This document provides information and activities to teach empathy and kindness to children in order to reduce youth violence and create caring lifelong learners. It discusses the importance of teaching empathy at a young age through activities like identifying emotions, perspective taking, and participating in acts of service to help others in need. Examples of service projects for children include collecting food and supplies for shelters, volunteering at nursing homes, and organizing birthday parties for children living in homeless shelters. The goal is to help children understand others' feelings and encourage positive behaviors.

2. Goals for the next hour:
• Learn ways to reduce your stress and be fully
present for your students, children and others in
your life.
• Be mindful of your actions and how they effect
others.
• Explore examples of young children who are
empathetic and how to teach empathy to
children to create caring lifelong learners. Be
inspired to be the change you wish to see in the
world.

3. Presentation notes
• Fill out a card and you will receive a link to
view or download this presentation and share
it with others.
• Drop your card in the basket and you will be
entered to win free prizes at the end of the
session and at the closing keynote.

4. About Myself

5. 25 Years In Education
• Taught Public School for 17 years
• Owner & Science Lab teacher: Kids For Kids
Academy Preschool since 2005
• Published book for parents and teachers
• Workshop Presenter
• Founded Kids 4 Kids Charity in 1996 to teach
children to change the world through their acts of
kindness. 75,000 backpacks delivered to needy
kids and other service learning activities for
children and families.

6. Visit My Blog:
handsonmindsoneducation.com

7. If it is available to you…
• Give yourself the gift of this next hour, being fully
present in this presentation and how it can
positively impact your life.
• Disconnect fully from the world outside this
room. TURN OFF your cell phone, refrain from
texting and busy work.
• My goal: To give you a gift that will keep giving
every day of your life and to inspire you to find
ways to teach children to change our world, one
good deed at a time.

8. Rocks, Pebbles and Sand - Important Things in Life

9. A philosophy professor stood before his class
with some items on the table in front of him.
When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a
very large and empty mayonnaise jar and
proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2" in
diameter. He then asked the students if the
jar was full. They agreed that it was.
Rocks, Pebbles and Sand - Important Things in Life

10. So the professor then picked up a box
of pebbles and poured them into the
jar. He shook the jar lightly. The
pebbles, of course, rolled into the
open areas between the rocks. He
then asked the students again if the jar
was full. They agreed it was.

11. The professor picked up a box of sand
and poured it into the jar. Of course,
the sand filled up everything else. He
then asked once more if the jar was
full. The students responded with a
unanimous "Yes.“

12. The rocks represent the important
things in your life – the things that
really matter.
The pebbles are the other things that
matter - like your job, your house, your
car.
The sand is everything else. The small
stuff."

13. "If you put the sand into the jar first,"
he continued "there is no room for the
pebbles or the rocks. The same goes
for your life. If you spend all your time
and energy on the small stuff, you will
never have room for the things that
are important to you. Pay attention to
the things that are critical to your
happiness. Play with your children.
Take your partner out dancing. There
will always be time to go to work,
clean the house, give a dinner party
and fix the disposal. Take care of the
rocks first - the things that really
matter. Set your priorities. The rest is
just sand."

14. How you start your day reflects how
you spend your day.
When you start your day with something
negative, it can set the tone for the rest of
your day
– You spill coffee in your car or on your clothing
– You walk outside and have a flat tire, you lock your
keys in your car, you run out of gas
– You are late for work
– You get to work and the air is broken

15. A positive thought is one way to begin a positive day and
set the tone for those around you.
• Read the two slips you got when you entered.
Choose the one that you found most meaningful
and share it with the person next to you.
• Did your positive thought have an impact on the
person you shared it with?
• Positivity….pass it on. Read 3 positive thoughts
each morning and share the one you found most
meaningful with someone by calling, texting, or
emailing.

16. Be Mindful
• Have you ever driven someplace and don’t
remember how you got to your destination?
• At a stoplight, do you talk on the phone, text,
fix your hair or makeup? Do you miss what is
going on around you?
• Do you really taste your food? Do you eat
breakfast at a table with the TV on? At your
desk, in your car? Walking from place to
place?

17. Mindful Activity: Raisins
Hold your cup of raisins.
Look at them carefully.

18. Take one raisin out of the cup.
Take a closer look.
Notice the color, shape, texture.

19. Squeeze it between your
fingers.
How does it feel?

20. Put the raisin next to your ear,
squeeze it, listen to it.

21. Smell the raisin.

22. Put the raisin between your
gum and teeth and hold it
there. Do not bite it.

23. Chew your raisin 30 times before
swallowing.

24. What did you notice?

25. Here is a link to a recent Huff Post
article summarizing the benefits of
mindfulness:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/mi
ndfulness-meditation-benefits-
health_n_3016045.html#slide=309265

26. • Tim Ryan ('A Mindful Nation'): "I don’t know
how I would’ve been able to stay in Congress
without mindfulness,” Ryan said. “It’s been so
helpful to me.”
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/loc
al/2013/03/31/finding-his-focus.html
• Classrooms can have a “peace corner” or
“safe space” where a child who is out of sorts
or sad can go and take some time away.

