Is the answer to childhood happiness, popularity?

Do you remember the playground line “If you give me a crisp then I’ll be your best friend”? This isn’t exactly an act of kindness, but more a popularity bargaining tool used by children to benefit both parties.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of California have approached this in a different way by tasking a group of children in Canada to perform deliberate acts of kindness to see if this boosts acceptance among peers; and ultimately an individual’s happiness.

The findings published on 26 December 2012, state that “Increasing peer acceptance is a critical goal, as it is related to a variety of important academic and social outcomes, including reduced likelihood of being bullied.”

In Vancouver, 400 pupils age 9-11 across 19 school classrooms were assigned three tasks each per week over a period of four weeks.  Tasks not only included acts of kindness to peers such as “gave someone some of my lunch”, but also such as “carrying groceries” and “gave my mom a hug when she was stressed by her job”.

Before and after the ‘acts of kindness’, pupils reported on their ‘life satisfaction’, they were also asked to circle the name of students that they would like to spend time doing activities with.  Overall results showed significant increases in positive affect and marginally significant increases in life satisfaction.

Dr Kristin Layous from the department of psychology at the University of California explained their conclusions.  Being liked by their classmates is not only beneficial for the individual but also for the whole community.   As an example, a popular pre-adolescent is more inclusive towards others and is far less likely to bully other children too.

“Entire classrooms practicing prosocial behavior may reap benefits, as the liking of all classmates soars.” says Dr Layous.

The hope of this research  is that teachers may regularly assign students specific ‘acts of kindness’ to enhance the ‘well-being’ of the classroom.

If your child would like to a make New Years’ Resolution, then maybe this is a worthy one?  Why not assign them a deliberate ‘act of kindness’ to family or peers; whilst demonstrating one yourself.

Read the full report published by PLOS ONE

Fundraise with My Nametags

Nurseries and schools love it when parents label their children’s belongings. But did you know that you can raise up to £2 per order for your school, nursery or playgroup just by buying your nametapes from My Nametags? Find out how…

You’ve probably helped out at or supported a variety of fantastic fundraising events at your child’s school such as cake sales, Christmas and summer fairs, BBQ’s etc before. But just by ordering your name tags through us you can also raise money for your child’s school. It’s incredibly easy and doesn’t involve any extra cost.

Zoe D’Souza, mum of 2, runs the uniform shop for Thorns Infant school in Warwickshire and has fundraised for her school through My Nametags for 2 years. “It’s so easy and it’s extra money that you wouldn’t get otherwise and all from a label that’s absolutely fantastic!” Zoe’s top tip is to ask mums who order on line to let her know as it will still count towards the fundraising efforts.

Follow these follow these 5 simple steps and you could raise extra funds for your school:

1. Contact us via email or phone and we will send you as many order forms as you need.
2. Distribute the order forms to parents in school bags/newsletters etc.
3. Collect the order forms and cheques (made payable to “My Nametags”) from parents. Send off to My Nametags marked clearly with school/nursery name and address.
4. We will process your orders and send all the personalized nametags back to your school/nursery for you to distribute.
5. My Nametags sends your school/nursery a cheque for £1 per set ordered plus any postage. This usually works out to be £2 per order.

Large orders save us time and postage and we are more than happy to pass these savings back to your school, nursery, playgroup or Parent Teacher’s Association (PTA). There’s no need to pre-register.

We send out fundraising cheques after the 10^th order. But don’t worry if you collect less than 10 sets of orders we will still process them and keep a record them. When you next send in another order we will add them to your original order and when you reach 10 we’ll send your school/nursery a fundraising cheque.

For example – If six parents order a set of nametags we will process the order and keep a record of them. A few weeks or even a term later you may get another five orders. We will add the two orders together and send your school a fundraising cheque taking into account the 11 orders (6 initial and 5 later orders). Your school will receive a cheque for £22! (£11 x £1 fundraising per set plus 11 x £1 postage.)

Our standard set of nametags costs £9.95 plus postage, and includes 75 iron-on name tags and 75 sticker labels.

If you’d like to know more about fundraising then give us a call on 0800 321 3203 or ask for our fundraising booklet by email. Just remember to include the name and address of your school or organisation.

Happy fundraising!