(upbeat music) - What does being kind mean to you?

On today's "Inspire," we talk about kindness, the benefits and how we can incorporate kindness into our everyday activities.

Stay with us.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Speaker] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith.

- [Speaker 1] And the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and, - [Speaker 2] Friends of KTWU.

We appreciate your financial support.

Thank you!

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - Hello and welcome to "Inspire."

I'm so excited to be here with my beautiful "Inspire" sisters.

I've got Betty Lou Pardue and I've got Amy Kelly.

So thrilled to be here with you all, and of course, here with you all as well.

And we are practicing kindness on today's show.

And ladies, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, because it's impossible for me not to be kind.

- I agree, Danielle.

You, and all of us here on "Inspire," and here in the studio are kind individuals.

But what exactly is kindness?

And what are the benefits to being a genuinely kind person?

- And that includes benefits of not only being kind to others, but being kind to yourself.

Here to talk about kindness with us are Steve and Dorthy Halley of Family Peace Initiative.

Steve and Dorthy, we're so glad you're here.

Thank you so much.

We've been visiting a little bit before we went on air.

What, tell us first, if you would, Dorthy, what is the initiative?

- Well, the Family Peace Initiative is really an outgrowth of our work in domestic violence.

Initially, I was the Executive Director of a domestic violence shelter down in southeast Kansas, and started working with those who batter, after I had seven victims from the same offender.

And I decided I needed to work with those who batter and figure that out.

And so when it comes to what the Family Peace Initiative is, it's a program for those who batter.

But it also is an approach.

And it's an approach that we use not only with those who batter now, but also in our work with juveniles, and our work with justice involved women and others.

- When I moved to Topeka, one of the things, one of the thoughts that I learned about when I traveled and learned about some of the things that they're doing in USD 501 was trauma-informed care, which I'd never heard about in Salina, which is my hometown.

How is this different than trauma-informed care?

- That's a great question.

Trauma-informed care is really being aware that many of the students, for example, would have experienced traumatic events before they came.

And how can we be sensitive?

How can we tuned into that?

Trauma-responsive care is pursuing the trauma and helping people to see how their historical trauma that they experienced is impacting their life today and helping them to begin to heal the impact of the trauma.

And so it's not just being aware, but it is actively pursuing and addressing and healing.

- Mm.

- That's interesting.

I'm really curious to know more about how does someone who comes from trauma, bridge the gaps to become a kind and nice person, but we probably ought to lay some groundwork here first.

What is kindness?

Is kindness just being nice?

I mean, how would you define that?

- I think when people think of kindness, they generally are thinking of kind of like random acts of kindness that we do for others.

When I think of kindness, I think of having the ability, and actively being considerate of the best interest of others.

Any of us who have been parents know that in caring for a child, we don't just give them everything they want.

In fact, that would not be kind, right?

But being constantly considering their best interest is very kind.

So when it comes to kindness, when we talk about random acts of kindness, whether it is, oh, grabbing something off a high shelf for someone at the grocery store, or doing those kinds of acts, we all need to be doing those things to helping others in our community.

But the ones where it is most difficult to be kind to, are our loved ones.

That's when resentments build up.

That's when there are a lot of challenges in being kind.

And when we think about kindness, we kind of think of it as the opposite of cruelty.

When we think of cruelty, we're often noticing the intentional infliction of pain or suffering on another.

But there's another aspect of cruelty.

And Steve was actually the one who kind of brought that into our work at the Family Peace Initiative, where it is the blatant disregard of another person's interests.

And if we define cruelty in those terms, we all have the potential, and in one way or another, have probably been cruel to those that we love.

- Right.

My grandma used to have a thing that says, "Was it kind?

Is it true?

Is it necessary?"

So whenever you're saying something to someone, you weigh your words.

But we've probably all heard, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Will you touch a bit on that?

- Yeah, well, what was running in my mind, just listening to Dorthy, is that it's kind of in the message of what is our behavior, our words, communicating to others.

So in the act of cruelty, if I was going to be cruel to you in some way, I would be saying something about you, that you're not important to me, that you are irrelevant, that your thoughts, opinions, feelings don't matter.

And so you would be less than, or inferior to me.

