Raising Children with Empathy

By Denise Lai, M.Ed.

I am not sure if you know, but I have a real weakness for spy-action thrillers, and yes, that includes James Bond movies! Ha!

Of late however, another name has been in the limelight, and I am sure that this persona must force a competitive mental showdown in the viewer’s psyche between both characters: one a debonair but totally unreal hero, and another, a gritty "been there, done that" non-hero. You will laugh at James Bond after meeting Jason Bourne.

To the uninitiated, Jason Bourne is an assassin with a conscience, a human killing-machine who has gone soft in the head (and heart), totally repentant about his past, and wanting to make things right and good again, especially for the families of those whom he has murdered.

Walking out of the theatre after watching the last but victorious finale in the trilogy of Bourne movies recently, I asked my husband whether he thought things like that ever happened in real-life; ie. whether there really are institutes or training facilities designed to brain-wash individuals until they are able to lose and suppress all empathy for a fellow human-being.

"Of course!" was his incredulous reply (incredulous, I am sure, of how naïve he must now know his wife really is).

"Oh… you mean like the Al-Qaeda?"

Duh.

(Well, it was a late-night movie, and we had been out all day with the children earlier!)

"Empathy must be taught, right?" he asked, looking at me as if I had developed amnesia, - like Bourne, the hero! – and forgotten all that I preach and teach at work each day.

Duh… yes… of course.

If empathy must be taught, then logically speaking, it must be possible to teach its exact opposite: the lack of empathy - what some have called the capacity to "invalidate" another human-being. Taken to its extreme, this kind of "invalidation" (of another person’s feelings) can lead to a highly generalized and cruel end, where even thoughts, opinions, perspectives and self-worth, can be discounted, brushed off, or worse still, killed off.

It has been said before that boys tend to be less empathetic than girls. After all, boys are the ones more likely to use sticks like guns, and to enjoy the more vicious, gong-fu type, 'kick you in the butt" genre of games and shows. However, it has also been shown (through the work of "boy" psychologists such as Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson) that these kinds of "boy effects" can often be traced to a socialization process that begins at birth. In other words, we make them wild, since we pre-suppose that they will be wild. If we, as teachers and as parents, pre-supposed that they could be anything else - kind, gentle, sensitive and caring souls - we would raise them in a way that reinforced these virtues, and enjoy the ensuing altruistic and empathetic character traits (regardless if they were boy or girl) afterwards. In case I have not brought the point across more clearly, it is also possible to produce a female liberation-fighter, as long as the socialization and indoctrination processes were there to teach her to think, feel and respond in that kind of defensive-aggressive manner.

Returning to our own purposes of becoming the excellent parents and teachers that we want to be however, what do we now know to be the essential factors… the effective practices… that will allow us to grow and nurture Children with Empathy? And lest it needs to be stated explicitly, the ability to empathise with another human being is closely related to Emotional Intelligence, the bedrock of what we now recognize to be more critical to life success than traditional, in-the-head only, intelligence.

Written some decades back, Dr Nancy Eisenberg of Arizona’s State University listed, in a Special Report of 1983, the following (and I believe, still relevant) techniques in the development of prosocial behaviours in young children:

1. INDUCTIONS
This refers to the disciplinary approach of REASONING, as opposed to other forms of punishment such as the withdrawal of privileges or verbal threats. When using inductions, adults usually point out the consequences of the child’s behaviour on another ("See, you made Matthew cry") thus increasing the probability that the child will empathize with the victim. The effectiveness of inductions has been demonstrated for children as young as 18 to 30 months of age!

2. MORAL EXHORTATIONS (PREACHINGS)
As a method, preachings do not enhance empathetic behaviours unless

1. there is symbolic modeling (ie. a description of what the model intends to do) and
2. reasons that are likely to evoke a prosocial response.

3. MODELLING
Modelling refers to providing examples of behaviours for others to imitate. In general, researchers have found that people, including children, are more likely to be generous if they have viewed a prosocial model than if they have not seen one, or alternatively, viewed a stingy (opposite) model instead. This effect holds true for television models (eg. the wonder-dog of the 1970’s, "Lassie") and has been found to persist over time (days, even months afterwards). In another study (Rutherford & Mussen, 1968), preschool boys who had viewed their fathers as models of generosity and compassion (in doll play) were able to share more with others, in contrast to boys who had perceived their fathers engaging in less prosocial acts.

