Christmas Kindness Challenge to Encourage More Kindness

Inside: Use this Christmas Kindness Challenge to encourage more kindness and give kids lots of chances to practice being kind this December.

December is the most wonderful time of the year.

Well, maybe.

For our kids, it can feel overwhelming, overstimulating, and overscheduled.

One simple way to slow December and the holiday craziness down is to focus on the simple things like kindness.

But while kindness is important in December, it can be hard to make it happen between the cookie decorating, the holiday parties and the shopping.

To make kindness more of a habit and make it easier for kids, we can set them up for success with positive reinforcement that helps kids focus on speaking and acting with kindness more often.

One simple way to do this easily is to use one of our many kindness challenges…and this Christmas kindness challenge is perfect for December to get your kids focused on kindness.

More Christmas Kindness and Social Emotional Learning Activities:

Kindness can of course be taught without cutesy themes, but using seasons, holidays and things kids already enjoy- like Christmas- can increase the buy-in and pique their interest. It’ll make learning a little more fun and a ton more hands-on.

We like to play this Christmas Kind or Unkind Sort.

We are kind to others with this Christmas Light up the Room Activity.

We can make these Kindness Christmas Handprint Crafts kids can make and then donate to a nursing home, retirement home, or hospital.

We use this Christmas Kindness Paper Chain Countdown to do one act of kindness as we count down to December 25th.

We use this Christmas Random Act of Kindness to help families spread kindness to other families during December.

We use this Christmas Advent Calendar to focus on kindness each day of December.

We read about all the ways to be kind at Christmas with this Christmas Kindness Emergent Reader.

We use these Christmas Kindness Role Playing Cards to practice all the ways to be kind during December.

And we use this Christmas Kindness Challenge.

Why Should We Use Kindness Challenges?

We shouldn’t need to praise kids to be kind, they should just want to be kind and then do it.

Well, yes, in an ideal world.

But when we’re intentionally teaching kids to be kind, we have to bring out the big guns and use all the tools at our disposal, including positive reinforcement.

When kindness becomes their norm, their habit, and their gut reaction, then yes, we can wean them off the “rewards” and positive reinforcement.

Kindness is a verb. It’s something you have to do, rather than something you just talk about.

So if we are serious about focusing on social-emotional learning and kindness, we have to teach kids how to be kind with role playing strategies and with social emotional learning curriculum and then give them ample opportunities to be kind.

We have to give them situations where they can practice being kind to classmates, siblings, teammates, friends, adults, and people in the service industry (food servers, mail carriers, trash collectors, custodians, retail staff, flight attendants, etc.)

So to make kindness consistent and more of an everyday activity, we can gameify kindness and make it a challenge (because we know most kids can’t resist trying to “win.”)

We have Monthly Kindness Challenges like this one.

We have a Simple Normal Everyday Scavenger Hunt that kids love.

We have seasonal Kindness Challenges so kids do one kind act a week: Summer Kind Kids Challenge, Fall Kind Kids Challenge, Winter Kind Kids Challenge, Spring Kind Kids Challenge.

We have 100 Acts of Kindness Challenge so kids do one kind act a day and by the time they get to the 100th day of school, they’re 100 days smarter AND 100 days kinder.

But to connect kindness to fun things kids already love, we also have monthly kindness challenges like our Christmas Kindness Challenge.

How to use the Christmas Kindness Challenge

1. Download and print the version you wish to use: black and white to color in the ornaments and the tree or the color version and color in just the ornaments. (download it below.)

2. Every time one child is kind to another child, they get to color in an ornament. If you’re using it for students, every time they are kind to another student they can color in the ornament.

3. When they get to the end of the sheet, they can earn a Christmas cookie, hot cocoa, or a special ornament.

4. Continue with the positive reinforcement with another kindness challenge so kindness becomes a habit, like our New Year’s Eve kindness challenge.

OR… get our Year of Kindness Challenges here all in one place.

Kindness Ideas to Help Kids Easily Act and Speak with Kindness

Sometimes it can be hard for kids to come up with ideas on how to show kindness to others. But it doesn’t have to be hard when you know there are two different kinds of kindness:

big, loud, showy acts of kindness, often random acts of kindness
simple, normal, everyday acts of kindness that can become habit if we practice them enough

Random Acts of Kindness are fun and great, especially for Random Acts of Kindness Day in February. But the much more impactful acts of kindness take no planning, no props, and no money.