In Connection with Richard and Linda Eyre

Editor's note:   Welcome to the difficult (for kids and for parents) but essential value of Unselfishness and Sensitivity — the Meridian Family Value for April.  As most Meridian readers know, Meridian Magazine, in collaboration with Linda and Richard Eyre, presents a specific and particular value each month, complete with methods for teaching that value to each age group of children. At the first of the month there is an overview article (like this one) and then each week there are follow up bulletins with additional ideas and teaching methods for specific age groups. Meridian readers can also send in their own thoughts and ideas on the value of the month click here to read the explanatory article that started this series.  Any time during the month, you can click on the "family value of the month" icon on the left side of the Meridian home page and go directly to the teaching ideas for the month. You can also get additional teaching ideas for the value of the month by going to http://www.valuesparenting.com/.
We appreciate your feedback on each value.  Send your comments to Eyres@meridianmagazine.com.  You may also receive a free children’s CD on the value of Honesty by following the instructions at the end of the column.

Definition and Introductory Comments

We define this value as: Becoming more extra-centered and less self-centered. Learning to feel with and for others. Empathy, tolerance, brotherhood. Sensitivity to needs in people and situations.

Sensitivity and empathy are values of obvious importance, but they are also qualities usually associated with maturity. Can they be taught to children?

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Our son Josh was having a sledding party for his sixth birthday. Shawni, Josh’s eight-year-old sister,  came along to keep her dad company and to help with the hot cider and doughnuts we planned to serve.

There were a dozen boys at the party and they were all whooping it up and having a great time. At least that’s how it looked to us.

Then we observed the most amazing thing. As Josh came up to the top of the hill with two of his friends, Shawni met him there and said, “Josh, this is a great party and most of the boys are having a good time, but that boy over there (pointing) is being left out and doesn’t look like he’s having much fun, and the boy in the red coat at the bottom of the hill can’t get his sleigh to work very well and he looks a little upset. You should go make both of them feel better.

This sensitive eight-year-old noticed what we hadn’t – that two boys weren’t having as much fun as the others. Rather than being self-conscious or bored or worried about being the only girl there and older than the boys, she was watching them, thinking about them, and being sensitive and concerned about them.

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Some children have a natural and seemingly inherent sense of caring and sensitivity. Such cases are rather rare, however, and the self-centered “surrounded by mirrors” perspective of life is typical of most children, particularly adolescents. In fact most of the problems teenagers face (whether taking the form of rebellion or of extreme shyness and withdrawal) stem from their rather intense preoccupation with self.

Nevertheless, children can begin to learn sensitivity and unselfishness at a very young age, and they should learn it as a skill and a capacity as well as a value.

Children have difficulty empathizing and applying their own feelings to others. A child can feel crushed one day because Jimmy didn’t invite him to his birthday party and the next day forget to include someone who looks lonely in the basketball game at recess. Adolescents love to borrow clothes, but many hate to lend them and often forget to return them or to “repair the damage.”

It takes real effort on the part of parents and sometimes a very long time for most children  to realize that the world does not revolve around them, that others’ feelings are crucial and that there is a great deal to be learned from giving up something they really want for the sake of someone else.

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One day our six- and nine-year-olds decided they wanted the same chair at the same moment. It was like the immovable object meeting the irresistible force. Each child insisted that this last available chair to sit on was in precisely the right spot for him and that he had gotten there first. When the batter of the iron wills turned into shouting and crying and looked close to physical violence, Linda considered two alternatives: (a) spend a little time to find out who was right; or (b) send them to the “repenting  bench” until each could figure out what he did wrong. In this case Linda decided neither would work. Linda said, “I’m going to watch you two and see which one is going to be a Leader for the Right. I think you both know the right thing to do to take care of this problem.” After a fifteen-second silence, the child Linda would have bet on relinquished his half of the chair to the other, whose face reflected a double exposure of relief and guilt. After seeing the praise lavished on the unselfish child, the other offered the chair back to the first. If our attention hadn’t been diverted by the rush to get to school, they probably could have worked up a new argument about who was the most unselfish.

General Guidelines

• Praise. Reinforce — and cause repetition of — unselfish behavior. Heap praise on signs or symptoms or even brief glimpses of selflessness in children of any age! Let’s face it: an act of simple sharing in children — particularly small ones — is cause for genuine celebration. And it also calls for praise and recognition. When a child shares, or gives, or sees and responds to needs in another, praise him, pick him up and hug him, and point out what he’s just done to anyone else who is around.

• Give responsibility. Try to bring out your children’s appreciation and empathy for the difficulties and challenges of others. A recent Harvard study pointed up an interesting connection between how much responsibility children were give and their tendencies to be altruistic and extra-centered. Apparently children who are given everything but responsibility not only become spoiled but actually tend to begin to lose their sense of caring and concern.

During this month reemphasize and redefine the responsibilities you give your children and the dependability you expect of them. Discuss, whenever you get the chance, the responsibly that others have and how we must be sensitive to the burdens other people have.