27. Once you are mindful in all areas of
your life, you can focus more on
helping others and being the change
you wish to see in the world.

28. You Are Never Too Small
To Make A Big Difference…
You Are Never Too Big Either!

29. THE BAD NEWS:

30. Statistics on Youth Violence
Violence is a major cause of nonfatal injuries among youth. In
2009, a total of 650,843 young people aged 10–24 years were
treated in emergency departments for nonfatal injuries sustained
from assaults. No state is immune to the devastating impact of
youth violence.

31. Statistics on Youth Violence
Homicide is the second
leading cause of death
among youth aged 10–24
years in the United States.

32. The Good News…
Studies suggest that when we teach
kids to be empathetic at a young age,
we decrease the probability that they
will engage in violent acts toward
others.
Empathetic children learn early to be
kind to others.

34. A report from Independent Sector and
Youth Service America illustrates the
strong impact of youth service on the
giving and volunteering habits of adults.
Engaging Youth in Lifelong Service reports
that adults who engaged in volunteering
in their youth give more money and
volunteer more time than adults who
began their philanthropy later in life.

35. Key findings:
Forty-four percent of adults volunteer. Two-thirds of
these volunteers began volunteering their time
when they were young.
Adults who began volunteering as youth are twice
as likely to volunteer as those who did not volunteer
when they were younger.
High school volunteering recently reached the
highest levels in the past 50 years.
Those who volunteered as youth and whose parents
volunteered became the most generous adults in
giving time.

36. By teaching empathy to young children,
they learn kindness and respect toward
others. In doing this we decrease the
inclination toward violence.
7 year old Rebekah helping
a migrant child
to pick out a new
backpack at a distribution

37. An Independent study found that 67 percent of adults
who remembered that their family volunteered when
they were young said they now volunteer as adults.
In contrast, only 42 percent of adults who did not
remember volunteering with their family when they
were young volunteer now.
Studies suggest that kids are more likely to develop a
strong sense of empathy when their own emotional
needs are being met at home (Barnett, 1987).

38. What Does It Mean To Be Empathetic and Why It Is
Important To Teach Empathy at a Young Age
Have you ever been asked to put yourself in someone
else’s shoes? This is an easy way to think about what
it means to be empathetic.
• Empathy is an emotional skill that helps children to understand what others
are feeling, and teaches them to treat others with kindness, compassion and
love.
• It is empathy that encourages an individual to reach out and comfort
someone else when in need.
• When someone falls, your empathic instinct has you putting out your hand
and helping them to get up.
• Empathy is also what draws you to hug and comfort someone who is crying,
whether it is a child who sees an adult cry and responds by saying, “Mommy,
it’s OK, don’t cry,” or an adult who comforts a child by simply saying, “Let me
kiss it and make it feel better.”

39. Have you ever seen a lost child? Your
immediate instinct is to help the child
find a parent. For a child, the same
might be true if they find a lost pet
and they instinctively try to help the
lost pet find their way back to its
owner.

40. Empathy is what compels us to
open a door for someone whose
hands are full. It is empathy that
has us comfort someone who has
experienced a loss.

41. Empathy is an important developmental
process that all children need. It is
through empathy that children learn
tolerance and understanding of each
others’ differences.

42. An empathetic child will approach
someone who looks different or has a
disability and offer to help, or be their
friend. Being empathetic is an
important trait in order to teach
positive behaviors in both children and
adults.

43. By teaching children to recognize
different feelings and emotions, they
can begin to understand how those
feelings and emotions impact others.
By learning to become empathic at a
young age, children can grow to be
emotionally mature adults.

44. Preschoolers tend to be very self-
centered by nature and might not
always appear to be empathetic
toward others. They have to learn to
take turns, for example, and learn not
to push others who are in their way.

45. Evidence shows that simply “going
through the motions” of making a
facial expression can make us
experience the associated emotion
and it’s not “just our imagination.”
When researchers asked participants
to imitate specific facial expressions,
they have detected changes in brain
activity that are characteristic of the
corresponding emotions. Participants
also experienced changes in heart rate,
skin, and body temperature (Decety
and Jackson 2004).

46. The more chances young children have
to learn empathy, the more empathetic
they will be as they grow older.

47. One way to begin teaching children about
emotions is to first help them understand
how to identify different emotions. For
example use picture cards showing
different emotions.
Lay out the emotion cards (you can order
these cards from educational websites or
catalogs) and ask questions like…

48. • Which card shows how someone feels if they
lost their pet?
• Which card shows how someone would feel if
they got a special present?
• Which card shows someone who is tired or
worried?
• Which card shows someone who is sleepy?

