Sending Love to Tousdale, Oregon

With a heavy heart I am sending every ounce of love and positive energy to those who have been affected by the Tousdale shooting in Oregon.


Image courtesy of Washington Post (Troy Wayrynen/AP)

It truly saddens me each time I hear news of these random school shootings.  The amount of issues to be addressed with these incidents are alarming. What disheartens me the most is the age of these kids who act violently as the shooter in this incident is reported to only be 14 years old, a high school freshman.  A close second to my disheartening is the pain that these children must be in.  Yes, the victims too, but I am specifically speaking of the shooter who also took his own life at the end in a bathroom stall.  It is quite tragic. 

The right to bare arms, the state of mental health care in our country, media exposure of violence, the desensitization of violence in our society... and the laundry list goes on and on. What are we doing to address this problem? It's reported that there have been upwards of 74 of these incidents. I don't recall these things happening when I was a child or teenager. What kind of society are we bringing up our children in? How can we be the change? What can we do to be the change? This is unacceptable.

My prayers go out to all the parents who are dealing with the sadness, pain and worrying of victims of these random acts of violence in this world.  

As a Family...

One of most important things I want to teach my 2 year old daughter is empathy.  I won't lie- it's a huge challenge to encourage a toddler, completely delved in their self-centric "ME ME ME" world, about the importance of kindness and sharing, let alone giving back to community.  What I found most difficult was finding volunteer activities to do with a toddler.  My husband and I used to volunteer at a geriatrics home or do other random volunteer work on the weekends and we want to carry on the tradition of doing something good for the world.  Hence, starting my mission to find things this mommy can do to make the world a better place one tiny step at a time.

Along my research to see what I can do to show her by example, I came across this site Doing Good Together. They also have a spin off site, Big Hearted Families which is aimed at individual families. The nature of their activities are focused on cultivating lifelong habits of caring, contribution, and community-mindedness. You can choose activities based on age, or even cost.  What I really love most is that there are lessons and their blog is chock-full of lessons, crafts, ideas and even printables.

Check it out and let me know what activities you found were great! I will start posting pictures of what we have done as a family soon...

 Hand in hand... we can teach... we can change...