Last week was World Kindness Day, and every year, when the date comes around, I can’t help but smile. But I also can’t help thinking, Why only one day? If there’s anything families need right now, it’s more kindness — not just for others, but especially kindness to yourself.
In my coaching work at Be Happy in Life and in the countless conversations I’ve had with parents over the years, this theme keeps coming up again and again. Parents want their kids to be confident, happy, and emotionally strong — but they forget that the journey starts with the emotional environment inside themselves.
Just like I always say:
Ripples always start from the inside out.
Kindness: The Quiet Foundation of Real Change
During a recent workshop, after a full day of learning, reflection, and sharing, we asked participants to name their biggest takeaway. And guess what came up over and over again?
“Being kind to myself.”
Isn’t it strange? The idea seems so simple, yet when we apply it to ourselves — especially to our parenting, our health, our food habits, our stress, and the way we talk to ourselves — it suddenly feels radical.
But truly, with kindness to yourself , is where all meaningful change begins. Especially when it comes to your wellbeing and the wellbeing of your kids. And yes, it’s deeply tied to what kind of parent you become.
If you want to raise emotionally safe confident kids who speak kindly to themselves, you have to model what self-kindness looks like.
If you want to raise emotionally resilient kids, you need to create an emotionally safe home. And emotional safety begins with the way you treat yourself.
You can’t bully yourself into a better life. Real change grows in the soil of kindness.
Ronit Baras
Why Your Mind Fights Change (and Why It’s Not Your Fault)
Let’s take a moment to understand your mind. It has one primary job: Keep you safe.
Not keep you happy. Not keep you healthy. Not help you find a job or parent calmly or stay patient at 7:30am when one kid loses their shoe again.
Just safe.
So, when you reach for sugar at 3pm, or snap at your partner after a long day, or say “yes” when you desperately needed to say “no,” it’s not a moral failure.
Your mind thinks: “This is familiar. Familiar equals emotional safeey. Let’s just do what we always do.”
This is why change can feel so hard. It’s not you — it’s your brain doing its job a little too well.
When you understand this, something shifts. You stop blaming yourself and start working with your brain instead of against it.
The Cruelty Loop (and How It Sabotages Families)
If you’ve ever eaten something you regretted, yelled when you didn’t want to, or felt like you “failed” as a parent that day, you know what comes next: The guilt. The shame. The harsh inner critic.
Here’s the loop:
- You’re stressed or tired and not safe ( remember the safe switch? Or not safe switch?)
- You fall back into reaction out of stress, out of old habits.
- You feel guilty that you failed to manage your emotions
- You judge yourself
- You lose even more emotional energy
- You are more stressed, more tired and feeling even less safe than before and you repeat the same behaviour
Sound familiar?
In parenting, this loop becomes even more painful. You don’t just feel guilty about your choices — you feel guilty about who you are.
But guilt has never healed anyone. Shame has never improved a family. Harshness has never raised a confident child.
The way you talk to yourself becomes the way your children learn to talk to themselves.
Ronit Baras
Kindness to Self Breaks the Loop
When you practice kindness to yourself, your brain receives a new message: “We’re safe.” Remember, Emotional Safety is the name of the game.
And when your brain feels safe, you shift into the parasympathetic state — the “rest, digest, heal, grow” mode. This is where learning happens. This is where emotional regulation happens. This is where you become the parent you want to be.
This is also where your kids experience you differently — calmer, softer, more grounded, more emotionally available.
Kindness is not indulgence. Kindness is emotional oxygen. A family cannot function without it.
What Kindness to Yourself Looks Like in Real Life
Here’s the part parents often misunderstand: Kindness doesn’t mean letting yourself do whatever you want or abandoning your goals. Kindness means supporting yourself the way you support your children.
It looks like:
- Making yourself a nourishing meal because you deserve it
- Going to bed earlier so you’re rested and calm
- Saying “no” without guilt, even if it means someone will be disappointed.
- Giving yourself permission to rest, even if there is a pile of dishes in the sink
- Celebrating small wins so your kids can learn to do the same
- Noticing effort instead of perfection. You are perfect, with all your flows.
- Talking nicely to yourself
- Replacing judgement with curiosity
- Letting go quickly instead of holding onto mistakes
These are the exact skills emotionally resilient children learn at home — not from lectures, but from watching you.
Why I Choose to Write About This (A Gentle Note)
Over the years, through coaching parents, couples, teachers, teens, and entire schools, I’ve seen one truth stand out:
The families who survived the relationship challenges of life, were the ones who practice kindness to themselves.
This is why I write about it so often. Not because it’s “nice” to be kind to yourself, But because it’s necessary.
Your children learn emotional intelligence from the emotional climate you create — and you can only create warmth on the outside when you learn to soften on the inside. If there is a need, read it again!
If you ever want deeper support, you can always reach me at BeHappyinLife.com for parenting, individual, couples, children, or school coaching.
Simple Ways to Bring More Kindness Into Your Parenting
Here are small shifts that create big results:
Talk to yourself like someone you love
If you wouldn’t say it to your child, don’t say it to yourself.
Focus on effort
Progress counts more than perfection. Focus on your own effort and it’ll be easy for you to notice growth and learn that the process matters, not the end result.
Create safety signals
When you feel stressed, replace the unhealthy habit with a “safety behaviour”:
- A deep breath
- A short walk
- Calling someone you feel safe with
- A glass of water
- Stepping outside for fresh air
Forgive quickly
Let mistakes go. Don’t rehearse them. In reality, you learn from everything you do even if you are not aware of it. Bring it to your attention, search for the lesson in the “mistake” and… move on to living life.
Give yourself what you give your kids
Patience. Space. Encouragement. Comfort. They will copy the way your treat yourself.
Kindness isn’t weakness. It’s the strongest parenting strategy you’ll ever use.
Ronit Baras
When Kindness to Self Feels Strange (Especially for Parents)
Some parents tell me: “Ronit, being kind to myself feels selfish.”
But here’s the truth: Kindness isn’t indulgence — it’s maintenance.
You cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot teach emotional strength from exhaustion. You can’t give your children the emotional safety they need, if you don’t feel safe, You cannot model self-love from self-neglect.
Your kindness fuels your children’s kindness. It’s not selfish. It’s responsible. It’s leadership.
From World Kindness Day… to a Kindness Lifestyle
A single day of kindness is lovely — but you deserve more than that. Your kids deserve more than that.
Kindness needs to become a way of living, not a calendar event.
Imagine if every parent you know replaced guilt with compassion.
Imagine if homes were full of self-acceptance instead of self-criticism.
Imagine if your children grew up watching you treat yourself with love.
What a different world that would be.
Your Simple Weekly Challenge to Show Kindness to Yourself
Here’s your homework (yes, the teacher in me can’t resist):
Every time you catch yourself being harsh, pause and ask: “What’s the kindest thing I can say to myself right now?”
This one question can reshape your mood… your parenting… your habits… your home.
Because when you practice kindness to yourself, your body relaxes, your mind clears, and your heart opens. That’s where real change starts. And that’s what your kids learn from you.
If this message resonates with you, if you want to feel calmer, kinder, and more confident as a parent, you are welcome to explore our coaching programs.
Whether you’re a parent, a couple, an individual, or a school community — kindness is the door to transformation.
And it starts with you.
Be kind to yourself!
Kindness matters.
Hugs,
Ronit