49. After identifying the
emotions expressed on the
cards, ask the child how they
are feeling, and if they have
ever had such emotions. Let
them describe to you when
they felt that way.

50. You can also go through magazines
and ask your child to describe how the
people on the pages might be feeling
by looking at the expressions on their
faces. You can cut out the photos and
make collages for each type of
emotion. To make the activity more
personal, take photos of your child
displaying different emotions and put
the photos in a little photo album.

51. By participating in activities to help
others, kids learn to be empathetic.
• Pick up trash on the school grounds.
• Develop and maintain a recycling program at school.
• Collect food, warm clothing, toys, or personal care
items for the needy. Deliver to shelters. Remember,
shelters are in need of supplies all year long!
• Hold a Teddy Bear and Friends (Stuffed Animals) Drive.
Donate the collected animals to a Homeless Shelter for
new arrivals.
• Encourage friends to donate gently used books to
families in shelters, low income preschools or
hospitals.

52. Brainstorm with
your group
activities you can
do with children to
teach empathy. List
as many ideas as
you can think of.

53. • Establish a relationship with your neighbors, bake
brownies to welcome new ones
• Plant produce and donate the harvest to a local food
bank.
• Plant seeds. Sell the flowers or plants and donate the
proceeds to a local homeless shelters.
• Pick up litter at a park.
• Make treats or draw pictures for a local senior home.
• Pick up trash on the school grounds.
• Develop and maintain a recycling program at school.
• Collect food, warm clothing, toys, or personal care
items for the needy. Deliver to shelters. Remember
shelters are in need of supplies all year long!
Activities To Instill Empathy In Children

54. Activities To Instill Empathy In Children
• Make Halloween bags of candy for homeless kids
Be sure all candy is individually wrapped and
avoid candy with peanuts.
• Have a drive to collect NEW socks and underwear
for foster kids
• Donate used eye glasses to an organization or
place that recycles them for the needy.
• Collect gently used clothes and donate them for a
dress-up area at a daycare or family shelter.

55. Activities To Instill Empathy In Children
• Make a holiday basket for someone in need.
• Serve a meal at a homeless shelter.
• Write letters or draw pictures to service men/women.
Fill shoe boxes with candy and snack to send troops.
• Have friends and family members collect travel sized
hotel toiletries when they stay at hotels. Donate them
to homeless shelters, make welcome cards to make the
residents feel welcome to their new “home.”
• Put together a care-package for service men/women.

56. Activities To Instill Empathy In Children
• Put together a care-package for teen moms.
• Form a litter patrol on school or park ground.
• In December, contact a tree farm or nursery about donating
a Christmas tree to a needy family, shelter or nursing home,
or buy a tree to donate
• Hold a food drive to help keep food bank shelves well
stocked
• Donate gift cards for teens in foster care, they are the most
forgotten.
• Ask your friends to donate $5 grocery gift cards each time
they go to the grocery store for their family. Put all the
cards together and provide a complete Thanksgiving meal
for a family who may be down on their luck.

57. Activities To Instill Empathy In Children
• Donate used board games, video games, movies and
other toys your kids no longer use to local shelters
• Donate the books your child has outgrown
• Encourage families at your child’s school to make pans
of pasta and salad. Sell tickets to a spaghetti dinner
and donate the money to charity.
• Go to garage sales. Buy new toys and clothing and
donate them to kids who need them. You can use the
money from your family charity box to buy the goods.
“Garage Sale-ing” is a fun thing to do together.

58. Activities To Instill Empathy In Children
• Volunteer to take family photos at a homeless
shelter. Print the photos and give them to the
families. Many of them may have NO photos
of their children.

59. Plan a monthly birthday party for kids
living at a homeless shelter
Each month the Barreiro family invites their friends to donate cake,
cookies, chips, ice cream, soda, and goodie bags for the monthly
birthday party. Each child at the shelter with a birthday that month
has his or her name listed on a cake. When the child arrives at the
pavilion, everyone sings happy birthday to the child, they get a small
gift, and the slice of cake with their name on it.

60. For his birthday, little Omar got a piece of cake
with his name on it, a plate of chips, cookies,
and ice cream, a cup of soda and a small gift.
No big party and fanfare.
The party lasted
just one hour.
Look how happy
Omar is that
someone
remembered his
birthday!

