Mom’s Mistakes Leads to Good Kids Who Focus on Others

A mother who realized that she was losing the goal of raising truly good children has discovered the answer and is on a mission to help other parents learn from their mistakes.

Dani LaBriola, who has 11-year-old twins, created a system called Craft character, and says, “It is a two-step process that requires a turn of thought.”

The pivot requires parents to shift their focus from the inside, on their children’s own individual happiness and success, to the outside, on how their children can serve others. This puts one in the right mindset to begin the two-step task ahead: teaching your kids about character and then helping them create a new habit to shine.

First, educating your children about the trait is important so they understand why and how. Research is easy to find and shows that kindness benefits the recipient AND the donor increasing confidence, improving health, decreasing anxiety and depression and increasing popularity.

Kindness can be demonstrated in many simple ways, such as letting your friend leave before you in line, putting in your neighbors’ garbage cans when accidentally left out, or taking 3 minutes to call your grandparents and let them know. that you really care.

Second, after teaching about the trait, children should put it into practice to create a new habit (this step is the key to seeing lasting change!). Have your child select a daily act of their own to complete and then send it out into the world to do it! Not only will they help another person, but they will experience all the wonderful benefits of being kind (as shown in the link below).

RELATED: Performing acts of kindness can improve both physical health and happiness levels, study finds

The systems LaBriola created for children ages 4 to 10 aim to complete this two-step process using a story book with corresponding stuffed animals, such as a turkey, an eagle, a ladybug, and a duck.

Each story teaches a particular character trait, such as gratitude, and then the stuffed animal, with 14 of its pieces missing, tracks 14 days of acts as the child completes them. By providing visual reinforcement for the child, for example, Loving Bug teaches children how to be loving and kind, missing their 14 points and slowly growing them as the child completes his acts of kindness.

PLUS: UCLA Launches World’s First Research Institute on the Science of Kindness

Two of the books recently won first and second place in the CIPA EVVY book competition and are attracting the attention of some experts and professors. “These books will change the world,” states the 2016 California Teacher of the Year.

The series of books and sets of plush toys cover 5 traits: love and kindness, charity, gratitude, good citizenship, and self-preservation. Each book-toy system costs $ 39.99 in craftingcharacter.com.

“The great thing about all this is that many of the traits we cover are contagious,” said the author. “If one child starts doing it, the rest of the children will follow.”

2021 will be a year of contagion, not only because of a coronavirus, but because of the continued spread of kindness and generosity.

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