Practicing empathy with my children - two great ideas

I've heard it from other parents and I say it to myself. My kids drive me crazy sometimes.

"Put away your shoes ," I say. "No" they say back. Or I say, "Please go wash your hands, they are filthy." "No, they're not, I'm gonna go play." Etcetera. Every second of every day, over and over again, most conversations are arguments. The battlefield is our kitchen and every household chore hides a landmine. I'm getting back everything I ever said to my mother and I'm getting it in chorus (from both my girls, as they sing "I don't wanna do my home---work" to the tune of "Do you want to build a snow-man?").

A while ago I asked a friend of mine to write a guest post for us about building empathy in children. I asked her to write for me for two reasons; first, she's an expert with kids and parents. Second; I had no idea how to start building empathy for my own growing children. They were 6 and 2, at the time, and I was totally lost.

Ever since then I've been thinking about it; I've been reading articles and listening to podcasts, all trying to find a way to connect with them and to break the argument cycle. As my kids get older I think, are they ready? Can I try to build some empathy in them, or have empathy for them?

Recently, I came across a quick sequence of podcasts talking about empathy and kids, by Dr. Charles Ray of the Love & Logic Institute*.

RSS Feed for the podcasts.
Or click to hear Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 (each one is about 10 minutes long).

Dr. Fay is a little cheesy but he talks a good talk. He said:

- We lose our patience with our kids
- Losing our patience means we get mad, we get emotional, and
- When we yell, we hurt our relationship with our kids
- Breaking the argument cycle is about having that good relationship, and about building empathy 

I took two thoughts away from the podcast that have really, REALLY helped me to slow down the arguing and fighting. I don't do them all the time, but so far these two have brought a ton of empathy into my house.

"I love you too much to argue." If my child takes the fight to me ("No, I don't want to eat my vegetables.") I can fight back, sure. However, if I do fight back I'm telling them, "Yes, this is a problem between you and me". Instead of engaging them, I should pretend I'm just the messenger of the rule. I have to take myself out of the equation; I'm just the one letting them know what the rules are, and the consequences of those rules. In the end it's their problem to solve. I can help them solve it by having empathy for their situation, but it's not my job to convince them the rule is correct.

The sticky note technique. Let's say I want to remember to have empathy for my kids and not to argue with them. The idea is to pick an empathetic statement, and use it over and over again. If I need to, I can put the phrase on sticky notes and paste them up all around the house. Empathetic statements are things like, "Ohhhh, man. how sad." Or "Ohhhhh. I know." 

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I've been using these two ideas together for about two weeks now, and I've been surprised how well they work.

I saw my 3-year old daughter get up from the table with all of her food left. I said, "What are you doing, you still have food in your bowl." She said, "I'm all done, I don't want anymore." I looked at her and I said, "Ohhhhh, I know. I know you don't want anymore." I just looked at her. She looked back. And miracle of miracles; instead of arguing, she just sat back at the table and ate her food.

Seriously! It worked really well! One empathetic statement cut the fight off at the knees.

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As a parting thought; I know darn well that if I try to do one of these things when I'm mad, or stressed, or tired, I should just forget it. I've talked before about how hard it is to feel empathy when some other feeling is overwhelming me (like anger, or fear). As a result, if I'm already ticked off and ready to explode, this doesn't really happen.  I just know that it's a great tool for my parenting toolbox.

For those of you who are caregivers, do you fight with those you care for? What tools are in your toolbox to stop the arguing? Please add your thoughts in the comments below.

Janet

*Love & Logic is a company, so they ask for money for their services (seminars, videos, etc.). The podcasts are free, and I didn't get any money from them for writing this.

Is this a party, or is it a group of people ignoring each other?

I believe that we all crave connection. I've had some great conversations since starting this journey and I believe it's possible to have real connections every day. I still struggle with how to make it happen.

Let's take an example - a kid's birthday party. Just a group of kids and parents getting together over good food and a nice day; it could have been a social event, instead it turned out to be a total dud.

