When I wrote recently about how our divided cultural climate affects children, particularly neurodivergent kids who struggle to process the constant exposure to conflict and stress, many parents asked, “So, what can we do about this?"

And, my simple answer is: Practice kindness. Make it a habit. And involve our children in it.

Kindness Improves Physical and Mental Health, It’s a Scientific Fact

Scientific research reveals that when we make acts of kindness a regular habit, it doesn't just make us feel good, it measurably improves our physical health.

Studies show that people who volunteer regularly have lower mortality rates, better physical function as they age, lower levels of physical pain, and improved cardiovascular health. In the Baltimore Experience Corps trial, adults over 60 who volunteered tutoring underprivileged kids for 15 hours weekly showed measurable improvements in brain health after just two years. They didn't experience the typical declines in memory and executive function, and even showed changes in brain volume in areas supporting cognitive processes.

Even more striking, high schoolers randomly assigned to volunteer with elementary school kids for 10 weeks showed improvements in body mass index, inflammatory markers, and total cholesterol. The students who increased most in empathy and altruistic behaviors showed the greatest decreases in cardiovascular risk.

Harvard Health research adds that kindness is linked to improved happiness, greater life engagement, reduced anxiety symptoms, and increased social connectedness. As Tyler VanderWeele, co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, notes: "If you act kindly toward another, there's also a propagation effect—that person goes on to act more kindly. There's a profound contagiousness to kindness." The New York Times also reports on the power of random acts of kindness.

The Triple Benefit: Giver, Receiver, and Observer

Kindness is particularly powerful in that it benefits three people at once, the giver, the receiver and the observer.
**The Giver** experiences physiological changes, namely lower stress hormones, improved cardiovascular markers, better brain health. Additionally, they reap mental health benefits like increased happiness and reduced anxiety.
**The Receiver** obviously benefits from the help or gesture itself, but research shows they also experience psychological uplift and are more likely to pay kindness forward.
**The Observer** experiences what researchers call "moral elevation." Witnessing kindness inspires them to act more kindly themselves, creating a ripple effect through communities.
This means every act of kindness your child witnesses, whether you're helping a neighbor, being patient with a store clerk, or volunteering together, is training their brain to notice and value kindness.

Training Your Brain to See Kindness

Unfortunately, our brains have a negativity bias. We are wired to notice threats and problems more than positive interactions. This makes evolutionary sense (noticing the tiger, saves your life) but in modern life, it means we often overlook the acts of kindness happening around us.

The good news is that you can retrain this bias, and it's especially important to do so with children who are already overwhelmed by negative inputs.

Practice noticing kindness by:

At dinner, ask everyone to share one kind thing they witnessed that day
Point out when you see strangers helping each other
Name it when someone is kind to your family: "That was thoughtful of her to hold the door"
Acknowledge your child's kind acts matter-of-factly: "You helped your brother. That made a difference."

The more we notice kindness, the more our brains look for it. This isn't toxic positivity, it's neurological retraining that helps balance the constant stream of conflict and negativity our children are exposed to and processing.

Why This Matters

Remember what we discussed about children absorbing adult anxiety and struggling with constant exposure to conflict? Kindness may be one of our most powerful tools for counteracting that stress, for both parents and kids.

When we volunteer or engage in acts of kindness, researchers believe it helps buffer our stress response. As Harvard's Laura Kubzansky explains, "Volunteering or doing an act of kindness can distract you from some of the problems that you might be having, so you might be a little bit less reactive yourself. And it may help to give you more perspective on what your own problems are."

Translation for parents: When you're less stressed and reactive, your children feel less anxious. When you're practicing kindness, you're modeling coping skills that don't involve anxiety, anger, or withdrawal.

Protecting Our Kids Through Kindness

Think back to that perfect storm of stress our children face: adult anxiety, constant conflict exposure, information overload, blurred lines between real and fictional threats. Now consider what happens when families make kindness a regular practice:

For Parents:

Lower stress and better physical health mean you're more emotionally regulated
Perspective from helping others reduces reactivity to daily frustrations
Physical activity and social connection combat isolation
You model healthy coping that doesn't involve scrolling bad news or venting anger

For Children:

Participating in helping behaviors builds empathy and reduces self-centeredness
Concrete acts of kindness give them agency in a world that feels chaotic
Volunteering provides positive social connection outside screens
They learn that they can make things better, not just worry about things being bad
They experience the "contagiousness" of kindness—seeing how their actions inspire others
Their brains are literally being trained to notice positive interactions

For Neurodivergent Kids Especially: Acts of service provide structure, concrete tasks, and clear feedback, things neurodivergent children often crave. A child with ADHD who's anxious about abstract threats in the news can focus on the concrete task of helping sort food at a food bank. A child with autism who struggles with social nuance can experience clear cause-and-effect: “I helped, someone felt better.”

