Being Nice

What makes the world go 'round?  Well, the song says "love."

But, what is love and why is it important?  More to the point, how does love manifest?

February, the month I began this lens has the popular secular holiday called "Valentine's Day."   Kids know that it's about more than just romantic love, they carefully and proudly make lovely cards and gifts for friends, teachers, parents, even (with some prompting) siblings.

And it was my children who convinced me that being nice is more than just, well nice -- it is essential to the survival of all of us.

Being nice is having compassion for others, and adjusting your own expectations, actions and words to fit both the situation you find yourself in and the people involved. 

I am married to a nice person, who doesn't always get the first job or the first recognition, but who has a strong support network.  Being willing to suspend my own views and needs momentarily has always resulted in better understanding and sometimes has defused uncomfortable situations.

I want for my children what we have:  being able to work, live and play in their communities in peace, without having to keep watching behind them.

More importantly, I want for my children a sense of connection that seems to exist when people are nice and that is absent when they are not.

What is being nice? It starts with thinking about how other people will perceive our actions and words.

*  Will Susie like it when I hand her the tiger toy?
*  How does the baby puppy feel when someone big like me holds it?

Questions like these are the beginnings of "nice". Very young children cannot form these ideas or articulate them, so parents and other caregivers must model it. The idea of something or someone else having feelings -- having rights -- does not seem to come naturally to most children, but all children can learn to reflect before acting, taking other peoples' needs and desires into account.

Some days, it can feel as if all the lessons learned as young children have fallen by the wayside when our kids hit adolescence. Don't despair -- Our kids are figuring things out all over again, with the changing hormones and perspectives of impending adulthood. Learning to be nice, like learning to read or drive a car, requires consistent reminders and review. Practice, practice, practice!

Part of the effort of being nice is learning to go through the motions even when your heart isn't really in it. The surprise of being nice is that after a while it takes less and less effort.

Does being nice always insure that the people around me will be nice also? Of course not!

And children as well as adults need encouragement when their attempts seem to fail.

Sometimes, the simplest apology goes awry -- I have watched my children time and again think that an immediate apology will make everything all better, when in fact the sense of hurt is just too fresh and new. Patience...

PATIENCE is a big part of being nice, part of why it matters. None of us want to be rushed into things. Perhaps we have all been the victims of a pushy salesperson, or vowed to never again shop someplace after an uncomfortable encounter.

Being nice is partly acknowledging that other people take their own paths in their own time. One way that parents do this, is in the first babbling conversations with their infants. Mother says, "Hello sweetie!" and then waits for the baby to respond. Or the baby makes a sound and the father waits a short beat before responding. This patient give-and-take starts the child on the path to knowing when to wait, and how to converse.