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I was there for my daughter, but I knew I might be seeing some other adults and we might have real adult conversations, so I was looking forward to it. It was a beautiful day, the kind where you turn your face to the sun just to feel the warmth.

I arrived at the same time as a bunch of the other parents, put on my smiley-face and shook hands. Hi, nice to meet you, oh, which kid is yours? Oh, right, that one. Uh-huh.

The food was laid out and the kids got to serious playtime. The grown-ups? We just stood around. Ignoring each other. Picking at the guacamole. Sure, there was a little small talk like, "Oh, is that the cheese platter?" and "Is this imported spam?" but not a lot in the way of of real 'getting to know you' conversation.

I walked up to one of the other moms and opened with some simple 'how are you' questions, and commenting on the nice day. Real easy stuff, I thought, but she didn't respond. I thought, "Okay, maybe she's just not in the mood to talk." So I tried again, with one of the grandparents. I asked her "What do you do?' and she glared at me. "Well, I'm in the middle of a big project at work right now....". She told me about her job, but she didn't sound like she liked her job, it was more like, 'well, I have to do SOMETHING so here's what I do..' .

I realized later that by asking her about work I completely fell into one of my known conversation traps. I should never, ever ask what someone does for their job. If they like what they do, they'll bring it up and talk about it without any prompting from me. If they don't it's a conversation killer.

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Later that same weekend I was listening to Car Talk on the radio. These guys are funny, and part of their radio personality is to quickly start conversations with people they don't know. Their method is to learn where someone is from, and then ask, "What do you do for fun on a Saturday in (town name)?"

So I decided to try it. The next day, we ran into a family from that same party, having lunch. My husband and I joined them, and I started right in with the Car Talk question, "So, where are you from again? And what do you do for fun on a Saturday afternoon in your town?"

It was amazing! They opened up right away and got very excited to talk about their town, restaurants, playgrounds, life. They were immediately comfortable and chatty. We moved from 'awkward' to 'casual friends hanging out' in a span of 3 minutes.

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What I want is for people to talk about things that make them happy, so I can get to know them and how incredible they all are. I think this works because for most people I meet, where they live makes them happy. They have chosen to live where they do. They feel good about it, so they have lots of things to talk about. If they don't like where they live, this is an opener for them to say what they do on a weekend somewhere else. It's an open question with lots of possible answers.

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So - what do you do for fun on a Saturday afternoon, in your town? :)

Janet

Building empathy with my daughter

I've got two kids, ages six and two. As much as I might try to feel what it's like to be in their shoes, it's really, really hard. As in nearly impossible. :)

Remember this article on empathy traps? The trap I fall into headfirst with my kids is "fixing them". It's one thing to try to stay away from 'fixing' my friends, or strangers I meet, because they are all adults. I can see how I shouldn't tell them how to live their lives, because they are grownups who can make their own decisions.

For my daughter though it's so much harder to try not to fix her. She's my daughter, of course I want to try to fix all of her problems. I want to help her, I want to teach her, I want to control her happiness. But when I control her I lose the parenting game.

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For example, let's take the other day when I wanted her to put away her toys. She got mad - and she showed her anger in a child's way, with pouting and stomping her foot and folding her arms. "No", she would shout, "No, no, no!" I got angry right back and her and said, "Don't be angry about that! That's not worth getting angry about!" Which is a totally silly and emotional thing to say. I say it because I'm feeling angry too - angry at her for being just like me.

I see and feel every day how much she is how I was at her age. Then I think, "Well, I finally stopped behaving that way, why won't she stop too!"

When I look at times like this in hindsight, I know that I should be listening to her anger or fear with empathy. I also see how hard it is to step out of that emotional moment. 

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So here's the issue - right there. I want to be empathetic to my daughter, but I also have my own feelings to deal with, and her feelings too.

Janet

Kids Show Review; Justin Time a.k.a. Facing fears of the new and different

I think that all of us, adults and children, are scared of new and different things. When I'm scared I make poor decisions. So I'm always looking for new ways to face the fear of the unknown.