A Roadmap for Building Kindness Habits

Start Small and Age-Appropriate:

**Bake cookies for a neighbor**
**Help an elderly person carry groceries**
**Donate outgrown toys together**
**Write thank-you notes to teachers or service workers**
**Pick up litter at a local park**

Make It Regular: The research shows the health benefits come from consistent practice, not one-time grand gestures. Consider VanderWeele's approach: choose a six-week span each year to be especially intentional about acts of kindness, giving unexpected gifts, inviting someone for coffee, supporting colleagues, doing favors without being asked.

Talk About It (But Don't Over-Praise): Research shows that children who received direct moral instruction about kindness were more likely to help others. Kindness is a skill we cultivate, not something that happens automatically. But don't turn it into a performance: "Look how generous you are!" Instead: "You helped that person. Helping matters."

Notice It Out Loud: Train your family's collective brain to see kindness by pointing it out: "Did you see how that person helped the mom with the stroller?" “Did you see that lady give up her seat for the elderly person?” "Your teacher was so patient explaining that three times." Pay attention to the kindness!

Model It Yourself: Your children are watching how you treat others. How do you respond to the grocery clerk, the person who cuts you off in traffic, the neighbor with different political views? Kindness isn't just what you do; it's how you present when challenged or frustrated.

Look for Opportunities: VanderWeele's definition challenges us: "A genuinely kind person is always on the lookout for how to contribute to the lives of others. In every conversation, you're wondering what you can do or say to be encouraging or helpful." Model this orientation for your children. Make it a family practice to notice opportunities to contribute to others' lives.

In Sum

Our children are living in a time of division, conflict, and constant stress. We can't shield them from all of it, and as I wrote before, trying to control every input is exhausting and often counterproductive.

And, we can give them (and ourselves) the antidote.

Kindness doesn't just make the world slightly better for others. It measurably improves our physical and mental health, reduces our stress reactivity, provides our children with concrete evidence that they have power to create good in the world, creates a ripple effect that touches givers, receivers, and observers alike, and literally retrains our brains to notice positive interactions instead of only threats and problems.

In a cultural climate that often feels overwhelming and divisive, acts of kindness are rebellion, and they are also They're medicine.

Back to one of my suggestions last week – control the controllables. You can control how kind you are.

Resources:

Baumeister, R. F., et al. (2001). "Bad Is Stronger than Good." Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323-370.

Carlson, M. C., et al. (2009). "Exploring the Effects of an 'Everyday' Activity Program on Executive Function and Memory in Older Adults: Experience Corps." The Gerontologist, 49(6), 793-801.

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Spinrad, T. L. (2006). "Prosocial Development." In Handbook of Child Psychology (6th ed., Vol. 3).

Fried, L. P., et al. (2004). "A Social Model for Health Promotion for an Aging Population: Initial Evidence on the Experience Corps Model." Journal of Urban Health, 81(1), 64-78.

Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley: greatergood.berkeley.edu

Harvard Health Publishing: www.health.harvard.edu

Human Flourishing Program at Harvard: hfh.fas.harvard.edu

Jenkinson, C. E., et al. (2013). "Is Volunteering a Public Health Intervention? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Health and Survival of Volunteers." BMC Public Health, 13, 773.

Konrath, S., Fuhrel-Forbis, A., Lou, A., & Brown, S. (2012). "Motives for Volunteering Are Associated With Mortality Risk in Older Adults." Health Psychology, 31(1), 87-96.

Kubzansky, L., Ph.D., Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Featured in Harvard Health Publishing articles on kindness and health.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/well/family/random-acts-of-kindness.html

NPR: "Kindness Vs. Cruelty: Helping Kids Hear The Better Angels Of Their Nature" NPR: "When kindness becomes a habit, it improves our health" Harvard Health: "The healing power of kindness"

Schnall, S., Roper, J., & Fessler, D. M. (2010). "Elevation Leads to Altruistic Behavior." Psychological Science, 21(3), 315-320.

Schreier, H. M., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Chen, E. (2013). "Effect of Volunteering on Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in Adolescents: A Randomized Controlled Trial." JAMA Pediatrics, 167(4), 327-332.

VanderWeele, T. J. (2017). "On the Promotion of Human Flourishing." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(31), 8148-8156.

VanderWeele, T. J., Ph.D., Co-Director, Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Featured in Harvard Health Publishing articles including "The Healing Power of Kindness."