Kindness for Your 1-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship while building a foundation of trusting, loving attachment that will develop kindness and contribute to later success in school and life.

Kindness is the ability to act with generosity, care, and consideration. One-year-olds come to better understand themselves through their interactions with you and other caregivers. They are learning their strengths and limitations, why they feel the way they do, and how they relate to others. Kindness is learned through the trusting relationship you work to develop with your child. As you respond to your child’s needs, showing care and love, your child experiences your care as kindness and learns through your modeling. The steps below include specific, practical strategies to prepare you.

Why Kindness?

Children learn about themselves and how they relate to others through sensitive, caring interactions with you. These interactions impact their ability to learn about and manage their feelings and to trust in you as a caregiver. Focusing on kindness with your child will lay a critical foundation for trusting interactions.

Today, in the short term, focusing on kindness can create

• greater opportunities for connection, cooperation, and enjoyment
• trust in each other
• a sense of well-being and motivation to engage

Tomorrow, in the long term, focusing on kindness with your child

• develops a sense of safety, security, and a belief in self
• builds skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making
• deepens family trust and intimacy

Five Steps for Teaching Kindness

This five-step process helps you and your child develop kindness skills and critical life skills. The same process can be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).

One-year-olds may use babbling, single words, and crying to communicate with you. Despite your child’s emerging ability to use words, you should continue to pay close attention to their facial expressions, movements, and sounds to work on understanding what they are trying to communicate. Your efforts to learn from your child build trust and create empathetic interactions demonstrating kindness and letting them know you are interested in their thoughts. In becoming sensitive to the slight differences in your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you

• show them that they can trust you to notice how they feel
• let them know that you will help them to face challenges
• deepen your ability to communicate with one another
• are modeling empathy

Actions

• Each time your child expresses any big feeling, be sure to name it: “You seem angry” or “You seem happy.” This builds their feelings vocabulary and adds to their self-awareness and ability to manage their feelings. As you react to your child with kindness, they will feel a greater sense of your understanding and responsiveness, and your interactions will become more two-way instead of one-way.

• Simple questions and interactions can engage your child. Your child may respond with a few simple words, and they can respond with eye contact, facial expression, and body movements.
• When reading books, look at the images of children or animals and guess the feelings. You could say, “I think the little bear is happy to see his friends. He has a smile on his face.”
• If your child is unsure about how others are feeling — or buried in their feelings — help them by sharing what you think others are feeling. You could say: “I wonder if she feels happy because her friend shared the toys. Do you think she feels happy?” Or, “I think that person might be angry because their face is red and their eyebrows are scrunched. Do you think they feel angry?”
• Practicing naming feelings will enable your child to identify their feelings and seek support when needed.

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, there is much to learn about understanding your child’s rhythms, temperaments, and needs. Because of all this learning, you will make mistakes and even poor choices. How you handle those moments will help build your child’s sense of relationships and ability to be kind. Offering yourself the grace and permission not to be perfect can ease your anxiety in responding to your child’s needs. Learning about developmental milestones can help you better understand what your child is going through.¹

• 12-18-month-olds will respond to their name and may use 5 to 10 words. They are starting to combine words with gestures, follow simple directions, and remember recent events and actions. They may feel uneasy when separated from their loved ones.
• 18-24-month-olds can understand ten times more than they can speak, are starting to respond to questions, point to familiar objects and people in pictures, and follow two-step directions. They are also beginning to want to try things on their own.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.

Actions

• Model kindness while interacting with your child. Modeling kindness can be one of the greatest teaching tools.
  • Share the focus. As you spend time with your child, follow their lead. As they pick up new toys or explore a different part of the room, notice and name what they are exploring.²
  • Notice gestures and listen for thoughts and feelings. Attempt to figure out what your child is trying to tell you through their sounds, gestures, and facial expressions. Name it When they express a feeling on their face or through their body. “I noticed your face is red, and your mouth is frowning. You look angry.”
  • Children require your attention to thrive. So, why not build a special time into your routine when you are fully present to listen to what your child has to tell you? Turn off your phone. Set a timer if needed. Then, notice your body language. Ask yourself, “What is my body communicating, and how am I demonstrating that I am listening?”
• Talk to your child. Research confirms that talking to a child enhances their language development.³
  • Talk clearly and slowly. Exaggerate your words for clarity and understanding. Don’t use “baby talk,” which can be challenging to understand.
  • Label what you see. “I see your sister is sharing her toys with you. That is kind of her.”
• Narrate your feelings. For example, you might say, “I baked some cookies for our friends down the street. I am excited to share them. Do you think we should walk over and give them the cookies?”
• Narrate your daily routines. As you prepare breakfast at home or go shopping together at the store, talk about what you are doing each step of the way. Involve your child by asking questions. For example, “We are volunteering in our community today. I like helping others and would love to take you with me. Does that sound good to you?”

Daily conversations allow your child to practice new vital skills if you seize those opportunities. Each time your child works hard to practice kindness, they grow vital new brain connections that strengthen and eventually form habits.

Practice also provides essential opportunities to grow self-efficacy (a child’s sense that they can do a task or skill successfully). This leads to confidence. It will also help them understand that mistakes are part of learning.

Actions

• Model warm greetings, introduce your child, and facilitate greetings with new individuals. Share one thing you know or love about that person with your child to make a caring connection.
• When out in your community while running errands with your child, make introductions and involve your child in conversations with neighbors, the bank teller, or the grocery cashier.
• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements like, “I noticed how you let your brother play with your toys. That is kind of you.”
• Read together. When you read stories together, you engage in an activity that can be deeply connecting for both of you. Reflect on the story, and you’ll take the learning opportunity one step further. “I think it was kind of the bear to share his umbrella.” Involve your child in selecting the book, holding it, and turning the pages to build ownership and interest in reading.
• Many children are born with a cautious or shy temperament. They might not readily warm up to strangers and may show a fear of strangers. Respect that temperament by not forcing interaction and instead modeling your own kind interactions with others.

At this point, you are developing your child’s kindness skills and allowing them to practice. Now, you can offer support when it’s needed. By providing support, you reinforce their ability to be successful and help them grow in their ability to show kindness.

Actions

• Learn about your child’s development. Each new age presents different challenges. Being informed about your child’s developmental milestones offers you empathy and patience.
• Don’t move on quickly if your child shows interest in a new person. Children often need more time to adjust to new individuals. Be sure to wait enough for your child to warm up to the new person. Your waiting could make all the difference in whether your child is able to gain relationship skills over time.
• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements like: “I noticed how you gave me one of your toys to play with. I love seeing that.”
• On days with extra challenges, when you can see your child is scared of new people or situations, offer confidence in your child’s ability to face the new. In a gentle, comforting way, you can say, “Today, we will meet some new people. I will be with you all the time. I like meeting new people.”
• Actively reflect on how your child is feeling when approaching challenges. You can offer reflections like:
  • “You seem worried about going into this new store. I’ll hold you so you feel more confident.” Offering comfort when facing new situations can help your child gain a sense of security and face them rather than backing away.
  • You can also offer comfort items to help your child face new challenges. “Would your bear help you feel better?” 

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also promotes safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.

There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “I noticed you smiled at my friend. I love seeing this.”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you behave in the store, you will get a treat on the drive home.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after getting through your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.