• Teach by example and active listening. Show children the attitude of empathy and the kinds of sensitivity that you want them to mirror. Try to make your own listening and caring more obvious. One way to do this is “active listening.” Instead of the normal parental tendencies of directing, managing, and interrogating children, try to really hear what children say. Paraphrase back to them what they have said in a way that reassures them that you heard what they said, have understood it, and are concerned about it. This technique is sometimes also called Rogerian technique after Carl Rogers, the pioneering psychologist who found that people of any age will tell you more if you listen rather than ask.

The practice of active listening will, in addition to encouraging your children to say more to you, set a profound example of the kind of sensitivity you hope they themselves will develop.

Richard remembers a single incident that illustrated the effectiveness of this technique:

I sat on the edge of five-year-old Saydi’s bed one night and asked her how kindergarten was going. “Fine, Dad,” said Saydi, but she didn’t look too happy about it. “Well, any problems? Anything you are worried about?”

 “Not really, Dad.”

It had been a long day for me, and I was really too tired to pry further. I was so tired, I just lay back with Saydi for a minute on her pillow. A minute turned into five minutes — of silence — and I was actually starting to doze off when Saydi said, “Dad, I need a new friend.”

It’s interesting what kind of responses children’s needs tend to trigger in parents’ minds. I almost said, “What’s wrong? Don’t you have enough friends?” Then I almost said, “Was someone mean to you?” “Well, you know, to have friends, you must be a friend.” Then I almost said, “Hey, I’m your friend, you know!”

Those are the typical parental responses. We try to interrogate, or to protect, or to moralize and solve, or to comfort and do a “quick fix.”

But this night, maybe because I was so tired, I didn’t do any of these things. I just said, “I see, you feel like maybe you could use a new friend.”

“Yeah, Dad, because — you know Amy? My old best friend — well she wasn’t so nice to me today.”

Again, typical responses came to my mind. “What did she do?” or “Were you mean to her?” or “Do I need to call her parents and work this out?”

But again, I just active-listened. “Uh-huh — the reason you feel like you need a new friend is that your good friend Amy hasn’t been very nice to you.”

“Right, Dad, we were playing at recess and she was rude and….”

To make a long story short, she went on and on. I lay back there in the dark, hands clasped behind my head, and listened, repeating something back every few minutes as reinforcement. Saydi told me everything — how she felt, what she liked, what she thought about just about everything.  I could have never found out so much by asking. I would not have known the right questions.

• Say I’m Sorry. Show your children your sensitivity and help them feel sensitive toward you. Whenever you have made a mistake or misjudgment or even been a little insensitive to a children’s needs (though your own busyness, preoccupation, etc.), go to the child and say you’re sorry for not being more in tune and sensitive to what they were worried about or needed.

Saydi, now fifteen years old, had come in after her curfew for  the third time in a month. I was up late, worrying about her and worrying about not getting any sleep before my early business meeting the next day.

When she finally arrived, I was not just mad, I was righteously indignant! Usually feisty Saydi was reduced to tears, and I felt no guilt — she deserved it.

That next day I found out that she had been late because a friend had been hurt and needed help. I went down to her room that evening to apologize (a very hard thing for a parent to do!). I got out the first few words, “Saydi, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” But then the old parental instincts took over, “But have you ever heard of telephones? You could have called me. Then I wouldn’t have sat up worrying.”

Saydi had recovered her feistiness by now and with it her sarcasm. “Oh, yes, Dad,” she said, “what is wrong with me? Why didn’t I just say to my friend, ‘Well, bleed to death. I have to go find a phone to call my father!’” The discussion ended worse than the night before!

Finally, the next night, I got off a real apology — and learned something and taught something about sensitivity.

• Make an effort to tell your children how the things they do make you feel. This will help children be more aware of your feelings and be more sensitive toward them. If a teenager tells you that you are weird, tell him that that hurts your feelings. Sometimes children think of parents as people on whom they can vent their feelings without making a dent. Tell them not only the hurtful things but the positive things. For example, “It makes me feel so happy when I see you cleaning things up without being asked or helping your little brother with his homework.”

• Remember that unselfishness does not come naturally. Try to maintain your patience as you implement this “month.” Everyone, although in varying degrees, is born with a certain amount of selfishness. There is no quick fix for earning to be unselfish. It is a process that take thinking and practicing and a certain amount of maturity to develop.

Coming Up

See you here next week for some specific and age specific methods for teaching this marvelous value to kids.

Closing note: Many have asked if there are actual teaching tools to assist parents in teaching the Meridian family value of the month to their children. The Eyres have been involved with a series of values-teaching CDs called Alexander's Amazing Adventures, which give 5-14 year old children a vicarious (and dramatic) experience with each month's value. By special arrangement, Meridian readers who have been following this column and participating in the value of the month can now receive, as a free gift, the HONESTY CD from this series.  Simply send a self-addressed, stamped 5 X 7 or 8 X 10 envelope (the padded ones are best) to the Eyres at 1098 Augusta Way, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84108 and they will send you the gift CD.  (You will need to put $0.87 [87cents] in stamps or postage on your return envelope.) Please respond only if you have been reading and following the column, and please do not ask for more than one copy of the CD.  We hope this gift will help make the value-of-the-month concept even more effective within your family.