But in a kind communication, a kind behavior, or behavior or actions are communicating that you are important, that you do have value, and I see you and I understand that my choices and decisions have to include you if they impact you.

- [Betty] Right.

- And so when we take each other into consideration, then we're moving away from cruelty toward kindness.

But if our behavior is communicating that you're important, that you're valuable, that you're worthy, then those are kind behaviors.

- So then silence could also be cruelty.

- Silence could absolutely be cruelty.

Silence could also be kind.

- Mm hmm.

- And so it's not always cut and dry, right?

Yeah.

- So why is kindness so difficult for family members?

How do you overcome that?

How do you learn to become kind to those who you care about because you are being unkind to the people you allegedly care about most?

Explain that.

- So our curriculum for our battering intervention program really focuses on having them create awareness of how that can happen.

We look very closely at the different ways that people interact.

And oftentimes if they are not thinking about it, they aren't even aware that the actions that they're doing are cruel.

But once you get them to really consider that, almost anything we do can be, as you said, silence can be cruel or kind, almost anything can be.

So a lot of the focus is on the development of healthy relationships.

- How do we teach, or model kindness?

- Where my mind goes to is the concept of an enlightened witness, that is Alice Miller is a prolific writer.

And in her writing, she talked about that people who grow up with trauma would grow up with cruelty in their lives.

They need to have somebody who is capable of sitting with them while they share their story.

Kind of the real life angels of our existence, right?

The people who can absolutely love us without us having to earn it or deserve it.

And can be a guide to helping us bridge through that difficulty.

And so moving to kindness requires us being connected to kind people.

It requires us having people teach us what's the pathway to kindness, and what's stopping me from being kind to people?

What's the problem?

What's standing in my way?

(upbeat music) - We want to thank Steve and Dorthy Halley for being with us today.

We're going to take a short break, but we'll be right back to continue our discussion on kindness.

Stay with us.

(upbeat music) I'm honored to be here to feature an inspirational woman, Amy Brady, Executive Director of popular environmental magazine, Orion, and the author of "Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks.

A Cool History of a Hot Commodity."

Amy, thank you for joining us on Inspire.

- Thanks for having me.

- The whole topic of "Ice" is interesting to me.

Why did you decide to choose it out of all the other things that you could have written about?

- Well, about six years ago, I was visiting my family, who live here in Topeka, Kansas.

There was a brutal heat wave that knocked out the power to their house.

So we went to a nearby gas station that was operating on a generator to try to cool down.

And as I'm watching the ice cubes fall into the cup so that I could get a nice tall glass of ice tea, it just occurred to me that I hadn't thought twice about whether ice was available there, or if I'd gone a mile in the other direction, to the local grocery store, I could have bought a bag of ice there.

Ice is everywhere.

- Yes.

- In this country.

And when you travel elsewhere outside the United States, that is not always the case.

- Really?

- No!

Americans are uniquely obsessed with this stuff.

And I wanted to know why.

And I discovered the history of the ice industry in the United States.

I learned all about it and couldn't believe how fascinating and strange and at times truly hilarious it is.

- Okay.

So tell me a hilarious story about ice, because I'm just thinking, "Okay, frozen water, what would be funny about that?"

- Yeah!

- So share that with us.

- Well, I could talk about something that is both funny and also kind of disgusting.

- Oh, wow.

- And that's that in the earliest days of the ice industry, ice had to be harvested out of lakes and rivers in these giant blocks.

And it took really strong men with saws and ice picks to do it.

And horses to pull the big blocks out of the water.

Now, horses, being the mammals that they are, - [Danielle] Yes.

- [Amy] Frequently let loose their bowels.

- [Danielle] Oh!

- On the ice.

The very ice that would soon touch the mouths of thirsty Americans.

- [Danielle] Oh my goodness!

- Everywhere.

So we have come a long way.

- Wow.

So I'm thinking about what, like the Clean Food Act, what was the, Upton Sinclair?

Did ice fall into that at that particular time?

Or it did not?

- No, that came many, many years later.

- [Danielle] Really?

- Yeah.

- So people were enjoying dirty ice for a long period of time.

- For a very long period of time.

- Oh my goodness.

And when did ice actually become a thing in America?

- Well, the first shipment of ice from the north to the southern states and territories happened in the early 19th century.

- Really?

- So we're talking about 200, 220 years ago.

