Ever wonder why a kind gesture leaves you laughing more? Hoping more? Learning more? Or simply stepping lightly and on point toward a finer goal? In 2014 a Harvard study of 10,000 middle – high school kids, 80% of the students said they valued achievement and happiness over caring for others. Interestingly, 96% of parents reported that hoped their children would be caring – 81 percent of teens here said their parents actually valued achievement and happiness over caring or kindness.
What about students and teachers in the study? 62 percent of the participants believed their teachers prized academic success above all else – including kindness.Have you seen it?
One’s priorities or goals here impact learning behavior: Not surprisingly, the kids who ranked care for others as less valuable than happiness and learning achievement, and who believed their parents desired the same outcomes, scored lower on an empathy scale, than kids who valued kindness.
This video shows one kind gesture from a football player to an autistic student changed an entire community!
Kindness awakens your brain’s DNA much like a light-switch illuminates a room. Kindness also connects your mental equipment to your innate capabilities. How so?
Kindness primes your amygdala for hopeful moods that open you to spot new possibilities. It reduces stress chemicals that hold you back mentally. Kindness fosters the change you’d like others to see in you. It defaults back to that deep desire to mimic its sheer delight. Kindness grows with each new use, and spills over time into pools of genuine care that benefits all, through its use of serotonin – the brain’s wellbeing chemical. 
The universal language of kindness may be compassion and its evidence likely appears within every caring smile, yet it jump-starts mental sparks for any who wave its magic wand.
Have you noticed how kindness can help you even disagree, while building goodwill with those who differ? Or how kindness transforms sarcasm into humor with mental muscle. 
How do you learn kindness or teach it to others? 
Looking to teach teens the art of kindness through the rigor of mindfulness. Find ready-to-roll resources here at my TpT site. Simply copy – use – and enjoy student enthusiasm tossed into any topic you teach –
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Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset