Kindness

These past two weeks we have been learning about Kindness in our morning character time.

... I have noticed that whatever character quality we are studying is the one that the devil really tempts both Bean and our whole family with at that time... sucks to be him, though, because I'm taking this as an encouragement and "counting it all joy" instead of being deterred!

As I wrote about in my initial post on our character studies, we use a few tools to help with these morning study times:

--We Choose Virtues mini-posters and Character Chart
-- "God, I need to talk to you about..." books by Dan Carr
-- Character Builders DVDs
-- Memory Verses
-- Bible stories that relate to what we're studying

So, for this *series* (for lack of a better word) we're reading "God, I need to talk to you about... sharing and hurting others" which are both really relevant to an almost-3-year-old, as well as watching the Character Builders on Sharing and Kindness.

Our current memory verse is Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

We are reading about The Good Samaritan and Jesus healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof.

It's really funny how the things that a preschooler struggles with are the same things I struggle with as an adult. That's the one thing these character studies have really convicted me of---

I am no better than a preschooler.

My problems are slightly more mature (sometimes) or complicated (sometimes), but really no different. We are trying to teach her to "Use gentle hands, nice words, and think about how others feel."  That part I (sometimes--- are we catching a theme here?) have down. But the most important part is that we want her to show kindness to others even when she doesn't feel like it, when they are mean or unkind to her, and when they don't *deserve* it. Why? Because this is what Christ did, and continues to do, for us. He shows us love, forgiveness, grace, and yes, kindness when we least deserve it. When we've denied Him, or disappointed Him, or disobeyed Him, or ignored everything He's told us, he returns all those downright *mean* actions with love and kindness. With gentle words, kind correction, and thinking about what is best for us.

And how often does my first reaction to some one's actions--- no matter how I try to intellectualize it or reword it so it sounds grown-up and responsible--- really amount to "But they're being mean to me! I don't wanna be nice!!!" I'm only a (sometimes VERY small) step away from chucking a toy at their head and screaming "I don't like you!" while stomping into a corner to pout.
... or yelling angrily what an idiot someone is while flashing angry hand gestures and speeding as fast as I can to get in front of them and cut them off in turn...



I asked Bean to tell me ways she can practice kindness and wrote them down. I said "How can you be kind to..." and listed people. This is word-for-word what she said:

My Sister: "Not push her, share toys."
My Dad: "Not get in trouble, listen to him, give him hugs and kisses."
My Dog: "Pet him."
My Mom" "Use Nice Words to her."
Jesus: "Give him hugs, celebrate his birthday, not think about myself--- think about Jesus and THEN myself after."

Character for Preschoolers

I really wanted to do some good, in-depth character lessons with Bean when we start "offical" preschool in August.

Immediate problem encountered: I did not like anything I found. I like peices of what I find, but it is either too watered down, or too complicated for her, or not engaging enough... I decided very quickly that doing a little song and pointing out when she was being (insert positive Christian character quality here) was not going to cut it. While I'm all for letting kids learn as they play and as they go about their day, I do think some things NEED to be purposeful--- especially those things that relate to building their relationship with Christ. So if I want them to grow up displaying Christ-like qualities, I need to be intentional in teaching them those qualities and making sure they know what they are (and are NOT), what God says about them, and how they can display them.

I ended up borrowing (hey, I paid for everything that needed to be paid for) aspects of a bunch of different programs and came up with something that I really like. Let me tell you about what we're doing for Character this coming year and how I came up with it.

First, I started with a chart that was recommended on a message board. It is the Operational Definitions of Character Qualities. This particular link will send you to the Duggars' website where you can download a PDF of the chart. It is available other places, as well.
           There are a lot of versions of this list out there. I like this chart because it is quick and easy. I went through and highlighted everything I wanted to cover with Bean (in an ideal world) that I thought she could grasp at 2 1/2. I then ordered it in "importance" (for us), and narrowed it down to 12-14.

Another friend had recommened We Choose Virtues as having great resources for Character Curriculum. After searching this website, I found some things I REALLY love. The first clue that this was going to be great for us was that the 12 virtues the beginner program focuses on were the same ones I had already chosen. I ordered the Kids Virtue Poster and the Kids of Virtueville Mini-Poster Set to use as visuals in our "school room." They also have a great free PDF download of bible supplements that has a bible character and a bible verse to go along with each virtue.

The virtues/character qualities I'm going to cover with Bean for at least the first part of school this year are (in no particular order): Attentive, Content, Diligent, Forgiving, Gentle, Helpful, Honest, Kind, Obedient, Patient, Perserverant, and Self-Controlled.

Then I just kind of looked around, went with some recommendations from others, and found what I needed to supplement the visuals and the information from the first two sources. One source I really like is the Kids of Integrity website. They have free PDF lessons for many, many character qualities. These lessons include memory verses, bible stories that demonstrate the quality and/or its opposite, and (my favorite) suggested prayers for the kids and parents. It is so important that my heart is in the right place when I'm teaching Bean these things, and that I am demonstrating what I want her to learn in my own life, so I really love the prayer and parent prep portion of these materials.

There are also some great activities, visuals, and songs on Hubbard's Cupboard. We will be using some of those, as well.

I am using DVD's called Character Builders. I bought the boxed set (8 DVDs, 16 episodes) on Rainbow Resource Center. The same site has these great little books called the God, I Need to Talk to You About... series. I got 11 of those, as well.


Now that I look at that... it looks like a lot! But you have to factor OUT all the thought processes that go into that long list of information :)

What I ended up with is a basic outline of what I want to cover every 2 weeks. It looks like this:

Character Quality:

WCV “I am/ I am not”:

Webster’s Definition:

Age-Appropriate Definition:

Memory Verse (s):

Child’s Prayer:

Parent’s Prayer:

Animal:

Bible Stories:

DVD:

Book:

Song/Chant:

Activities:

We won't be doing every item every day. What we will be doing every day is going over the We Choose Virtues materials (They have an "I am... I am not..." statement for every virtue), the age-appropriate definition that I come up with, the memory verse, and the prayers. Bean is at the level where she can memorize about 1 verse/week, so, depending on if there are any memory verses from our family bible study, we will have either one or two verses for each quailty. Everything else is going to be cycled in and out for the two weeks.

So that's that... I'm very proud of anyone who made it this far! It was quite a lot of information, I admit.

Until next time...