- And were they just using it for preserving food?

Or were they actually using it in terms of like putting it in teas and different liquids?

- Well, we eventually were using it to preserve foods.

But the very first uses of ice in the South was actually to make delicious cocktails and iced tea.

- Go figure.

(both laughing) 'Cause what is a cocktail without ice?

- Yeah, so today, when you walk into a craft cocktail bar, a higher-end place where your bartender cares not just about the taste, but about the aesthetic, one of the most important ingredients they can pay attention to is the ice in the drink.

But even though that's a relatively contemporary phenomenon, it actually hearkens all the way back to the 19th century when the first bartenders in America were considered celebrities.

- Oh my goodness.

And now I'm thinking about all the different ways that we use ice.

'Cause you said like, if people have cuts and scrapes, we put ice on that.

We have ice sculptures.

- Yes.

- We have the Zamboni making sure that the ice is smooth for hockey.

I mean, and we don't even think twice about it.

- No, I mean, I didn't think about it twice, until I wrote the book.

- Wow.

Well, all of this is fascinating.

So I need to go get the book.

Where am I gonna find the book?

And tell me the title again?

- The title of the book is "Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks.

A Cool History of a Hot Commodity."

You can get it anywhere books are sold.

- That's awesome.

(upbeat music) She's an amazing talent, and we're gonna learn so much more about her on "Inspire."

(upbeat music) - Joining us now as we continue our discussion on kindness are Sherry Hess, the Early Childhood Learning Coordinator at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, and Luanne Webb, the Early Childhood Librarian, also at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

Ladies, welcome to "Inspire."

So, okay, in your work with children, do you talk about kindness?

Or actually introduce the concepts?

And how do you do that?

Can you talk about that?

- When you think about kindness, it's something that we all think about as perhaps as adults, especially when we have children, we want our kids to be kind to humans, right?

But how do you inspire that?

How do you teach that?

How do you instruct that?

And so kindness is something that we talk about at the library.

It's not like, "Okay, today's topic is kindness."

Or "Da da da, here's kindness, we're talking about it now."

It's more how do you model?

How do you coach that?

- [Amy] Yes.

- It's the please and thank you.

It's, please take a turn.

It's, can you be a helper?

It's those kinds of things that model what kindness is.

And that's how kids learn best, as well as through play.

So yeah, I mean, we do talk about it.

- And things that you say, like you say the modeling, right?

But then they can get that they're at the library, but we want 'em to have it at home and in every circumstance.

So could it start with a child?

- Absolutely.

It can.

Yes.

- Okay.

- I mean, it's anything.

We naturally, we're librarians, and we welcome everyone who comes to the library.

And so, but I think that sometimes parents are looking for books on being kind, so we can offer those to them.

And that helps kind of give them some ideas on how they can incorporate it into their home.

Like even when they're picking up toys in our family zone, when we say, "Oh, thank you for picking up the toys, it makes it safer for people to walk through here."

Parents can hear that.

And we're modeling for the parents.

And so that may spark something inside of them, when they go home, they go, "Oh, well thank you for picking up your room without me even asking you to do it."

That was really kind of you to do that.

- Let me take onto that because you gave a reason why.

And I think that that resonates with the child because not just do it 'cause I say so, but do it because, is that a way to learn?

- I think so.

- I do, too.

I think kids are complex, right?

They are born ready to learn.

A parent is their child's first teacher.

So when we tell them to do X, Y, Z, and then we give them a further explanation, it causes them a moment to ponder, to go, "What?

Huh?

Oh, okay, I'm doing this because of that."

And certainly that happens with play.

When we extend their play, if they're practicing kitchen at home, or in the families are in the library, and we extend that to, "Oh, do you have carrots?

Let's dice them up."

And we show 'em what dicing means.

We're extending that learning.

We do that with vocabulary extension.

We do that also talking about kindness by saying, "Wanna see if your friend Danielle wants a bite of carrot cake?"

Or whatever the case is.

I mean, we model that for our kids, and we extend that learning through those different opportunities.

- In difficult situations, like say you have a child who's just not having the best day.

How do you model kindness to those children, and get them to try to model it to the kids around them?

Like say Timmy's having a tough day and you're saying, "Okay Timmy, we're gonna try to model kindness, even though you are having a difficult day."

