Justice-Minded Kids Empowers You To Raise World Changers!
What is Justice-Minded Kids? This is a book and curriculum designed for parents, caregivers, and teachers to foster within the kids we influence the characteristics of changemakers: justice, compassion, love, among many others.
(All Amazon.com links are affiliate link, which changes nothing for you but helps give me a few cents to buy coffee)
Elisa Johnston, author of Justice-Minded Kids, is available for speaking engagements, workshops, author signings, and consulting sessions to help you raise changemakers. If you are looking for the extra resources and links for the activities that go with this book, please go here.
What’s Justice-Minded Kids About?
Do you want the kids in your life to be compassionate, love others, and practice justice? This book empowers you to build foundational character traits that will lead your kids to do good and make a difference!
Justice-Minded Kids is a simple and easy curriculum geared for elementary kids and can be adapted to any age group. It begins with practical guidance on raising changemakers through lived-experience examples from the author.
The second part of this book contains thirty-six short lessons that can each be completed within fifteen-minutes. Every lesson includes a value statement, corresponding activity, and space for reflection. It can be used at your own pace or as a weekly group challenge. Designed for busy parents, caregivers, and teachers, Justice-Minded Kids removes the overwhelm and provides a method to begin raising changemakers!
How Does the Curriculum Section of Justice-Minded Kids Work?
Each lesson for 36 weeks includes three simple things:
- The belief in a simple repeatable value statement (think: mantra of the week)
- A totally doable action to make the value real
- A reflection page to process together how it went
Value + Action + Reflection =
Real Life Change
- Through the week, tell your kids the mantra/value-statement with you as often as possible
- Make a goal of saying it daily at dinner or at a certain time in the classroom
- If they are in elementary school or younger, have them repeat you!
- This should take about fifteen seconds daily
- It could result in a five-minute conversation
- Give yourself grace: saying it once is a lot more than never
- The action of the week should take about 15 minutes
- Did you forget to do it? No sweat.
- Did you do it wrong? No sweat.
- Give yourself grace–doing something is a lot more than doing nothing
What’s the Story Behind Justice-Minded Kids?
“Right before COVID-19 began, I dropped all my kids off at school for the first time with bittersweet tears in my eyes. For reasons unique to my family, we had been homeschooling for years. But we were in a season when we needed the support of a school and they were ready. But I truly loved aspects of homeschooling, one of which was teaching my kids about how the world, how to love others, and guiding them to make a difference.
In that moment, I was determined to not lose this! I immediately pulled into the coffee shop across the street and began writing this intentional guide in bite-sized pieces. I wanted to keep helping my kids become changemakers and this is how Justice-Minded Kids was born.”
Who is Justice-Minded Kids written for?
This book was made for those who want to raise changemakers:
- Parents
- Teachers
- Caregivers of kids
- Anyone else who influences the next generation
And of these people it is for…
- Those who have little time/energy
- Those who need an easy and tangible system
- Those who don’t have money or extra resources to “do good”
- Those who care about making a difference
- Those who feel unequipped for tricky conversations with their kids
- Those who need examples and ideas of what to do
- Those who need general guidance on how to help without harming
- Those who don’t want to be overwhelmed by all the needs in the world
- Those who feel it is their responsibility to help kids develop empathy, social-emotional awareness, fairness, goodness, kindness, compassion, love, generosity, etc…
(This is an affiliate link, which changes nothing for you but helps give me a few cents to buy coffee)
The Justice-Minded Kids Sustainable Book Launch
Join the Sustainable Book Launch for Justice-Minded Kids, from Summer 2024 through February of 2025.
- The details of how you can help promote this book are on this form.
- In the meantime, grab your own copy of Justice-Minded Kids!
>>>>ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE BOOK’S RESOURCES? GO HERE<<<<<
Did you know Justice-Minded Kids started as the Kids Character Challenge and before that was the School-Year Character Challenge?
Real talk: The Author’s Confession:
Please don’t go and look at my dusty bookshelf!
I already have great parenting workbooks, studies, devotionals, resource guides, etc… to do with my kids to raise them to love others and practice justice. But I don’t ever do them. They sit on my bookshelf because finding time and energy to do them is hard.
I know there are many other parents like me, who care about teaching our kids to make a difference and become conscious adults. But modeling and teaching our kids all the things can be hard to do, especially when we are already busy and overwhelmed with life.
Mediocre is Great!
