"Parenting": Developing Empathy in Life

There are many ways to develop empathy, but the best way is for your child to learn to see things from the other person's point of view by actually experiencing their feelings in life.
Developmental psychologists have recently shown that empathy has a significant relationship with children's emotional development and therefore encourage parents to teach their children as early as possible. However, many parents have written to us asking: How can we teach our children when they are so young? This is a very good question. Of course, children should not be taught, and teaching is the least effective way, but we can let them understand empathy through real life experiences.

Realize the feelings of others through real-life examples

Recently, I read in the newspaper a good story about cultivating empathy in children. A foundation takes elderly people living alone to an elementary school in Taipei to relive the feeling of being an elementary school student and at the same time teaches the children how to get along with the elderly and to feel the inconvenience of the elderly, so that they can be more patient with the elderly in the future. A 4th grade girl saw that her grandma was illiterate and had taken her two months of medicine in half a month, so she drew a pair of roosters on her grandma's medicine bag for the morning meal to show that it was morning because the roosters crowed in the morning, and a moon on the medicine bag for the evening meal to show that it was night time because the moon was coming out.

Pictures are the most primitive medium of communication, and even if the old man can't read, he won't take the wrong medicine. Asked why she came up with this idea, she said, "If I can't read, how can I know which medicine is for the morning? She said, "If I can't read, how can I know which medicine is to be taken in the morning? How would I know which medicine to take in the morning and which to take at night? What would I do if I had no one to read to me? This is empathy. Therefore, the best way to cultivate empathy in your child is to let him or her experience the feelings of others and learn to see things from the other's point of view.

Putting your heart in the right place and internalizing it as a virtue.

Empathy is the best way to teach life education and character education, and it is also a strong internalizing force. Parents can use hypothetical sentences such as "If you didn't eat all day today, would you be hungry? If someone gave you a piece of bread, would you be grateful? Slowly guide your child to understand the feelings of others. When kindergarteners are fighting for toys, teachers can ask them: How does it feel when someone snatches a toy away from them in the middle of playing with it? What does it feel like to be hit when you hit someone? Teach them: You don't like it, so don't do it to others.

The saying "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you", which was taught by our ancestors 3,000 years ago, is still the guiding principle of behavior 3,000 years later. Teaching this way is more effective than scolding because scolding only temporarily prevents the behavior from occurring, and without empathy in the heart, it cannot be internalized as a virtue. Experiments have found that the earlier a child has empathy, the higher his or her academic performance and IQ are when tested in fourth grade, because learning is very much influenced by context. Children with empathy have a high EQ, are popular, and like to go to school, which naturally leads to higher academic performance.

A child of good character is a natural disciplinarian.

Nowadays, countries all over the world are changing their teaching methods towards active learning and teaching. Some parents are worried that there will be a conflict between active teaching and discipline. In fact, this is not the case, because regardless of whether the teaching is active or not, all teaching must have discipline before it can be taught, and character and discipline are two sides of the same coin, and children with good character will naturally abide by discipline. Children must know what they can and cannot do before a teacher can take them to an outdoor classroom and teach them in an interactive way in the classroom. For example, students must know that they should raise their hands when speaking and speak softly during group discussions so as not to disturb others, so there is no conflict between the two.

Another great way to teach empathy is through drama, but it is harder to do in Taiwan because the school schedule is so tight that there is no time for rehearsal, but it can be done through clubs.

With empathy, you're less likely to go to the extremes.

At present, the teaching of empathy in Taiwan is very insufficient, and children often cry and play tricks to achieve their goals. When they grow up, this way of dealing with emotions will easily lead them to go to extremes: if they can't get what they want, they will destroy it, so that others can't get it either. In fact, children know more than we think, do not underestimate the ability of children, as early as possible to teach, anyway, do not understand the harm, but if you understand, lifelong use.

The brain leaves traces wherever it goes, and good habits are internalized into the character of the person, while bad habits, once formed, are not easy to change. From animal experiments, we know that a behavior that has been eliminated (extinct) will have a "spontaneous recovery" phenomenon, and will reappear from time to time, only the intensity is not as strong as the original behavior. Therefore, it is very important to make sure that children don't have bad habits from the very beginning, which is what the Chinese mean by the term "prudence in the beginning.

Starting in the Early Years to Build the Roots of Character Education

A far-sighted government will invest in early childhood education because a good start is half of success. In Sweden, the government gives parents a very long parental leave. Once a child is born, the parents can take a one-and-a-half-year paid parental leave, and both parents can take the leave. On the surface, the government seems to be spending a lot of money, but in the long run, the country saves more because it doesn't have to build prisons, and society is more stable and happy when the people are of good character.

It has always been our ideal that "the elderly should have a sense of life, the strong should be able to use their strengths, and the young should have a sense of security". However, in order for the elderly to have a sense of life, it is necessary for the young to have a sense of security. The Government and the opposition should not make any noise about the increase in the amount of pension for the elderly, so as to ensure that the country has the productivity, and the old people can have a pension.

Text/Professor Hong Lan From Pre-School Monthly Magazine