Tag Archives: compassion

Raising Children Who Care

04/07/2022Bullying, Children, Early Development, Education, Empathy, Learning, Literacy, Readingbooks, children, communication, compassion, development, education, literacy, readingdonna burke esgro

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Caring is an act of compassion. It is not simply an act of graciousness or generosity. It comes from deep inside the heart.

All children know the damage that a bully can inflict and they know the feeling of powerlessness when their friends turn and walk away, pretending not to see. How do we teach our children to turn towards, to see, and to act?

Showing your child how to be a caring, involved citizen, doesn’t mean that you have to lead a march or run for office. It is in the small everyday things that children learn. As parents and teachers we are the first role models. How do we treat others day to day? Do we show respect and concern for all beings? When we listen, share, and help, our children see who we are and imagine who they will be. They also see when we ignore, dismiss, or act selfishly.

Books, and the conversations they inspire, are great ways to instill compassion. When a child wants desperately for Dorothy to get back home and the evil witch to dissolve, the seeds of compassion and yearning for justice have been planted. Books can also take you to other places, teaching that there are many cultures and that each one is unique and special. Include books on the history of your own country, and of the world. These kinds of books will open your child’s mind and heart in ways that go far beyond what is literally on the page.

The future is in our children’s small hands. And, as unknowable as it may be, one thing is certain, that the next generation will need courage and clarity of vision in a world that promises to be confusing and chaotic. They will need to know how to discern truth from lies and how to raise their voices against injustice of all kinds.

Long long ago a Native American chief was sitting by the fire with his grandson. “Tell me about the battles you have fought!” begged the little boy. His grandfather looked deep into the fire. “The most important battle I have fought is between the two wolves that are within us all. One wolf is greedy, angry, arrogant, a liar and a hypocrite that thinks he is superior to all other wolves. The other wolf is gentle, full of hope, love, empathy, truth and kindness.” The boy became very quiet. He was listening for the two wolves inside him. “Which wolf is stronger?” he asked. “The one you feed,” replied his grandfather.

There is much in this world that needs heedfulness. The fate of our planet depends on it. Helping to solve these seemingly insurmountable problems will need critical thinking, of course, but equally as important, it will need hearts that truly care.

The Goal of True Education

17/01/2017Uncategorizedcompassion, critical thinking, education, Martin Luther Kingdonna burke esgro

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

From the time we first encourage a toddler to share his toys we begin the process of building social emotional skills. In truth, it begins before that-with the first touch, the first eye contact, the first whispered words…building intelligence and character begins at birth and follows us to our last day on earth.

Education is not just about schooling-but as children spend most of their time at school from an early age, school is a vital part of their foundation. The task is: How do we, as educators, create schools that teach children to think intensively and critically-schools that build character?

I believe it begins with respect. When we respect the child and, at the same time, model respect for others, including the immediate and extended environment, we create an atmosphere of love and trust. We must not forget to respect ourselves, as well-use our time wisely and live healthily, both in body and mind. It follows that if adults eat junk food and watch junk television children will see this as the ideal.

A focus on testing rather than true understanding of materials is detrimental to thinking critically as it programs a child to memorize, repeat, and forget. In order to foster an ability to think intensively, subjects cannot be taught superficially. Teachers would be better served to delve deeply into less subject matter, rather than race to complete an established and expected curriculum.

I know children who have gotten A+’s on their Native American unit in fourth grade without a clue as to what the Dakota Pipeline Access is all about. We must make our teaching relevant!

As a society, it is important that we place a high value on education and strive for an elevated quality at every grade level. Our modern schools have not changed much since the Industrial Revolution, although our society is changing more and more rapidly. Our children will inhabit a world that we cannot entirely imagine. It is, therefore, of extreme urgency that we nurture creativity and innovative thinking. But creativity without compassion is a hallow achievement.

Experts in the field of human development tell us that empathy is a wired emotion, part of our instinct for societal survival. Yet why is there such an arc of empathy in any one particular classroom? Although certain emotions are part of our DNA, these emotions have a plasticity that is subject to changes that are environmentally dependent – in the same way that a child with a high IQ is not necessarily going to do well in school or beyond. Compassion, like any instinct, such as the ability to walk and talk, must be practiced, refined, and nurtured.

I liken it to a seed with the potential of becoming a tree. The seed will not reach its limbs to the sky, its roots will not dig deep into the earth, branches and bark will not become home for hundreds of creatures, the tree will never bless us with its life giving oxygen, if the rain and the sun and the fertile ground are not present. We must be all of that for our children, not just as parents and professional educators, but as a society. We must embrace all children as our own.

Let’s go back to the teacher explaining to the toddler that she should share her toys. A situation faced millions of times a day in every school throughout the world. How does the teacher communicate to the child? Does she explain that the other child is sad? Does she use a gentle and caring manner that reflects compassion for both sides of the argument? A child cannot develop empathy if the child does not have an understanding of how others feel.

I have seen, in the classroom, how compassion fosters compassion. Yet, it is not enough to teach our children to feel. Just like the toddler unselfishly handing over her toy, we all need to take action on our feelings. By taking personal responsibility we show our children that it is possible to make changes, both small and large.

When we develop a caring attitude about each other we listen, and in this listening we begin to see the world through prisms other than our own. This is the key to true understanding-the kind of understanding that grows as the child grows, developing not only deeper cognitive abilities but the kind of benevolent character traits that will be essential for the survival of our planet.

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How Fiction Helps a Child to Develop Empathy

19/01/2015Children, Early Development, Education, Learning, Literacy, Reading, Teachingbooks, character, children, compassion, development, education, emotion, empathy, feeling, fiction, learning, literacy, reading, sensitivity, sharing, teaching, understandingdonna burke esgro

Anyone who has read to a child has noticed the range of emotions that cross the child’s face as he listens raptly to a story. Worldwide, scientific researchers in the field of neuroscience have uncovered irrefutable proof that those who read fiction regularly develop a deeper understanding of others, which leads to the ability to see situations from different points of view – the quality of empathy.

Of particular interest is a study conducted in 2010 by Dr. Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University, using preschool children. He and his colleagues discovered a direct corollary between how much a child is read to and the child’s Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability of an individual to understand his or her own mental states, and to realize that others also have minds with perhaps different beliefs and desires. It is believed that ToM is an innate quality in human beings that generally takes many years of social interaction to develop. Having a keen sense of ToM is an abstract quality, and while children learn more readily with their senses, understand the concrete, and live in the present, reading about other’s thoughts and feelings helps a child to take the leap from the actual to the abstract.

We laugh at characters who are silly, but we also feel concern for characters who are sad, lonely, afraid, or hurt. A child, while reading, “practices” these feelings, acquiring an early knowledge of compassion. In a book such as The Rainbow Fish, children are exposed to the idea of sharing versus not sharing. How does it make you feel when you share? When someone shares with you? When someone doesn’t share with you? Books can evoke powerful emotions that children can safely and securely contend with, creating a sensitivity to emotional nuance often missed in the heat of the argument over whose turn it is.

Stories help a child to learn that sad feelings can be soothed, that happy feelings can be shared, and that these feelings are universal. We all celebrate, over and over again as we reread, that Harold, wielding only a purple crayon, will figure out all by himself how to get home safely, that the little blue engine will make it up and over the hill, and that wicked witches can be defeated by little girls in sparkly shoes.