How do you get them to be teachers to the other kids about that?

- Kids are gonna be that person their adults see them as.

Kinda like when you think about your cat thinks you're this superhuman, so be that person that your cat thinks you are.

Same thing for your child.

Let them live that vision that you have for them.

So if you see them as this kind person, you're telling them, "You are such a kind person."

That one incident may have been an unkind action that you chose, but you are a kind person.

It helps 'em to fulfill that self-fulfilling prophecy.

That idea that, "Hey, yeah, I am a kind person."

So if Timmy's having a bad day, oh my gosh, show some empathy, show some grace, model what kindness looks like to Timmy, because he's having a bad day.

You can say to Johnny, "Johnny, I think Timmy's having a bad day.

How do you think he feels?"

And maybe Johnny then thinks, "I wanna give him a pat in the back, or give him a thumbs up, or a fist bump."

But I think when we share empathy with young people, it helps them then see things in a different way, through a different person's perspective.

And that builds that empathy, that resilience, and yes, that kindness too.

- I love it, 'cause it's like we're all in this together.

- We are in all this together.

- So when you, to kind of, to follow off what Danielle was saying, if a parent has a child who is struggling, or is not behaving kindly, and this is kind of a continuing, what resources and tools do you have available at the library that a parent can come in, other than just, "Here, read this book."

There's gotta be more types of tools that you have available for them.

Can you talk about that?

- Well, I have to promote "Sesame Street," because "Sesame Street" has this wonderful series of books and like all about the firefighters and all about kind of "K is for Kindness," and so forth.

And so I think those kind of books, 'cause they're familiar, most of them are familiar with the "Sesame Street" characters, but if they show, Grover says to do this, this is how you can be kind to somebody else.

And we just read a book on how to be a good friend to somebody and just, and then again, extending it and say, "Well, how can you be kind to your friend?"

And just kind of give them the tools.

Maybe they already know how to be a good friend.

But for them to have them say it out loud, a good friend might pat somebody on the back if they're having a bad day, or taking turns.

I know you really like to play with those blocks, but Amy does too, so... (all laughing) - Well, how wonderful of you to bring up "Sesame Street."

And I noticed your shirt.

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."

And we've got, I mean, Daniel Tiger, it was a spinoff of Mr. Rogers.

Talk about the totally kind person that everyone felt comfortable with.

- As a young person, I didn't appreciate Mr. Rogers.

But as an adult it's like, he was just everything.

I mean, he's the epitome of kindness and genuinely liked, I think everyone that he met.

And I always say, think of like, be the person that Mr. Rogers knows that you are.

And we all have good inside of us.

And sometimes it takes a little bit to get it out.

A story that I heard about him, that we know, when he would feed the fish and he would, we feed the fish and not, and there's a little girl who was blind to listen to his show and said, "Could you say when you're feeding the fish?

'Cause I wanna make sure that you are feeding the fish."

- [Hosts] Aww.

- And just incorporating that.

And so I'm meaning, I don't know how exactly how he said it, but just so, that to me, that's an act of kindness.

He took that into consideration when he did a show.

He really generally cared about all of his viewers and he's just a good person.

- Isn't it funny, when we watched him as kids, we're like, "Oh, he's such a nerd bucket."

And now we're like, "I wish I could be Mr. Rogers.

I wish I could emulate him every single day."

- Yeah.

- And you also think about how forward-thinking was this individual?

That he really prioritized social and emotional skills, social-emotional learning.

I mean, we're all still kind of in that post-COVID time.

But you think about it, he was in social-emotional learning a lot of the time.

I mean, he was about, like Luanne said, he was about kindness.

And you mentioned tools.

Certainly the library has books.

And we brought a couple with us, not all of them obviously, but a couple.

And there are books that parents can read, but also if your child has a favorite book, read it to them, again and again and again.

And as you read it to them, ponder.

"Why does John feel that way?

How do you think that would make you feel if that was you?"

Again, that perspective, taking that sense of empathy.

But something that parents will also see our storytellers share when they're reading a book for story time at the library is, "Here is this book and we're reading it to you."

But we'll stop and say, "What do you think's gonna happen next?

I wonder."

- Right.

- It's that perspective-taking.

It's that thinking ahead.

