Updated Post / Report from KidsMatter, Feb. 20, 2025 / Make Kindness Count by building community and belonging through kindness. The 2025 campaign now in progress aims to collect 1,000 stories.
How do you put kindness into action? This year’s Make Kindness Count campaign wants to find out.
Original Post, Feb. 7, 2025 / Tanner Clark (www.onesecondofstrength.com) is a popular motivational and TedX speaker who has helped thousands of adolescents and their parents navigate the pressures of growing up with social media.
In a recent social media post, Clark reminds middle and high school students that kindness toward others is great, but it is equally important, and maybe more so, for them to be kind to themselves. He reminds us that the person one spends the most time with in life is themselves. Here are three pieces of advice Clark gives for making sure that we treat this special person, ourselves, with the kindness we deserve:
1. Speak kindly. The words inside our heads can be the most influential words we ever hear, Clark says. Because our inner words are so important, we should make sure they are always kind, encouraging, and uplifting. We should never tear ourselves down but talk to ourselves as we would a friend who needed kindness and support.
2. Forgive. No one is perfect, Clark says, and no one ever will be. Just as we forgive our friend’s mistakes, so too should we forgive ourselves when we slip up. We must let go of past mistakes if we want to move forward toward a better future.
3. Be careful with trust. While most people have our best interests at heart, Clark reminds us that others may say or do things for their own benefit, and not ours. He encourages teens to be discerning when listening to others’ opinions and to be cautious about whom they trust.
This February, join the Collaborative Youth Team, a coalition of youth-serving organizations in DuPage and Will Counties, as they hold Make Kindness Count, a celebration of spreading kindness to ourselves and others.
For more information, see the KidsMatter website at kidsmatter2us.org/kindnesscounts.
