It’s Cool To Be Kind – Virtual Kindness Matters, Too!

 #ItsCoolToBeKind is in partnership with Google, however, all opinions are my own. 

Every day that we wake up and function in this world, we’re surrounded with endless opportunities to be kind. Even if you don’t leave your house for the day, there’s a good chance that you’ve had some sort of interaction with someone online at some point in time or another. And as adults, we’re constantly talking to our children about the importance of being kind and reporting bullying when it happens, right? But why are we not following through with that as well?

October is National Bullying Prevention Month and it’s the perfect time to realize that “It’s Cool to be Kind”. While so many of us worry about bullying happening face-to-face, did you know that cyberbullying is quite prominent in the daily lives of both children and adults?

The good news? We all have the power to do something about this immediately. In fact, this very second while you’re reading this is the perfect time to showcase to yourself and your children how simple and easy it can be to be nice to someone online.

How can you spread kindness online?

There are literally so many ways! In case you need a few thought starters, here are some to get you started:

• Comment something positive and encouraging on someone’s Facebook wall
• Send someone a message and let them know that you’re thinking of them
• Give someone a shout out online and recognize them for being awesome
• Craft an email and make someone’s day

And those are just a few of the ways that you can immediately spread kindness online.

And if you’re looking for a super simple way to teach virtual kindness to your children, sit down and play the Kindness Game with them at Interland. Not only will they get to learn about how kindness is important online and face to face, but it’s an activity that you can do together. (To learn more about the importance of being kind online, check out the family guide “Be Internet Awesome” from Google)

The kindness movement starts with all of us. So much so, that I’m challenging three of you to join in on showing that “It’s Cool to be Kind”. With 48 hours of reading this, do something nice virtually for someone. Make certain that you can back and tell me what you did so that we can celebrate the fact that kindness truly does win every single time! (and don’t worry, each and every one of you can participate as well! The more people that spread kindness, the bigger the impact we will have!)

It was funny as I was contemplating the acts of kindness we were going to do this month I got a message from my kid’s school. They are starting a daily kindness challenge where each day they are tasked with doing an act of kindness. Some of the challenges are “help out a classmate”. “hold the door for someone”, “stick up for someone you see being bullied”, to name a few the whole calendar has different challenges to do. I wish more schools would do this, it is training up our children to be better, and not to tolerate bullying.

We decided to not only for the boys to fo this at school but that we would also be doing this as a family for a month. At the end of these challenges, we will be completing the kindness skills test here is a challenge you can do with your family or make one of your own!