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My kids watch this show, called, "Justin Time". It's about this kid named Justin. When he has a problem, he goes into an imaginary world to solve it. Usually this 'other world' is in another time, but sometimes just in another part of today's world. He explores different cultures and learns lessons about how to deal with issues. You can see clips of this show on YouTube, here's one:

Although there are several aspects of the show that don't make logical sense to me*, what does make sense about this show (and the reason I'm sharing it with all of you) is the method this show uses to teach kids. It's tied to fear, and safety.

Most people (kids) won't accept something new and scary unless it's presented in a way that's palatable. For this show, they make it palatable by having everything new introduced by his imaginary best friend, Olive. Foreign languages, new animals, new foods, new ways of doing things; all made less scary by Olive's accompaniment. She's the grown-up among the kids, the friendly ear when things get a little confusing, and she always has ideas on how to help. Mostly the role she plays is to be comfortable; he knows her, so he won't get scared about what he's seeing. He knows it's all going to be okay. For a kid she's kind of like a security blanket, or a caregiver.
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Most of us don't have such guides in our lives who can bridge the gap between ourselves and the new and different "other". When faced with a person of a different culture, or a new way of doing things, we have to be our own guide. I think part of the allure of saying "I'm a grown-up" is that I get to make my own decisions. One challenge of being a grown-up is that I have to be my own security blanket.


Janet

*My kids are obsessed with this show right now, which means I'm seeing it most days, sometimes multiple times in one day. As a result I've started to come up with some wild theories for how the show could make 'sci-fi' sense as a way of entertaining myself through the shows. 

One of my theories that amuses me greatly is that Olive is actually an alien or a time traveler from the future, who has taken it upon herself to teach Justin the 'ways of the world'. To accomplish her goal, she sent Justin a key (a toy pot of clay, who comes alive, named Squidgy) who she uses as a tool to temporarily enter his mind and teach him lessons. These lessons take no real time because of her time traveler abilities.  

Empathy for our children (guest post)

Parents today are very concerned about empathy, especially when it comes to their children. They not only want their children to be empathetic but they also want others to empathize with their children. This is a wonderful hope and it is one that it is a tough task these days. Reality shows are making it a business for judges to rip contestants apart right in our very homes, and a culture of non-empathy has taken center stage! We can create an opportunity for our pre-American Idol contestants to learn empathy if given the right guidance and time.   

Children are born with their own aptitudes and intelligence. Those parts of their personality that are raw talents will need support in order to grow. While some children may have strengths in math, music, language or physical skills others might come with a wonderful sense of empathy or having strong interpersonal skills. Just like natural athletes or leaders, some children really are natural empathize-rs! These children are sometimes lovingly named “old souls” and are often delight adults with their insight and maturity.

For most children empathy just takes time to develop. Its presence fluctuates as we grow and as it is tested. Empathy can appear at different times for different individuals; for some it can be from a life changing moment or experience, as a result of a series of discussions, relating to a character in a book, or travel. For others it can grow from children making connections (both good and bad) such as navigating through friendships, dating, and many types of social situations. In almost all cases it takes hindsight and careful reflection to develop empathy. 

It can help when children see their parents and caregivers showing empathy to others, reading and sharing appropriate developmental stories that exemplify empathy, or discussing a character’s actions on a television program. We can help them to think aloud about how they empathize with others, or how we struggle ourselves with empathy and to put empathy into practice through language and action.

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I do caution parents not to push and set unrealistic expectations about what children are able to do at appropriate developmental times. Children are learners and they must go through developmental periods and experiences in order to work out and make sense of empathy. 

