Empathy*
1.)Many parents today feel pressure for their kids to be high achievers, to get into top colleges, or to prove their ability to other people. But when you show your child that grades and college admissions are more important than being a good person, something has gone wrong. Our children certainly need to know that achievement is important, but we should make achievement one focus of our parenting and not the primary focus. It’s never ok, for example, to allow children to cheat or to mistreat others in order to pursue their achievement goals. No matter how achievement focused and competitive your child is, it’s still vital for him or her to look out for and help others, including peers that he or she may be competing with.
2.)Childhood and adolescence are full of minor conflicts. Often, these conflicts are based on factors that are unimportant in the long run or even superficial. If you or your child have ever been written off by a friend (and chances are, one of you has), you know how awful it feels. Your friend also missed out on all of the things you have to offer. Remind your child how important it is to look below the surface and to work out minor conflicts. Of course, relationships grow and change over time. Your child’s best friend from preschool may not be her best friend in high school, but that friend always deserves her courtesy and respect
3.)Most children spend a great deal of time at school. While they’re at school, the way they interact with peers and treat others matters as much as how much they learn academically – and research shows that it also affects how well they learn. For their sake and for other children’s, it’s vital to know how they act at school, including whether they are meeting behavioral and community expectations, acting kindly and respectfully toward others, and being good friends. They – and you – have a responsibility to take part in building a respectful and caring community at the school. It’s important for you to ask teachers about how they are doing in this area, because teachers see your children in situations that you don’t and they have a different perspective, which can be valuable.
4.)You set more of an example than anyone else in your child’s life. When we as parents are busy and stressed, sometimes we forget to thank and appreciate these key people in our community, but ignoring people who help the community sends a message to your child that people around them are invisible or unimportant. Remembering to say “thank you” is a simple way of showing your child how to be respectful and appreciative.
5.)When we are too focused on our children’s happiness, comfort, or achievement, we can forget to teach them about their responsibilities to others. Moments like choosing whether to quit an activity are important opportunities to show your child that he or she has a responsibility to consider obligations bigger than him or herself. What impact will quitting have on the other members of the group? For example, if your son quits the choir, will there be anyone left who knows his part – and if not, is it going to mean more work for someone else? If your daughter quits the soccer team, will it mean there aren’t enough players, or will it let down the coach who invested a lot of time in her? Even if you end up deciding that it’s ok for your child to quit, it is your job to teach him or her to first consider these kinds of obligations. Too often we simply fail to remind our children that they have responsibility to their communities such as the classroom, school, and neighborhood. This sense of responsibility is key to their becoming caring people and good citizens.
6.)Children develop a moral identity—a strong commitment to important values like caring for others and contributing to their community—when these values are part of the fabric of their daily lives. That’s why it’s important to expect children from early ages to pitch in at home. When you allow your child not to help because they’re too busy, you send the wrong signal that pitching in is not as important as their school work or their social life. When you praise every act of helpfulness around the house, you send the wrong signal that helping out is something exceptional rather than something expected, a habit or reflex that is part of what it means to be a good person and a good family member. That’s why it’s important to expect your child to help with daily chores and to praise only uncommon acts of helpfulness.
7.)Parents commonly expect schools to help their children develop moral character, but then many parents just focus on their own child. Parents themselves in these cases aren’t acting morally in relation to the school. When parents hear about a child with a behavior problem in their child’s class, their first instinct is often that the classmate is interfering with their child’s learning and should be removed. But if we want our children to be caring and responsible people, we can’t just convey that people who are struggling and get in their way should be removed or dismissed. We need to show and model that we feel some sense of responsibility for these people, and we need to expect that our child will feel responsibility for them. You can also convey this message by asking your child how he or she might support the other child. Eventually, a child with a behavior problem may need to be removed. But we should at least try to do our part to make the classroom work for that child.
8.)Sometimes if our children are busy or distracted we don’t require them to be polite and respectful with our friends—to make eye contact, to say hello, to be responsive to questions. While it’s hard for very young children to interact with adults in these circumstances, once children enter school they should be expected to be polite in these circumstances. When we don’t expect them to be polite, we not only send the message that our friends are unimportant, we send the message that it’s ok to ignore others who are seeking to engage us.
*Richard Weissbourd