Last year at this time, I signed up for the 21 day kindness challenge on Kindspring.org. I received daily email reminders to practice kindness and notice it, sometimes prompted by a reflective question. My teenage son and I end our day with quick prayers together as part of saying goodnight. I would occasionally have one last conversation of the day with him as part of this nightly ritual, by asking him the kindness challenge reflection question. He often had a prompt response or would ask a question back.
This year, he is applying to colleges. His school counselor needed a parent statement so she could write his letter of recommendation. As I wrote this parent statement, it was about the surprising answer he had given me one of these questions from last year as it was more telling of him as a person than anything else I could come up with. I am so grateful that the kindness challenge allowed me to know my son better and have conversations I would ordinarily not have had with him. I knew being kind was good, I knew a virtual community of like-minded folks was a way to enrich my practice, but this surprise benefit of a better bonding with my teenager was a complete surprise, and that it would linger long enough to be the best basis for writing about him as a parent, is just further proof that the changes brought about by kindness are enduring.
I am now hosting a 21-day kindness challenge to spread the ripples across time and space, and am grateful to everyone who makes this possible.
Posted by Jyoti on Sep 16, 2014
On Sep 16, 2014 Birju Pandya wrote:
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