in research leading to life changing implications by including women as study participants. Carol Gilligan brought the female perspective and lens of differing worldviews into research studies at a time the sample participants consisted solely of white men in their 40s and 50s.
Building on the work of Kohlberg, Gilligan came up with the Three Stages of Ethics of Care (Big Think, 2012).
Video on Carol Gilligan
Exposure to Kindness Teaches Kindness
Tips to Teach Kindness
Model Kindness
Give opportunities to understand people's feelings and connect social cues. Practice in class or at home!
Teach Empathy with Intentionality
Link feelings of book characters to events in child's life. Develop self-awareness and introspection!
Celebrate Kindness Week!
Brainstorm kind things to do together.
Facilitate Morning Meetings
Encourage children to talk through disagreements and guide them through every step until they learn the process on their own
Emphasis on Friendship
Everyone treats everyone like a friend.
Create a Friendship and Kindness Calendar
Come up with different friendship qualities for each day of the month, and identify kind actions of the day to take on. Make QR Codes for Kindness Stations of read alouds to inspire.
Create a Challenge to Spread Kindness!
Every kind done for you must be passed on through a kind act for someone else
Leverage Social Stories Including a Problem to Solve
Lean into conversations about school or home rules and how it impacts others when the rules are broken. Consider what the implications of long term and short term rule breaking could be.
Be the ACTION!
Inspire children to come up with ideas for how to be kind and help accommodate so kindness holds high priority. Come up with a list of kind actions and have students pick. Embark on a class community service project! Sky is the limit.
(BOSTWICK et al., 2019)
References
Association for Psychological Science. (2018, June 20). Harlow’s Classic Studies Revealed the Importance of Maternal Contact. Association for Psychological Science. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/harlows-classic-studies-revealed-the-importance-of-maternal-contact.html
Bernstein, D. A., & Peggy Wright Nash. (2008). Essentials of psychology. Houghton Mifflin Co.
Big Think. (2012). Carol Gilligan on Women and Moral Development [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W_9MozRoKE
BOSTWICK, E., GARMON, M., HILDEBRAND, J., JUDD, A., & MBALIA, M. (2019). PBS. PBS Education. https://www.pbs.org/education/blog/9-tips-for-teaching-kindness-in-the-classroom
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22(6), 723–742. https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.22.6.723
Dahlsgaard, K., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Shared Virtue: The Convergence of Valued Human Strengths across Culture and History. Review of General Psychology, 9(3), 203–213. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.9.3.203
Harlow, H. F., Dodsworth, R. O., & Harlow, M. K. (1965). Total Social Isolation in Monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 54(1), 90–97. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.54.1.90
Lynch, M. (2016, August 3). Examining the Impact of Culture on Academic Performance - The Edvocate. The Edvocate. https://www.theedadvocate.org/examining-the-impact-of-culture-on-academic-performance/
Marshbank, A. (2017, September 17). Compassion as a Classroom Management Tool. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/compassion-classroom-management-tool
Mcleod, S. (2017, February 5). Attachment Theory. Simplypsychology.org; Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html
Mcleod, S. (2018). Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. (2019). Random Acts of Kindness. Random Acts of Kindness; passiton. https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/
Rosenbaum, P., & Gorter, J. W. (2011). The “F-words” in childhood disability: I swear this is how we should think!. Child: Care, Health and Development, 38(4), 457–463. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2011.01338.x
Rosenbaum, P. L., & Novak-Pavlic, M. (2021). Parenting a Child with a Neurodevelopmental Disorder. Current Developmental Disorders Reports, 8(4), 212–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40474-021-00240-2
Salter Ainsworth, M. (1979). Infant-Mother Attachment. http://local.psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger/c_c/rsrcs/rdgs/attach/ainsworth.1979.amer_psych.pdf
Sanders, C. E. (2019). stages of moral development | Definition & Framework. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/Lawrence-Kohlbergs-stages-of-moral-development
Spencer, J. (2019, March 18). Making The Shift from Student Engagement to Student Empowerment. John Spencer. https://spencerauthor.com/empowerment-shifts/
Tavris, C. A. (2014). Teaching Contentious Classics. APS Observer, 27(8). https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/teaching-contentious-classics
TeachThought Staff. (2012, December 11). 21 Simple Ideas To Improve Student Motivation. TeachThought. https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/improve-student-motivation-ideas/
van Rosmalen, L., van der Veer, R., & C. P. van der Horst, F. (2020). The nature of love: Harlow, Bowlby and Bettelheim on affectionless mothers. History of Psychiatry, 31(2), 0957154X1989899. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154x19898997
Wood, E. K., Gabrielle, N., Hunter, J., Skowbo, A. N., Schwandt, M. L., Lindell, S. G., Barr, C. S., Suomi, S. J., & Higley, J. D. (2021). Early Rearing Conditions Affect Monoamine Metabolite Levels During Baseline and Periods of Social Separation Stress: A Non-human Primate Model (Macaca mulatta). Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 15(624676). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624676
World Health Organization. (2002). Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health ICF Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health: ICF The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/classification/icf/icfbeginnersguide.pdf?sfvrsn=eead63d3_4&download=true