One thing I’ve learned though is that my good intentions are often hijacked by my desire to do them right. And most parents I talk to get stuck on this, too. As they try to raise justice-minded, compassionate and loving kids they’re also getting overwhelmed and don’t start.
Here’s my secret sauce to overcoming this:
Learn to be okay with half-baked parenting. (And yes, “half-baked” isn’t the term I’m actually thinking.) But my point stands–mediocre can actually be great. Why? Because it is something. It is starting.
And when it comes to parenting, something is always better than nothing.
What does an extrovert who has been homeschooling for many years do when all her kids finally head back to drop-off school for the first time ever?*
- Drive around the block and cry a little bit
- Go to the nearest coffee shop for some sugar and caffinne
- Avoid feelings by scrolling on phone for an hour
- Consider driving by the school to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of them through the fence
- Remind yourself you’ve been waiting for the kids to be in school for yeeeeaaarrs so that you can actually do the work that you love
- Try to remember what that “work” is again (although in this case vaguely remember this has something to do with “writing”+”doing good”+”nonprofits”
- Refill on coffee after going pee
- Resolve that under the guise of “getting lunch,” you can indeed drive by school slowly
- Vent to a friend for a long time about your newfound confusing freedom and this drastic life change
- Look at memes
- Get more coffee and pee once again
- Pretend to read a book
- Pull out notepad and write out everything to miss about the kids not being around
- Notice a significant number of these have to do with adventures, teaching the kids about people, history, and social sciences
- Begin to worry about how they’ll learn to love others and interact with the world
- Get more coffee and pee again
- Sit back down and begin writing the curriculum that will eventually become Justice-Minded Kids
*This of course was before knowing this stage would last just over six months, no thanks to that traumatic day in March where school shut-down without warning for the infinite COVID-19 lock-down, their little hands full of trash-bags jammed with all their “stuff”.
Intentionally Focusing on Characteristics of Justice, Compassion and Love
One thing that is for sure, though, I do not want to give-up on teaching my kids the values and beliefs that are foundational to us. And some of these are ones I know your families share too!
If there is anything that the practice of Life Mapping has taught me, though, it is that the only way this can be done well is to be intentional about teaching them. I needed some SMART goals, a plan, and some accountability to pull this off!
Make Your School Year or Summer Intentional!
Anyone with me? If so, for all of you other mamas, papas, caregivers and teachers out there, I challenge you to make the time you have with your kids intentional too–whether during the summer or school year! To make this easy I put together this totally boss weekly curriculum guide for you!
Heck, if you send me an email I’ll forward you the PDF so you can slap this page of the week on your kitchen cabinet door. Of course I’d like you to buy it, but if money is an issue, I get it.
(That’s where mine is! Who are we kidding? Unless you are a magical Pinterest moms, the rest of us stick with classic Scotch tape, dirty wall, and are proud when we both download and print something!)
READY TO TRY? GO HERE.
This is something else you might like to do with your kids (or college buddies!) Take these random acts of kindness ideas an be INTENTIONAL with them!
How Does the Challenge Work?
Here is your checklist to do Justice-Minded Kids in your own home or classroom:
- Grab your copy of the Justice-Minded Kids here
- If you want guidance, read Part One of Justice-Minded Kids, helping you learn how to raise changemakers
- Take fifteen minutes to do one lesson of the curriculum weekly (in Part Two)
- Stay-up with me in Instagram or Facebook as I post how it goes with my kids there (sometimes better than others!)
- Find accountability too! Choose one of these ways:
- Post about it yourself every week, and tag me (@AverageAdvocate) in it and use #JustKids so I can encourage you onward!
- Choose to comment on my weekly post about it–less “out there” but you know we’re in it together!
- Send this link to a friend, inviting them to do it with you!
Get your copy and let’s start this thing! (P.S., its cool it you miss 1/2 the year too!)
Conversation is Cool
I adore conversations and want to see how you, mama (or papa, or grandmita, or teacher), make this better. I’m just giving you a bare-bones framework! Take it and run!
Or take it and do the bare minimal and still have something to show for it! The point isn’t perfection, it is just doing our best with what we got. Even a little investment in our kids’ character goes a long way!
Good luck and let me know how it goes!
I know many of you know others who care about teaching their kids to live justly, lover mercy, love others, make a difference in the world–all that stuff!
Do you know a friend who might be into this? If so, be sure to share this link with them so they can join us!
Get your physical copy here: Justice-Minded Kids
Get your PDF version here: Justice-Minded Kids
