Communicating with Children

Trainer tip: Empathy can offer profound learning opportunities to children, expand their feelings and needs vocabulary, and teach them the positive results of valuing everyone’s needs. Read on for a story that illustrates this. Trainer Tip "The ways parents interact with their children contribute to shaping children’s understanding of themselves, their parents, human nature, and the world around them. A parent who takes a toy away from a toddler who had just taken it from another child, while saying, “No grabbing,” teaches both children that grabbing is okay—for those with more power. A parent who unilaterally imposes a curfew implies that a teenager can’t be trusted to make thoughtful decisions about his life. Instead, in both words and actions, parents can convey two key ideas: 1. Everyone’s needs matter, and 2. If we connect sufficiently, we can find strategies that will work for everyone." —Inbal Kashtan The empathy process of hearing another’s feelings and needs works beautifully with children of all ages. Once I had two young boys, ages 6 and 3, visiting me for a week. One time, Gary, the 6-year-old, kicked the 3-year-old in the stomach and started screaming at him to get out of the way. The younger boy looked stunned and confused. I was also stunned because I hadn’t seen anything to indicate that Gary was becoming frustrated. I started by empathizing with the 3-year-old who was crying. “Are you scared and confused because you don’t understand what just happened?” “Yeah.” “And, are you feeling hurt because you’d like your brother to have a different way of telling you he’s upset?” “YEAH! He’s mean.” Hey, Gary, why did you do that?” “Because you were sitting on a marble and I was down to the last one!” Then I empathized with Gary. “So, Gary, are you frustrated because your brother wasn’t paying attention to the game the way you like to?” “Yeah. He’s always messing things up. I wish he’d just play the game or go do something else.” “So, you’d like him to make up his mind and to be as serious as you are about play time?” “Yeah.” Next, we worked out a solution that met both children’s needs. Such empathy offers profound learning opportunities to children, expands their feelings and needs vocabulary, and teaches them the positive results of valuing everyone’s needs. I suggest that you modify your vocabulary to fit your child’s age and learning ability. Feeling words that can easily be understood by children are: sad, glad, excited, proud, playful, mad, confused, tired, and scared. Need words that can easily be understood by children are: safety, food, love, privacy, fun, play, choice, and rest. Be aware of opportunities to model the empathy process with children today. This trainer tip is an excerpt from Mary Mackenzie's book, Peaceful Living, available from PuddleDancer Press. Keywords: Children Sibling rivalry Resolve conflict Parenting Empathy benefits