Sneak peek: Looking for an Elf on the Shelf alternative that teaches positive lessons? Some ideas to consider that focus on kindness.
The Kindness Elves offer a thoughtful alternative to the traditional Elf on the Shelf, focusing on teaching children about kindness and its intrinsic rewards during the holiday season. This approach contrasts with Elf on the Shelf, which often encourages good behavior through fear of negative outcomes, a strategy research suggests is not effective for long-term moral lessons. According to the Highlights State of the Kid report, only 23% of children believe kindness is their parents' top priority, highlighting a gap in communication that the Kindness Elves aim to bridge by promoting acts of compassion. By engaging in everyday acts of kindness, children learn that being kind fosters feelings of pleasure and happiness, making it its own best positive reinforcement.
As parents, I think one of our main goals is to raise kids who care for others. But, guess what? Our kids don’t always get that message. Several surveys have now shown us that, despite our words, kids think we value other things over kindness. Results from this year’s Highlights State of the Kid report illustrate this:
– Almost half of the kids surveyed (44%) said they think their parents’ top priority is their happiness
– 33% of kids thought doing well in school was their parents’ top priority for them
– Only 23% of kids said that they thought being kind was their parents’ top priority for them
In other words, it seems like there is a gap in what we think we are communicating to our kids and what they are hearing.
Kids are hearing that we want them to be happy and achieve more than we want them to be kind.
Kindness Builds True Happiness
Of course, we parents know that being kind and being happy are not mutually exclusive. They go hand in hand. As study author Christine French Cully points out,
“Maybe part of the message we aren’t always sending to our kids is that yes, we want you to be happy, but part of being happy means thinking about the needs of others sometimes.”
We know from experience that being kind actually makes us feel happier. Now research is backing this up too. New studies show that compassionate or kind acts do spark connections in the brain that promote feelings of pleasure and happiness.
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Related Reading: Social-Emotional Development in Kids: A Parent’s Guide
An Elf on the Shelf Alternative
The holiday season is just about upon us. This is a perfect time to help our kids see, in a lovely hands-on way, how kindness builds on itself. The Kindness Elves are a wonderful alternative to Elf on the Shelf to help our kids do this.
Let’s face it, the Elf on the Shelf is a popular holiday tradition, but what does it really teach? I don’t want to get too serious here, but really this tradition focuses on encouraging good behavior as a way of avoiding negative outcomes (no toys!). In other words, fear becomes the motivating force here. Kids want to do good for fear of getting no presents at Christmas. Deep down, we know (and research backs it up) that fear is not really an effective long-term strategy for teaching moral lessons. As this great article points out, we want to “raise a good person, not just one who’s afraid of being bad.”
Related reading: Super Simple, Research-Backed Ways to Raise a Thankful Child
The Kindness Elves are a perfect alternative to Elf on the Shelf because they focus on the opposite—kindness for kindness’ sake. They offer wonderful ideas for everyday acts of kindness that kids can do. With this approach, kids learn quickly that kindness is its own best reward. The feelings of happiness and joy you feel when you do something helpful for another person are the best type of positive reinforcement.
The holiday season is the perfect time to introduce your kids to the Kindness Elves. However, if you aren’t able to get the “official” Kindness Elves (sometimes they aren’t available), you can still do the same idea with any elf or stuffy toy you’d like. Here are a few alternatives:
The same goes for the kindness cards. You can make your own, or use a set like this:
These give you and your kids ideas for doing acts of kindness throughout the season, such as donating socks to a homeless shelter or having a canned food drive. The best part is that the kindness ideas and cute cards are already done for you. No searching Pinterest to find ideas each day.
We started introducing the Kindness Elves a couple of years ago in my house. The boys love it! In fact, my 8-year-old asks when “Elfie” is coming back each year. The acts of kindness are simple but meaningful. We also have a lot of fun figuring out where in the house Elfie hid each night while we were sleeping.
Curious about how kids develop empathy (the basis for kindness) over the course of their development? Check out this post:
The Hidden Way that Kids Learn Empathy (and how you can help)
Related posts:
Nature and Nurture: The Origins of Compassion
Katie
What a great idea! I think we will do this with our elf!
Keitha
Our elf started visiting when my son was in Kindergarten. He is not an Elf on the Shelf elf. I thought it was damaging to have an elf for small children that could not be touched. Our Elf, Cutesy, was constantly played with during the holidays. Cutesy is for fun and a bit of learning. He often left educational or motor skills activities. My son is now 13, last year the elf left him a crack-the-code algebra sheet. I filled our advent calendar with activities of kindness and traditions – make a gift for the librarians, donate toys, send cards to military or kids in hospitals, etc. There are so many ways to celebrate the season. I like that your elves are kind.