Forum: Shaping a kinder Singapore starts with what our children see us do

I read June Yong’s commentary, “Your children are watching when you shout at your domestic worker” (July 5), with appreciation. Her honesty points to a truth that sits at the heart of a gracious society: Our children learn kindness less from what we teach them, and more from how we behave in front of them.

Decades of behavioural research bear this out. Albert Bandura’s social learning theory demonstrated that children acquire behaviours simply by observing the adults around them, often without any direct instruction. They watch how we speak to trainee service staff at a restaurant, whether we hold the lift door open for others, and how we treat those who may not be able to give anything in return. In these seemingly small, unremarked moments, values are quietly transmitted from one generation to the next.

This matters because kindness is rarely just a question of belief. In our Graciousness Survey 2025, Singaporeans consistently affirmed that they value kindness and graciousness highly.

Yet, many also reported that the pace and pressures of daily life make it harder to act on those values in the moment. Behavioural scientists call this the “belief-behaviour gap” – the distance between what we hold to be right and what we actually do when we are stretched, stressed or tired. It is precisely in that gap that our children are watching us most closely.

The encouraging news is that modelling cuts both ways. When children see patience extended to someone having a hard day, fairness shown to those with less structural power, and respect offered freely rather than reserved for status, they learn that graciousness is unconditional. They carry that lesson into their classrooms, their own homes, and eventually their future workplaces. 

Building a kinder Singapore is not the work of organisations or campaigns alone. It happens in the living room, at the dinner table, and in the everyday examples set by parents and caregivers. Each of us has the chance to be that example and, in doing so, raise a generation for whom kindness is simply the natural way to be.

Michelle Tay
Executive Director
Singapore Kindness Movement