Empathy, the capacity for understanding and identifying what someone else is experiencing, is an essential ingredient of emotional health and social order. In its absence, individuals and groups are apt to act in total disregard for the feelings and rights of others. On an individual level, starting at a very early age, the child will be handicapped in facing the important tasks encompassed by the socialization process. On a group or societal level, a self-centered, dispassionate mind-set will hamper the prospects for people banding together for the common good. An absence of empathy is often seen in children with histories of abandonment, severe neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse and/or psychological abuse. For those children, it is an uphill challenge to instill empathy in them before it’s too late, before they become teens or adults whose morally oblivious actions come with an enormous personal and societal cost.
A casual observation of infants and toddlers provides evidence that empathy is inborn. It is hard-wired into our DNA, as a necessity for humans to have evolved into social beings, dependent upon social order and social connectedness. Your one year old is likely to smile when in the immediate proximity of another smiling child, and is just as likely to cry when seeing another child in distress. Such reactions are instinctual, they do not have to be taught. As mentioned above, however, they can be blocked or muted by exposing the child to such extreme unempathetic experiences as abandonment, neglect and abuse. On the other hand, is it possible for empathy to be enhanced and strengthened as a consequence of favorable caregiving environments? We as parents may not need to teach empathy to our children, but our actions can help to magnify its importance and scope for them. We can do so by modeling acts of kindness in our daily lives, near enough for our children to see.
It was 60 years ago, when my parents took my brother, Phil and me for a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Phil brought along the new 8mm movie camera that he received earlier that summer. Who was to know that these would be among the first movie frames he would shoot in his eventual, successful career as cinematographer? It all could have come to an abrupt end, however, if it hadn’t been for an anonymous good Samaritan. He or she found the camera, which Phil inadvertently left in or near a washroom, and returned it to the front desk. For several minutes, while the camera was still missing, a pall had been cast on our vacation. Phil’s budding career as filmmaker might have been stillborn had it not been for the stranger’s act of kindness. For a long time after the incident, I wondered why the person didn’t just keep the new camera. Nobody would have known. That question was on my mind years later when I decided upon Psychology as a major in college. I wanted to find out what it is that propels some people to act benevolently while others act selfishly or worse. The answer for me is twofold. Shield developing children from exposure to the trauma of abuse and neglect; expose them to daily doses of unconditional acts of kindness. Encourage them to embrace the behavior being modeled, giving them regular experience in offering and receiving acts of kindness from loved ones as well as fellow good citizens.
On June 11th, the Tony Awards will be honoring the best Broadway shows of the season. One of the nominees for best musical is a show called “Come From Away.” It depicts the collective acts of kindness extended by the people of Gander, Newfoundland to 7,000 stranded air travelers in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. This poignant and uplifting show dramatizes how our common human existence is so greatly enriched when we unconditionally extend or receive acts of kindness. If your child is old enough, and you plan to be in New York in the foreseeable future, go see the show together. It would be like giving your child an extra strong dose of empathy – instilling medication.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
Executive Director, IEH
May 26, 2017
A casual observation of infants and toddlers provides evidence that empathy is inborn. It is hard-wired into our DNA, as a necessity for humans to have evolved into social beings, dependent upon social order and social connectedness. Your one year old is likely to smile when in the immediate proximity of another smiling child, and is just as likely to cry when seeing another child in distress. Such reactions are instinctual, they do not have to be taught. As mentioned above, however, they can be blocked or muted by exposing the child to such extreme unempathetic experiences as abandonment, neglect and abuse. On the other hand, is it possible for empathy to be enhanced and strengthened as a consequence of favorable caregiving environments? We as parents may not need to teach empathy to our children, but our actions can help to magnify its importance and scope for them. We can do so by modeling acts of kindness in our daily lives, near enough for our children to see.
It was 60 years ago, when my parents took my brother, Phil and me for a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Phil brought along the new 8mm movie camera that he received earlier that summer. Who was to know that these would be among the first movie frames he would shoot in his eventual, successful career as cinematographer? It all could have come to an abrupt end, however, if it hadn’t been for an anonymous good Samaritan. He or she found the camera, which Phil inadvertently left in or near a washroom, and returned it to the front desk. For several minutes, while the camera was still missing, a pall had been cast on our vacation. Phil’s budding career as filmmaker might have been stillborn had it not been for the stranger’s act of kindness. For a long time after the incident, I wondered why the person didn’t just keep the new camera. Nobody would have known. That question was on my mind years later when I decided upon Psychology as a major in college. I wanted to find out what it is that propels some people to act benevolently while others act selfishly or worse. The answer for me is twofold. Shield developing children from exposure to the trauma of abuse and neglect; expose them to daily doses of unconditional acts of kindness. Encourage them to embrace the behavior being modeled, giving them regular experience in offering and receiving acts of kindness from loved ones as well as fellow good citizens.
On June 11th, the Tony Awards will be honoring the best Broadway shows of the season. One of the nominees for best musical is a show called “Come From Away.” It depicts the collective acts of kindness extended by the people of Gander, Newfoundland to 7,000 stranded air travelers in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. This poignant and uplifting show dramatizes how our common human existence is so greatly enriched when we unconditionally extend or receive acts of kindness. If your child is old enough, and you plan to be in New York in the foreseeable future, go see the show together. It would be like giving your child an extra strong dose of empathy – instilling medication.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
Executive Director, IEH
May 26, 2017
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