  

Characters like Tiny Tim in the story “A Christmas Carol” come to mind when I consider how we can perpetuate unrealistic expectations of children and empathy. Tiny Tim is physically challenged, he is poor, his father is tortured by his boss (Scrooge) and is also forced to work on Christmas Eve. Yet, Tiny Tim is not angry or sad but is able to recognize and articulate that Christmas was not about the presents but about family and being kind to each other. I have heard countless questions from parents, hoping to see this type of empathy from their young children (yes a parent wanted to know if their two year old could possess this understanding!). This type of insight about human behavior and the true meaning about what we really need for most children is not reasonable to expect. For most parents my answer is “they are not ready to achieve that level of empathy”. Parents can help to guide children to understanding empathy by allowing them to create a sense a self (this means that the “mine” stage at two years old is okay and developmentally appropriate!). As children grow, we can create opportunities and choose balanced approaches when it comes to giving and taking. Some ways to do this are to:

1. Give children realistic choices of when their needs must be met and when it is time to give or understand the needs of others.

1. Discuss characters in books and TV shows about how their choices affect others.

1. Allow children to understand empathy at their level (they may not verbalize it but can show it or can draw a picture). Do not expect a child to show empathy the way an adult does.

1. Give them opportunities to help, especially when there is a crisis situation.  Sending a card or picking out a gift to someone who might need it can be just enough to get children thinking about others. 

Parents and caregivers should know that empathetic behavior can be fleeting and then return again at another time – In essence, empathy is a practice to wield emotional power and children must be able to work with what they have got and learn to use it in their own time and in their own way.

 

Today’s entry is a guest post by my good friend and brilliant education consultant, Sara Lise Raff. Sara Lise consults in New York City and also writes helpful advice on her blog, Ask the Educator.

Please share your comments below, and thanks for reading.

- Janet

Cake Decorating Practice

The other day, a friend of mine asked me to make the dessert for her daughter's 10th birthday party. I happily accepted a chance to make someone happy AND practice my cake decorating skills. For your amusement, here I take you through the process step by step. I do feel like I'm getting better every time, and I so love this. Making cakes is making edible art. Everything is gone at the end except the memories. Whatever I create will be destroyed, so it is temporary art. Kind of like sushi, I guess. Except no fish. :)

The Design

We met at a local coffee shop and talked about details. What kind of cake, what kind of filling, what kind of decorations. I borrowed crayons from my kids, and used a pad to sketch out ideas. Here's the result:

In case you can't read my handwriting she decided to do a 'springtime' theme; including bugs and butterflies and flowers. The cake would be cupcakes, chocolate with raspberry filling and raspberry icing. The icing would be purple, her favorite color. I also tried to show her in my drawing what the result would look like, hence the blue sketch in the lower left corner.

The Plan

I had done flowers before so I wasn't worried about that, and I had an idea for making caterpillars using a snow-man style method (stacking up balls and squishing down). I was, however, not sure about the butterflies.

In the cake decorating blogs and articles I've read, the hardest thing about butterflies is that you are either going super-realistic or cartoony, but not both. I would have to choose my method before I began.

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One way to do butterflies is to be realistic, say, by taking pre-printed edible rice paper and cutting out butterfly shapes. These shapes can then be bent and molded to look like butterflies have landed on your cake. Here's an example from cakecentral.com. I even went to the store and looked at options for edible paper; but in the end, I decided not to go that way. Firstly, it wasn't 'created by me', it would have been someone else's pattern or design. Secondly it wouldn't have worked with the other items I was doing, the caterpillars were going to be more cartoony than realistic. Third, it was for a kid's party and I thought that was leaving 'springtime fun' and moving into 'elegant' which didn't fit the theme.

So I decided to go cartoony. I even got candy eyes and decorated them with chocolate candy dots.

Several hours later.... here's my result.

The Finished Dessert

Again, I had an amazing time preparing this for my friend and seeing the final product come to life. The look on the birthday girl's face was something I'm not going to forget for a very long time. She wanted to know what she could eat (everything on the cupcakes) and which one she could have (I made a special daisy that she chose, you can see it in the center of the larger cupcakes). All the kids loved them. I can tell because they ate both the cupcakes and the frosting, and they came back for seconds. Usually that's a good sign!

Here's a few pictures of the finished product. Note that I included a few toy bugs as supplementary design elements, you can tell the difference because the toys are on the tablecloth/plate.

