Doing Nice Things

A couple of days ago, another parent was telling me about her life growing up in India. She told me about what I think she termed "moral science" classes they had to take in school. The basic gist was that the students were all required to do a certain number of "nice things" a day. Those things could be as simple as avoiding squashing a bug to a planned activity meant to honor someone else. She challenged me to do some sort of equivalent Nice Thing activity with my kidlets.

I walked the girls home from school after dropping off their brother and I pondered that challenge. I mentioned to the girls that it might be fun to try and do a certain number of Nice Things a day, perhaps to try and make the goal scale with our ages. Horse promptly started complaining that it was not fair that she had to do more Nice Things than her sister just because she was older. I think she missed the whole point if she was considering it to be a competition, but I immediately followed up her argument that the whole family could make it a goal to do five Nice Things a day. I probably then made myself go into negative Nice Thing numbers by pointing out that now I do not have to find 148 Nice Things to do for her every day.

As an aside, no that was not a typo. I turn 148 every year and have done so since I was in my early twenties. I am also the type of person who holds onto my handbag when stepping on the scale at the doctor's office so that I can blame my weight on my obviously exceedingly heavy bag. Clearly, the rules for age and weight no longer apply for adults who think like I do.

Back to doing Nice Things. Pig Jr. does not appear to understand the concept at all. However, at his age, I am trying to point out times when he is not playing fairly, being rude, or becoming inappropriately physical with someone else by asking him if his behavior is "nice." The first step in changing one's behavior is to acknowledge there is an issue, so that is what Pig Jr. and I are working on together. He is able to admit that certain behaviors are not nice, and apologizes for them.

Rooster, on the other hand, understands the concept of doing Nice Things, but she prefers to be the recipient of someone else's Nice Things instead of doing them on her own. When she is playing with a sibling and not screaming her head off, she considers this to be a Nice Thing, regardless of whether toys have become attack projectiles or not. Clearly, this concept still needs work.

My own Nice Things probably need more work, too. Calmly telling a kidlet they are behaving poorly instead of yelling at them for filling  the toilet with toilet paper counts. Reading a book for the five thousandth time instead of rolling my eyes when asked, "Again?" counts. Sneaking off to eat only five cookies instead of the ten I really want to ingest counts. (Hey, they're small cookies. Keep your opinions on my gluttony to yourself.) Doing the dishes at night instead of reading the book I want to finish counts. Never mind that these are all things I should be doing anyway. I am still going to count them, dang it!

The big surprise to me is how well Horse has taken to this challenge. She is more patient with her siblings and reads to them a lot more frequently now. She takes the time to play a game through instead of stalking away when they forget the rules. When Rooster melts down in Horse's general direction, Horse finds a way to redirect Rooster's attention to something they both would like to do. She shares her toys and offers her sister a chance to play together quite often. She is patient, kind, and caring, regardless of her siblings' behavior because she really, really wants to say she did her five Nice Things.

If I had known it would be so simple to eliminate the constant bickering between Horse and Rooster, I would have done this years ago.