Further to this, investigators have highlighted that modeling is effective only if the model is a respected figure; in other words, he or she is not a permissive adult who sets no limits on the child’s behaviour. In cases where a permissive (highly lenient) adult is involved, children do as they please and do not assist, especially if there is a material cost to helping.

Many (many!) years ago, I was out with my grandmother one day, and we were in a little "kopi-tiam" somewhere in Toa Payoh, enjoying a "mee-siam" snack. I must have been about 5 years old at that time. Sometime during our meal, a scrawny young man walked into the coffee-shop and sat down at the table next to ours. His head had been shaved bald, and his clothes – mere shreds - were brown with dirt. I realize now that he must have been a patient, possibly recently escaped from the (then-called) Woodbridge psychiatric hospital. (They did shave them bald in those days).

This man sat at the table, talking and gesticulating to himself, or rather, the voices in his head. After a while, he began to talk even louder, and started to put his hands to his mouth repeatedly, as if to say "hungry… eat". Most of the other diners ignored him, of course, and pretended that they had not noticed. The "mee-siam" seller, a Malay woman, spoke aloud to my grandmother, "lapa, lah" ("he’s hungry"). She was obviously uncomfortable around the man, and was not quite sure what to do.

I remember feeling an empty pit in my stomach as well as a mixture of emotions at that time: puzzled and uncomfortable, mostly, and a little sad, though I could not quite say why. My grandmother though, who had turned around to look at the man a few times, replied, "beri dia makan mee siam satu… kesian…" ("give him a plate of mee siam… poor thing…"), then took out a 50-cent coin and passed it to the "mee-siam" lady as payment. As he gobbled down the meal, without a word of thanks to either my grandmother or the Malay hawker, I remember feeling a little elated that at least, someone had done something to make him feel better!

If I were to remind my grandmother of this incident (she is now 83 years old), she would probably not remember it at all. She would probably stare at me with a frown and wonder at its relevance to her life, back then and now. I doubt if she would understand that it was one of those life-moments that contributed to shaping a life, helping me, her little granddaughter, learn a little more about what it means to have emotional courage (to act differently for a good reason) and to be generous and helpful whenever possible.

4. DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS AND THE ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY
Another technique that seems to affect the development of prosocial behaviours in children is direct instruction; in other words, the use of verbal prompts or instructions to encourage altruistic behaviours. Whereas PREACHINGS is about what children ought to do, DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS communicate what the child is expected to do. At times, adults/parents use direct instructions in the context of actually teaching the child how to help someone else. And in fact, in some pieces of cross-cultural research (Whiting & Whiting, 1973, 1975), it has been shown that children from cultures in which youngsters are routinely assigned responsibilities for assisting others are more prosocial than children from other cultures. It is believed that in the former context, children come to think of themselves as “helpful” people (ie. the trait becomes imbued) such that over a period of time, they forget that their behaviours were, at first, externally imposed.

5. REINFORCEMENT
Both material (eg. a toy) and social (eg. praise) forms of reinforcement have been found to be effective in encouraging empathetic behaviours. In contrast, power-assertive and punitive techniques of discipline (such as being punished for being selfish) can actually undermine the development of altruistic behaviours in children. It is not unlikely that in such instances, the child becomes hostile or resentful, and learns that the reason for behaving positively is external (ie. avoid the punishment), rather than internal (eg. feeling guilt or sympathy). Also, when threatened with punishment, children are likely to start to think of themselves more than the needy other, and may be so aroused that they are unable to attend to the consequences of their behaviours, or to other kinds of information provided by the adult.

6. ADULT NURTURANCE AND EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
Maternal responsiveness is positively related to daughters’ sharing and comforting behaviours with siblings, and negatively related to disparagement and competitive reactions between siblings (Bryant & Crockenberg, 1980).

7. MORAL JUDGEMENT
Parental practices that allow children some degree of autonomy and choice (for instance, to question decisions, and make decisions) actually help to enhance the child’s moral reasoning and judgment, which often mediates (ie. comes before) a prosocial act. Interestingly enough, mothers who do not over-protect their children in the way of curbing their ability to make decisions of judgment, actually raise children who are more helpful.

So I wonder perhaps if James Bourne did start out having good parents somewhere in his murky past! Or a good teacher… Truly, if there is some way in which we can equip our children’s characters, not just their minds, in the process of growing them up to meet and manage a more demanding world with very challenging problems in the future, I think that we should. So, please forgive me for preaching, but I think:

working together…

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