The mini cupcakes were also chocolate, but didn't have any filling.

Thanks for reading! Please add your thoughts below. Are you practicing a new skill too?

Janet

Connecting to tragedy - Boston (sad post)

Just like some of you, I listened and watched as the stories in Boston appeared on the news. I saw image after image of injured people and heroics. I heard rampant speculation about who had done it and why would they want to cause this hurt. There were many, many people hurt, and it seemed like there was nothing I could do about it. I felt pretty helpless. I remember that after 9/11 I waited on line for hours to donate blood, just to find out that there was nobody to receive it. That kind of helpless feeling came up, and I wanted to do something.

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The next day I was part of a group chat, and we were all listening to a friend who lived in Boston. I realized that there was something I could do, I could be a friend and open myself to her. I asked her if I could make a 'date' to call her later, and hear about what's going on in her town.* I was really kind of scared to do this, as I'm not normally a person who reaches out. Especially when it's a person I don't know all that well, since it feels kind of invasive. I was also concerned about writing about it for this blog, as I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable talking to me in general. I don't want folks to be scared I'll turn every conversation into a blog post.

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That night, I listened to her tell me about the impact the explosion was having on her life. We tossed around ideas, and I could hear the pain in her voice. We compared this to the other events that happened in our lives and how old our children would have to be before it would be easy to share these things with them. (Never, I think now. I don't think it ever gets easy.)

I also listened to her talk about how close she was to the event. Her job, her friends, all of them were impacted by this.

When she told me about her town and how strange it was to see and hear the changes, it made me feel like I was right there with her. I could see the sirens and the yellow caution tape in my mind as we spoke. We talked about what did happen, and what could happen to any of us.

I hope that by me reaching out to her, she knew that someone was listening and at the very least bearing witness to what she was going through. I know that for me it made me feel like I was helping, even just a little bit.

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This empathy practice has given me the courage to step into other people's lives. I don't know what I would have done if this happened a year ago, but I do know that being there for my friend felt like I was learning about how connecting with people can be good for me as well as for other people. It's hard to start but once you do it's a win-win.

Were you affected by a recent tragedy, either a public one or a private one? Did you find someone to listen to you, if so, did it help?

Janet

*Full disclosure; I actually said, 'I'd like to interview you for my blog' which gave me an excuse to call her. I didn't end up doing a formal interview, but I really needed a way to push myself into making the actual phone call. I'm not usually the type to call someone out of the blue.

My Little Pony - Show Review

When I was a little girl I loved My Little Pony. I saved up my allowance to buy a unicorn pony, and bought more as I could afford them.

I was vaguely aware that there was a MLP television show, but from the little I had seen it was very silly, so I had no interest. I thought it was much more fun playing with the toys, making little houses for them out of shoeboxes and braiding their hair. I had given each one their own personality, and they talked to each other. I kept them for many years afterwards and even gave them to my eldest daughter to play with when she was about 2.

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Now it's 2013, and there is a new My Little Pony tv show. I'm admitting to you all that I'm a grownup and a BIG FAN. I've seen all the episodes several times and the show continues to amaze me. This year's season finale was incredible, and opens up so many possibilities for next season. Go Bronys!

What do I think is so great about this show? It's about friendship. It portrays real friendship in real ways, while still being cute and fun and a great show for little kids. Some of the episodes are so true to the heart that I've cried watching them.

It's so unlike some other kid's shows that are on today, because this show talks about real friendship and the real choices we have to make. For example, one of my favorite episodes is about three characters; Gilda the Griffon, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. It's called "Griffon the Brush Off".

Episode summary

I find this episode a perfect example of what I love so much about the show. They are talking about a real life situation that can come up, and they have the characters react in real ways. The lessons shown are lessons that I want my daughter to learn.

I'm proud to be a fan of this show.

Janet

Airport Empathy

I'm writing this post at 5:30am in Detroit, MI.

