As I start each day, I try to start it in a positive and kind note.  If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may know this about me already.  I don’t always wake up in the happy go lucky mood I am in by the time I Tweet it out, but I get there.  Usually I have already had my morning shower and at least one coffee if not the smell of coffee starting my day.  Before I interact with the other humans in my life, I need those few minutes to start the day silently. I wake up J with a kiss and head down to breakfast with Hubby and Apple, sometimes they get kisses too, but it all depends on where they are in their breakfast routine.  Then I think of my morning tweet and send it out into the world.

Sometimes I get back some grumps that can’t believe I wake up all set and ready to go, or why am I so positive every morning and othertimes I get back little notes of thanks or a cheerful good morning. Well the truth is that I am not always like that, but I sometimes force my way into my positive thinking.  Being self-employed can be a very lonely job when working at home on your computer with no one to talk to. And I like to think of my start to the day as my Kindness going out there.  By the time we are all ready for school and heading out we are full of smiles and cheerful hellos for the most part and this is a great way to start your day.

Back in the days before kids and Twitter and Facebook, I did this in a different kind of way. As I would head out to work in the car, I would sing loud and clear with each happy tune and by the time I got to work, I was ready to go in full force. Always ready to greet my coworkers with a smile and some cheer.

There are so many ways to instill Kindness into the world and sometimes it starts with a simple “good morning”. Lately I have been watching more and more people try to reach out and put their kindness out there, just a little more.

In October, I photographed the annual Blissdom Canada Conference. This year our new Canadian Bliss Chicks wanted to have a conference that was full of kindness in social media. Doing a little bit of social good, encouraging all of us to use our outlets to do good in the world. And here we are almost two months later and many of the speakers are still with me in my heart. I share stories I heard from the conference and I share what we can all do if we just do it one step at a time. There is a little truth in the old saying, “Kill them with Kindness”.

I love all the Kindness I am seeing out there, maybe I pick up on it more because I want our world to be a better place for our children. I want our children to be kind every day and I want their children to be kind.

So I thought I would share two great Kindness stories in hopes that maybe you too will be encouraged to go forth and be kind. And these aren’t my stories.

First off is a new website called Kindness Canada. A website dedicated to sharing stories of kindness throughout Canada. You can submit your own story for that you want to share or you can read others stories in the hopes that it will inspire you to be kind elsewhere. I check in everyday to see what awesome kindness is going on around me.

Second is a blogger I follow on Instagram, Lvdmorethncrrts. For her 30th Birthday she wanted to do 30 Random Acts of Kindness and this past week she set out with her Sister in Law and children and performed 30 Random Acts of Kindness in one day. I followed her throughout the day on Instagram and I just loved it! I loved it so much we discussed it at dinnertime on how we could do some random acts ourselves.  My children thought it was great and wonder what the recipients thought on the other end.  Read about all of her Random Acts here.

It doesn’t matter if your kindness comes out in a few words or a great act, it is the act of being kind towards one another that matters.  Now go forth and be kind!

Recently I have found myself in conversation with other parents discussing the parties that seem to happen at the park near our house.  We have to walk through this park to take our children to school which is adjacent to the park.  In the warmer months the parties at the park are constant, if it is a good weather night you can hear the teenagers laughing or shouting all around being noisy teenagers.  The biggest thing about these parties in the park is that they don’t just involve happy go lucky teenagers.  They also involve lots of drinking, some screaming and occasionally a fight or two breaks out. The aftermath of these parties is broken bottles and trash in the park and on the school yard.

Sadly some of these teenagers once attended our children’s school, and they seemed to have forgotten how sad they were when they couldn’t play on the basketball court because of broken glass. We don’t let our children play in the park in bare feet because we never know what we will find buried in the sand.

When talking to other parents we always seem to get stuck on what can we do about it? Other than call the police when the parties go on and on, really there isn’t much we can do, or can we?

I am sure I get this line from my own parents, but honestly do the parents of these teenagers know where their children are?  I for one hated that I had to check in with my parents back in the day of no cell phones. I had to call when I got to my friends house, or check in if I was running late. I must have known where every payphone in Ottawa was and had a pocket full of quarters just in case.  So what can we do, really?

We can make sure that our own children do not become the teenagers having a party in the park. We can start by teaching them now that this is unacceptable and offering them instead somewhere that they can bring their friends and hang out. No, there won’t be any alcohol for minors but we do hope that by giving them a cool and safe place to be they will make the right choices when they are older to not hang out and party at the park.  We can teach them now that it is not acceptable to be out until 3am as a teenager. We can teach them responsibility and proper behavior so that in the next few years when they do become teenagers, they may just remember what we have said.

In addition to that we need to take responsibility for our children as teenagers, we need to know where they are. It is so much easier today with cell phones than it was 25 years ago, you can know where your child is, you can make sure that your child is at home at 3am or at his/her friends house, we do have the means to do it.

Let’s take back the park. Take back our children as teenagers. Teach them now while they are young.