how to raise nice kids!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2014/07/18/are-you-raising-nice-kids-a-harvard-psychologist-gives-5-ways-to-raise-them-to-be-kind/

1. Make caring for others a priority

Why? Parents tend to prioritize their children’s happiness and achievements over their children’s concern for others. But children need to learn to balance their needs with the needs of others, whether it’s passing the ball to a teammate or deciding to stand up for friend who is being bullied.
How? Children need to hear from parents that caring for others is a top priority. A big part of that is holding children to high ethical expectations, such as honoring their commitments, even if it makes them unhappy. For example, before kids quit a sports team, band, or a friendship, we should ask them to consider their obligations to the group or the friend and encourage them to work out problems before quitting.
Try this
• Instead of saying to your kids: “The most important thing is that you’re happy,” say “The most important thing is that you’re kind.”
• Make sure that your older children always address others respectfully, even when they’re tired, distracted, or angry.
• Emphasize caring when you interact with other key adults in your children’s lives. For example, ask teachers whether your children are good community members at school.

2. Provide opportunities for children to practice caring and gratitude
Why? It’s never too late to become a good person, but it won’t happen on its own. Children need to practice caring for others and expressing gratitude for those who care for them and contribute to others’ lives. Studies show that people who are in the habit of expressing gratitude are more likely to be helpful, generous, compassionate, and forgiving—and they’re also more likely to be happy and healthy.
How? Learning to be caring is like learning to play a sport or an instrument. Daily repetition—whether it’s a helping a friend with homework, pitching in around the house, or having a classroom job—make caring second nature and develop and hone youth’s caregiving capacities. Learning gratitude similarly involves regularly practicing it.
Try this
• Don’t reward your child for every act of helpfulness, such as clearing the dinner table. We should expect our kids to help around the house, with siblings, and with neighbors and only reward uncommon acts of kindness.
• Talk to your child about caring and uncaring acts they see on television and about acts of justice and injustice they might witness or hear about in the news.
• Make gratitude a daily ritual at dinnertime, bedtime, in the car, or on the subway. Express thanks for those who contribute to us and others in large and small ways.

3. Expand your child’s circle of concern.
Why? Almost all children care about a small circle of their families and friends. Our challenge is help our children learn to care about someone outside that circle, such as the new kid in class, someone who doesn’t speak their language, the school custodian, or someone who lives in a distant country.
How? Children need to learn to zoom in, by listening closely and attending to those in their immediate circle, and to zoom out, by taking in the big picture and considering the many perspectives of the people they interact with daily, including those who are vulnerable. They also need to consider how their
decisions, such as quitting a sports team or a band, can ripple out and harm various members of their communities. Especially in our more global world, children need to develop concern for people who live in very different cultures and communities than their own.
Try this
• Make sure your children are friendly and grateful with all the people in their daily lives, such as a bus driver or a waitress.
• Encourage children to care for those who are vulnerable. Give children some simple ideas for stepping into the “caring and courage zone,” like comforting a classmate who was teased.
• Use a newspaper or TV story to encourage your child to think about hardships faced by children in another country.

4. Be a strong moral role model and mentor.
Why? Children learn ethical values by watching the actions of adults they respect. They also learn values by thinking through ethical dilemmas with adults, e.g. “Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn’t like her?”
How? Being a moral role model and mentor means that we need to practice honesty, fairness, and caring ourselves. But it doesn’t mean being perfect all the time. For our children to respect and trust us, we need to acknowledge our mistakes and flaws. We also need to respect children’s thinking and listen
to their perspectives, demonstrating to them how we want them to engage others.
Try this:
• Model caring for others by doing community service at least once a month. Even better, do this service with your child.
• Give your child an ethical dilemma at dinner or ask your child about dilemmas they’ve faced.

