Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed: Teaching Kids Kindness

Back in January, Julie and I decided that one thing we wanted to focus on this year, was sharing ways to teach kids about kindness. Children are never too young to learn about kindness, but it’s not always easy to teach very young children about how to show kindness to others. Of course, the best way to teach little ones about kindness, is to exhibit kindness in our own daily lives. They certainly learn best from seeing what we do. We wanted to find ways to involve our kids in showing kindness, especially our oldest two: Maggie and Aiden. We’ve written a few posts over the past few months, sharing our ideas for teaching kids kindness. Today, we’re excited to share our biggest kindness project yet: a day of spreading good deeds around the country! 

While looking for ways to teach Maggie about kindness, I stumbled upon a wonderful book: Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed. The book first caught my eye because the little girl on the front reminded me of Maggie. The book has become one of my favorite stories for children. Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed tells the story of an ordinary little girl, who does a simple act of kindness, that then sets off a chain reaction of good deeds around the world. The book is a fantastic book for children of all ages and helps explain what we adults know as “pay it forward”. 

Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed inspired me to want to work with my children to spread some ordinary kindness. I thought maybe we could set off our own chain reaction of good deeds. Then I thought, maybe if we share the book with more people, and more of us start doing good deeds with our children, we could set off an even bigger chain reaction of good. Today, 10 writers from around the country will be sharing their experience of showing “ordinary kindness” with their children! 

They have all read  Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed and all have something special to share.  You can click on the links at the bottom of the post to read all of the other inspiring acts of kindness. Then, we challenge you to join in on spreading kindness around the world. If you’d like to participate, share a picture on social media using #ordinarykindness so we can see all the wonderful, kind acts taking place! 

Now, for our acts of kindness! I had a few ideas that I wanted to do with the kids to teach them what a random act of kindness is. Then, after we read the Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed, Maggie had her own ideas. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she got the idea behind the book. I thought I would have to explain it much more after we were done reading (the book really is special for all ages!). So, I decided we would go with her ideas. In the book, each time someone receives an act of kindness, they decide to share the good with 5 more people. So, Maggie didn’t want to do one act of kindness, she said “we have to make 5 people smile”. I asked her to tell me 5 people that are always kind to her and make her smile. After she made her list, she decided what she would do to show them kindness. Her ideas included cupcakes, drawings, cards, and flowers! 

Reading Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed and living out the good in the book, has been really special for my family. I hope you all enjoy the blog posts from around the country today, and share some “ordinary kindness” of your own! 

Don’t forget to share your own acts of kindness on social media using #ordinarykindess