I came here last night on business, and after saying farewell to my family and talking nonstop politics to the nice taxi driver, I was finally at the airport and waiting for my flight to leave. We were delayed at least two hours so I ate some dinner and grabbed some edamame to go from the Sushi bar.

I sat in between a young early-20s woman with long, red hair and a mid-30s age Indian woman and her daughter. The girl looked to be about four or five, and was bouncing in her seat. She reminded me of my eldest daughter at that age, just idly singing to herself, in a language I didn't understand.

Halfway through my edamame snack, the young woman and I struck up a conversation. I tried to listen to her openly and with intent, focusing on empathy and my 'I love you man' internal speech, which worked out pretty good. In fact, it worked so well that she asked for my email address so we could keep in touch, which was SO UNUSUAL for me. Me, making friends at airports! :) I wonder if she'll write?

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After a while of waiting we were told that our plane had arrived, but they had to clean it before we could board. I was still talking to the young woman when I heard the little girl next to me, starting to get a bit loud. She had progressed to jumping on the heating unit, near the window, and was shouting. The mom was starting to look a little bit annoyed. I should mention that at one point earlier in my little airport adventure, the little girl had climbed under the seat to retrieve a toy, and had kicked me. The mom looked at me and said "sorry" and I said "not a problem, I have two at home, totally understand" and smiled.

The little girl got a bit louder. She had pulled her mom's luggage off of the chair and dragged it over to the waiting area by the plane. Even louder now, saying the same phrase over and over (which I assume meant 'come on' or 'please' or 'mama' or something to that nature). She was nearly screaming it now, and I found myself pulled into looking at her. All I could think of was that this mom, this poor mom, she had been through so much already, taking care of her kid through airport security, through baggage maybe, then through the terminal, and then through waiting and keeping her entertained for hours and hours. So I interrupted my discussion with the young woman saying, "I'm sorry, but I feel so much for this mom, I have to do something" and ran through the terminal. I ran because I was worried about missing the boarding, as we were going to get on at any minute. (Just to make it clear how loud this girl was getting, I could still hear her as I ran through the terminal).I just kept thinking that this Mom was probably tired and done and just out of ideas for how to calm her daughter. I ran to the little candy/bookstore, scanned the shelves, and bought the first coloring book with markers I saw. It's not much, I thought, but maybe it will be a 'new toy' for a short while and give the Mom the break she (to my mind) so desperately needed.

I ran back with the book and thought, "how am I going to approach her, she's a stranger, really" but I ran right up to her. The little girl was still screaming and shouting and crying, jumping up and down, and the mom was just hanging on to her and keeping her from running off. I walked up to her and said, "Excuse me, I just would like to tell you that I know how you feel, I've been where you are, and if this will help you at all..." holding out the book. The little girl - stopped crying - and after a brief moment of hesitation - was soon coloring and sitting down and the mom looked 1 million times relieved. At first the mom had tried to make an excuse for the girl, "she's just tired, she really wants to get on the plane' but then just said, "um, yes, okay" to the book. I wasn't sure why she was trying to explain, at first, and I could tell she wasn't sure about getting something from a stranger, but when the mom accepted the book, she (and all of us at the terminal) seemed much happier for it.

At the time it wasn't the logical thing to do, it was the emotional thing. I was just going with my feelings for the mom, and acting on those feelings.

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A few people at the terminal stopped me on my way to the plane (we were boarding now) and commented, "That was a wonderful thing you did". I felt good getting their comments, but not as good as seeing the look of peace and gratefulness on this mom's face as we boarded the plane. Another person said to me that a few moments before (perhaps while I was off  buying the book, since I didn't see this) an old man had come up to the mom and said loudly, "We don't need to hear your child crying. Quiet her down." I was horrified to hear this - although not surprised - but now I understood why she was trying to 'explain' herself to me. She thought I was coming up to scold her, too. Not true!

Finally, as I was getting on the plane, the airline bumped me up to a bigger seat free of charge. I didn't ask - they just did it. Paying it forward, I suppose.

Thanks for listening and please add your stories and thoughts!

:)