5. Guide children in managing destructive feelings
Why? Often the ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings.
How? We need to teach children that all feelings are okay, but some ways of dealing with them are not helpful. Children need our help learning to cope with these feelings in productive ways.
Try this
Here’s a simple way to teach your kids to calm down: ask your child to stop, take a deep breath through the nose and exhale through the mouth, and count to five. Practice when your child is calm. Then, when you see her getting upset, remind her about the steps and do them with her. After a while she’ll start to do it on her own so that she can express her feelings in a helpful and appropriate way.

interesting happenings on europe trip

7/5 - berlin

1. carried 18+ kg of luggage and 4+kg of bag up to 6th floor. omg. did it again today, arms and legs aching. lots of exercise indeed

2. did a "chocolate tour" haha. went to rittersport and fassbender & rausch. much chocolate omg, it's like eating chocolate or drinking hot chocolate everyday...good thing we got stair exercise then haha.

7/6 - berlin

1. went on the city walking tour. brandenburg gate - recognize it from your photo. saw memorial of murdered jews. really good, really much thoughts. make me feel sad and like it could had been any one of us, and how would i have reacted if i were one of the non-jews. would i have turned a blind eye or actually risk my life helping those jews? i think i would turn a blind eye…. sigh.

2. went to altes museum, looked at greek and roman stuff. more naked bodies. more lusty things. found out actually in roman culture they did have "phallus cults", where they kind of worship or place the phallus first. big, and exaggerated. same as in early modern japan shunga! also same thing about man and boy relations, no man-man relations!

3. tried berlin beer for the first time. the one with the green woodruff syrup, not even just the raspberry hoho. did you try it before? it's actually interesting, very sweet and hardly any taste of beer, but i definitely got some alcohol rush. face red/ears red etc. definitely. tasted kind of like soda/sweet drinks, interesting.

4. went to schloss charlottenburg. not as nice as versailles palace, but quite interesting. the queen sophie charlotte was really into porcelain and eastern art and culture, everywhere i see chinese and japanese influence, even javanese. never knew they did trading so early on (1800s). again the garden was french influenced, with some english style now. it's kind of funny how french gardens are imported to germany lol. 

5. same as french and german cathedrals.

6. so hot omg, sweating all the time

7. saw couples, korean, german. missed you a lot.

7/9 - lucerne, switzerland

1. on the way to lucerne, met malaysian family. asked them if they were singaporeans. also heard some singaporeans in lucerne, and oh so many chinese/taiwanese. i think lucerne much more popular asian destination than zurich…

2. went to mount pilatus via the silver round trip route: take a train to alpnachstad, a cogwheel railway up to pilatus - it's the steepest cogwheel railway in the world with a gradient of 48%! lots of nice views on the railway

3. did some hikes up there, but it was so freaking cold and windy and foggy because of the rain :/ and cold. wait a few minutes then the clouds/fog disperse because of strong winds and you see the view emerge. really learn to appreciate the view because it was so hard to come by and you suffer the bitter cold and winds T.T a pity about the weather though. would have wanted to do more hiking but it's ok, the view would be the same after all the effort >.> talked to some chinese briefly at lunch (to help them out with ordering) and when climbing some hiking thing to ask if there was a view. there were quite a few kids i interacted with/observed today, very cute

4. took the cable car down, more photos. really beautiful. the cows have cowbells around their neck, quite nice

5. then bus back to lucerne. walked around, quite beautiful and quaint but rain rain rain :( saw a dying lion memorial, quite sad because it's to remember the 700+ swiss mercenaries who died in vain, because the king louis retreated to safety but didn't tell them lol. 

6. walked castle towers and walls. saw lots of koreans and chinese. more like a protective castle wall to protect the town than a castle per se, but it's cool. now i know how difficult it really is to attack such a protected town and scale the wall. it's really really tall, they have uphill advantage and can shoot you to death easily. omg.

7. had cheese fondue and rosti today. truly swiss i am :) reminds me of melting pot, we should try next time.