Growing Compassionate Kids

There was a TED conversation sparked in Australia this week on the top five things you can teach to a five or six-year-old to help them become kind, caring, humble human beings.  

There were a lot of great suggestions, but these are my favorites:

1.  Golden Rule:  Treat everyone the way you want to be treated.  This makes it easy to ask, "Is that how you would want to be treated?"

2.  Learning is fun!  We read about everything and try to figure out why kites fly, birds sing in the morning, and what happens when we mix paint with our toes.  We've created a huge, fun "To Do" list and we check things off as we do them like learning yo-yo tricks, baking bread, and visiting the dump.

3.  We claim good behavior as a family trait by saying, "We (insert last name) are hard workers.  We (last name) aren't liars.  We (last name) always try our best," etc.  When we make mistakes, we help each other remember who we want to be.

4.  Travel.  Nothing makes you more willing to try new things or makes you more sensitive to other people than having to figure out life in different places.  We all learned to buy a loaf of bread with hand gestures.

5.  Our favorite game is "I love you more than a (fill in the blank)!"  Six-year-olds are incredibly creative and usually come up with something like a garbage truck, septic tank, 1,000 snakes, or flying dinosaurs.

There are more great ideas on the TED site, but I'm sure you've got your own.  What's your favorite way to teach character to your kids?