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Week
2 of April: Unselfishness and Sensitivity
In
Connection with Richard and Linda Eyre
Editor's
Note: This month
the Meridian Family Value of the month is UNSELFISHNESS AND SENSITIVITY.
Click
here to read this month's overview article). Each week during
the month we will post an update in Meridian, illustrating a couple
of the Eyres' favorite methods for teaching the powerful value of
LOVE to each age group. Remember that you can also go to http://www.valuesparenting.com/ for
still more ideas and teaching methods. Thanks for your interest
and participation. There are tens of thousands of parents
concentrating on this value this month. It is a way of saving
this disrespectful society of ours ― one family at a time!
Send us your feedback, and if you want a free children's CD on the
value of Honesty, see the instructions at the bottom of this article.
 Methods for Teaching Unselfishness and Sensitivity to Preschool
Age Children
“Turns
and Timers”
Small children
playing together will inevitably want the same toy at the same time.
Take the time to sit down with them (over and over) and explain
sharing. Help them notice how happy they make the other person when
they share with him. Praise even feeble attempts to share.
On occasion
use a timer (or an oven clock or alarm clock) that rings when one
child’s turn is over and it is time to let the other child have
his turn.
Christmas
Giving
Give your
children some dramatic memories of being unselfish and helping other
children with obvious needs. Be a “sub for Santa” and take Christmas
to a needy family. Try to link up with a family with children similar
in age to your own. Suggest (without pressure) that your child give
the corresponding needy child one of his best toys. Point out how
little the other child has and how happy a toy would make him.
If possible,
observe and take pictures of the receiving child. Follow up with
many “recalls” of how happy your child made the other one feel.
Praise your child’s unselfishness and point out how much joy there
is in giving as well as in receiving.
Methods for Elementary School Age
The “Big
E” Award
Give recurrent,
noticeable, lasting praise. At Sunday dinner (or whatever time you
have specified for awards), say, “Who is in the running for the
‘Big E’ Award?” E stands for empathy, and each family member should
think through the week just passed and try to come up with
incidents when he noticed how someone else felt and sympathized
enough to say or do something to help someone or at least acknowledge
what he noticed.
Memorizing
This is an
effective way to plant, clearly and lastingly, the concept of unselfishness
and sensitivity in older elementary-age children’s minds. Together
memorize G.K. Chesterton’s statement: “Love of one’s neighbor is
the only door out of the dungeon of self.”
Discuss this
quote with children. Ask what it means. Point out and discuss why
selfishness and self-centeredness is a dungeon.
For older
children consider memorizing is Emerson’s quote “See how the masses
of men worry themselves into nameless graves while here and there,
a great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.”
The Noticing
Game
This game
trains children to see more that is outside themselves and thus
to be less self-award. Form a habit of playing “the noticing game”
when you are traveling or going to any unfamiliar place with children.
Ask them, without notice or warning, to close and cover their eyes.
Then ask them to describe, as best they can, the room or scene they
are in (the walls, the lighting, the carpet, the trees, the sky,
etc.). Let them also play the game on you. The exercise in observing
and being aware of where you are and what is around you is
good training for empathy and sensitivity.
Methods
for Adolescents
Journals
and Poetry
Help children
express and thus explore and enhance their sensitivity. Be sure
a child has a journal or diary. Keep one yourself. Encourage the
expression of feelings. Teach children to being many sentences
in their journal with the words "I feel…" Make poetry
a common practice, even a tradition in your family. If you
write poetry, and if you encourage and praise every attempt of your
children, they will learn to enjoy it. And poetry is a great teacher
as well as expresser of sensitive feelings.
We have
a tradition of writing poems to Linda on her birthday. The poems
are always more treasured than any other gift. Some examples (excerpts)
from one “birthday book”:
Seventeen-year-old
Saren wrote:
YOU WERE THERE
I remember
Watching the cracks in the ceiling move,
Lying on the waterbed
So sick with some forgotten malady.
And I was so small.
But you were there.
I fell off my bike,
Raked my skin on the cruel gravel.
But you were there.
I felt discouraged,
Dejected, alone ― But still,
You were there.
I came home late and got up late
I argued with everything you said
I missed the bus,
I hardly said thanks.
But always and forever,
You were there.
Sixteen-year-old
Shawni wrote:
MOTHER’S TOUCH
The child murmurs softly,
Crying quietly of his troubles
The day has been cold and bitter
And the echoes of the painful scoffs and cruel laughter
Run endlessly through his head
And they feel to him like pounding thunder.
The tender touch of mother
The peaceful, pleasant feelings.
And the sweet soothing voice,
“Hush,” she whispers,
and her voice sounds like velvet.
The child’s contented figure stirs quietly,
Wrapped in the warmth of his mother’s touch.
Fourteen-year-old
Josh wrote:
Who is a person so kind and loving,
And always willing to help?
Who is a person that can raise nine children,
Keep the house clean,
And rarely lose her temper?
Well, this person is my mom,
And I love her so.
She’s so peaceful and nice, yes,
This person’s my mom.
Twelve-year-old
Saydi wrote:
MY MOTHER’S SWEET SMILE
My mother can tell me so much in her face,
Her cheerful smiling mouth can tell me the case.
She shows me she’s happy, worried, or sad,
Angry, excited, or extremely glad.
She shows me I’m special, that there’s no one like me
That I can be someone and that I am free.
I watch her smile stand in crowded places
And I’m glad she’s my mom, seeing all the dull faces
With her sweet sensitive smile, she says “I love you”
I proudly smile back, for I love her too.
Ten-year-old
Jonah (who was aware that Linda had a head cold) wrote:
You are like a big blue sky and bright sun to lite
Up many lives or help us.
And you are like a teacher at home and not at school.
You make my life much easier.
And you are very beautiful.
I love you, I hope you’re feeling better.
Love from, Jonah
And, just
to illustrate that it’s not only adolescents who can write poetry,
eight-year-old Talmadge wrote: (he checked his spelling on
some words but not on others)
You are like a butuful spontaineaus
Horse that alwas has to work
For her babies.
You are sophisticated and
Sensative.
You have the sweetest smile.
Love, Talmadge
P.S. I love you
And seven-year-old
Noah wrote:
Mom, you are
Sweet as candy
Pretty as a flower
Soft as a cushion
Nice as Santa
And pritty as a girlfriend.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
The Mirror-Window
Lesson
This can
help adolescents conceptualize and appreciate the difference between
self-centeredness and extra-centeredness. Try to get a piece of
one-way glass (mirror from one side, window from other). If you
can’t find one, a plain piece of glass will do. Point
out that when it is dark behind the glass, it is a mirror ―
all you see in it is yourself. When it is light behind it,
you see through it ― you see other people and not your
own reflection. Point out to your children that life is much the
same. When our minds are dark and self-centered, we only see ourselves
(“What’s best for me?” “How will this affect me?” “What can this
person do for me?”) In this mode we are always unhappy and self-conscious.
But when we light up and look at other people ― trying
to listen, trying t o see their needs, and so one ― we “lose
ourselves” and quit worrying about ourselves and feeling self-conscious.
See you next
week for more methods for all age groups.
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.
© 2006
Meridian Magazine.
All Rights Reserved.
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