Electric Ireland Research Proves “Kindness is Part of Irish Children’s Everyday Lives”
Electric Ireland’s Powering Kindness is back for the third year this Saturday, January 17th, and will see the kindness spread by the Irish public transformed into a donation of €130,000 for three Irish charities: Childline, Irish Heart Foundation and Marie Keating Foundation.
As part of the campaign, Electric Ireland commissioned research with advice from Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common (MCC) project on Irish insights on kindness for the next generation and this is what they found:
- Most parents of young children (82%) agree that kindness and consideration for others is part of their child’s daily experience in school.
- 68% agree the school system supports them in developing kindness in children.
- But, 62% say Irish society places greater importance on wealth/personal success over kindness.
- 84% of parents of young children agree that the best way to teach children to be kind is to lead by example.
While Trisha Ross Anderson, Research Manager at Making Caring Common (MCC), agrees that parent modelling of behaviours is essential to raising kind and compassionate children, she references a study that MCC carried out with over 10,000 American students in 2014,
“What is surprising in our findings is that the majority of surveyed youth do not think that their parents prioritise kindness. Therefore it is extremely important that parents make this message very clear in their daily behaviours and expectations.”
Dr. John Sharry, child and family psychotherapist, was also able to add insight to the survey results,
“While parents are committed to showing their children the importance of being kind, often they are at a loss at how to respond when they witness their own children being ‘unkind’ or mean to other children especially their own siblings. Indeed sometimes parent’s immediate reactions can make matters worse when a more delicate response that empowers children to resolve their own disputes is required.”
Speaking at the launch, Paul Stapleton, General Manager Electric Ireland said, ‘This is the third year of our Powering Kindness campaign which we created to encourage a more positive society and of course help three great charities annually. We hope Powering Kindness will capture the imagination of the nation as it did in previous years and are looking forward to sharing our charity fund of €130,000 with Childline, Marie Keating and the Irish Heart Foundation to support the vital work that they do”.
Acts of kindness can be dedicated to one of the charities through the Electric Ireland Powering Kindness website (
www.poweringkindness.ie) or through social media channels using the hashtag #poweringkindness and tagging the selected charity. The winning charity will receive €60,000, and the runners up €40,000 and €30,000 respectively.
Follow Powering Kindness through the Electric Ireland Facebook and Twitter (@electricireland) and #poweringkindness.
Check out the views of children we asked about kindness here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWdnVjmRus0
ENDS