But it's also, where is the kindness?

Nothing says, you can't say to your child, "What should we do today that's kind?

How could we show kindness today?"

- [Betty] Right.

- I mean, I think about, as adults, who doesn't love being in the drive-through and being the person that the person ahead of you bought their coffee for?

- [Hosts] Absolutely.

- Oh my gosh, I love that!

And I think, that was kind!

I do!

I'm like, "Yes, thank you!

Thank you for buying my soda, or whatever."

- [Off-Screen Voice] Right.

- And then we pass it on because kindness is contagious and it just needs to be cultivated.

Cultivate kindness.

- Thank you both for your kindness shown to us today.

- Yes!

- I love it.

I love it.

We can all be more kind, right?

Well, we thank Sherry and Luanne for being with us today and more discussion coming up on "Inspire."

Stay there.

It's the kind thing to do.

(upbeat music) - Ladies, we've had some eye-opening discussions.

And I wanna talk about what you gained from our guests today and how kindness has affected you and what we could do to spread kindness to the people around us.

- I love it.

And I think one of the keys is kids.

I think the kindness needs to be taught to kids.

And I think in turn, kids can teach us kindness.

Say their parents are super busy and weren't thinking something through.

And the child can then say, "Hey mom, I'm so glad to see you."

Or "Hey dad, thank you for doing this or that."

I think it can go both ways.

- And I'll take that a bit further.

It's not just doing it and showing it and then it's talking about it.

- [Betty] Right.

- I think that's really important.

That Sherry and Luanne were talking about that how it's not just showing kindness or behaving kindly, but it's then saying, "How does that make you feel?"

Or when you're having a bad day, how do you feel?

And how does it feel when someone is kind to you when you're having a bad day?

And actually vocalizing and articulating emotions.

Something that we're not very good at doing that.

And I think that and being able to do that with kindness, because that's a happy thing.

- [Betty] Right.

- And I think that is important.

I think that's infectious.

How about you?

- I think it's important to try to pause.

'Cause I think, first of all, we're all so busy.

- [Amy] Yeah.

- That we don't take a moment to pause and try to put ourselves in the other person's shoes.

- Right.

- To really figure out what's going on with the other person to see, okay, if they're having a bad day, what can we do to try to make their day better?

And then really go about trying to do what we can on their level to make their day better.

Not what we would want done, but what they would want done.

- Good point.

- Because that's a whole different thing.

So trying to be kind with ways that would really make them happy.

- And then with the Halleys talking about the cruelty thing, I mean, all that stuff is learned behavior.

Kids don't start out being cruel.

- [Amy] Exactly.

- Or kids don't start out being mean.

- [Amy] Right, right.

- It's learned be behavior.

So I think we start with the kids and we bring 'em up right.

- Exactly.

- Oh, and it doesn't have to be anything big.

You were talking about paying it forward, something as simple as that.

You wanna tell us what you did there?

It's kinda cool.

- In Salina, just a random act of kindness.

- Right.

- I was going to the Starbucks, and I paid for somebody's coffee.

And 45 minutes later, I ended up getting a call, that literally, the line 45 minutes later, of people literally paid it forward.

- That's great.

- And for 45 minutes.

And I just thought, "What a beautiful thought!"

That people just did it just because they just felt good and they wanted to do it.

- It was a cup of coffee.

- It's a cup of coffee!

- It wasn't like I'm donating a brand new car or something.

- Exactly.

- It's a cup of coffee.

- It's a cup of coffee.

- [Betty] Yeah.

- And just think of how good you feel when people do that for you.

- Right.

Or when you're kind.

- Or when you're kind, yes!

- [Betty] To somebody, including them or whatever, you feel good because you were kind.

You set the tone.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- Well, that's all the time we have for today.

And we hope you have been inspired by today's conversations.

And as a reminder, you can watch this program again, at watch.ktwu.org.

- And if you're so inspired to learn more about our wonderful guests, find out what's coming up on future shows and get access to additional content, be sure to visit our website at www.ktwu.org/inspire.

- Inspiring women, inspiring kindness, inspiring you, on KTWU.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Speaker] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith.

- [Speaker 1] And the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and, - [Speaker 2] Friends of KTWU.

We appreciate your financial support.

Thank you.

(gentle music)