61. Think about how you and your family
can impact another in just an hour or
two each month.

62. Started in 1996 to teach children that
they can change the world by their
acts of kindness.
www.kids4kids.org

63. Club members met twice a month at 45 minute
meetings to do projects to help others. You can
start a “Kids 4 Kids Club” in your school or
classroom.
• Become pen pals with your local shelter.
• Bake New Year cookies with a sweet message on the card.
• Make Valentine bags with little trinkets and cards.
• Design and assemble coloring books and deliver with small boxes of crayons.
• Make spring bags or baskets for needy families.
• Have a drive to collect canned goods and donate them to your local food bank.
• Make a few Thanksgiving baskets for needy families in your own school.
• Draw or paint pictures to decorate your local soup kitchen for various holidays.
• Have a drive to collect new books for needy children to spread cheer in
December when so many children have no cheer.
• Collect travel size toiletry items year round, like those given in hotels and make
Just Because Baggies for your local homeless shelter.
• Visit a local children's shelter and plan an "UN-Birthday" party and celebrate
everyone with cake and ice cream.

64. Book Recycling Drive: Ask kids to bring in books
they have outgrown. Donate them to low income
childcare centers, schools, afterschool programs or
areas affected by disasters.

65. Kids 4 Kids Members Help Kids At
Disadvantaged School Pick Our Their New
Books

66. Kindness Cards
A collaboration with
CBS 4 Neighbors 4
Neighbors
“You just performed a random
act of kindness. I noticed and
wanted to thank you for doing
so. Please accept this card as
a token of thanks. When you
see someone else doing
something kind for someone
else, please pass this card
along to them.”

67. Kindness Cards

68. Get Well Cards For
Kids In Hospitals

69. Care Packages For Teen Moms

70. Halloween Bags For Kids Living In
Homeless Shelters

71. Buttons, Cards, & Goodie Bags Sent To
Troops Serving Our Country

72. Pictures Brighten Up Local Soup
Kitchens

73. Travel Sized Toiletries Collected and
Bagged With Cards Donated to
Homeless Shelters To Welcome New
Residents

74. Backpacks Filled With School Supplies
Delivered To Homeless, Abused, and
Migrant Kids

75. Kids 4 Kids Backpack Distribution Video

76. Mitzvah, and the importance of giving.
From the perspective of a 13 year old
“Not everyone in the world has the same luxuries
that many people are privileged to have.
I say this because some people are not fortunate
enough to have food on the table three times a day,
electricity, a stable shelter to live in, or even clothing
to wear; some people wear the same clothing
everyday. I was taught at a young age to help
others so that others can share in the simple day to
day luxuries that I am fortunate enough to have. “

77. “In Hebrew a mitzvah is a good deed.
Simple mitzvot could be holding a door open for
someone who needs help, sharing food with
someone who is hungry, or even just being there to
listen when someone has a problem. If nobody ever
helped others by performing mitzvot, the world
would be really sad. There would always be
someone who would have nothing and be in need of
help and there would be nobody to help them.”

78. Rebekah’s Journey As A Mitzvah Maker
Age 3 passing out
drinks at a Kids 4
Kids Backpack
Distribution

79. Age 4, after 9/11
attacks, made pins and
sold them to buy food
and holiday gifts for a
needy family.

80. Age 5, wrote a little book
and sold them for $5.
Raised money to buy
blankets and stuffed toys
for a shelter.
Read the book at
www.capsforacure.org
Click on a decade of giving,
Mitzvah Maker

81. Ages 3-14 assembled and delivered
backpack to homeless and migrant
kids.

82. Ages 4-10 participated in Kids 4 Kids
Club Activities

83. Ages 6 & 10 cut hair and donated it to
Locks Of Love

84. Age 9/10 Project New Sock
4,000 pairs of socks collected for foster
kids

85. Age 13 Knitted
hundreds of caps
for kids with
cancer and raised
$2,000 for The
American Cancer
Society

86. Meet Gabriella Miller
At age 10, in 2013, Bri was diagnosed with an
inoperable brain tumor. Through her tragedy
she thought of a way to help others.
Make A Wish Foundation offered to send Bri to
Paris. She learned that Macy’s would donate
$1 for every letter written to Santa and
delivered to Macy’s.

87. Her goal: Inspire others to send her
10,000 letters that she would deliver
to Macy’s to help raise $10,000 to
grant a wish for another child.

88. After a few short weeks…..

89. Her idea to help others went viral:

90. Gabriella Last week
Gabriella who was diagnosed with a brain tumor
in November, spoke at the Roll for the Gold on
The National Mall to support childhood cancer
awareness.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKGwSEXu
ewdSPO2Q8klRlNA

91. Kindness can be contagious!
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world;
indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.“
Margaret Mead

92. You can choose to complain about all the bad
things going on in our world or you can
choose to inspire children to do good in this
world….You Choose!
Share your stories of goodness:
beth@handsonmindsoneducation.com

93. My Products