E as in .... EMPATHY

In the year 2016, me and my children had the difficult task to make a decision about our dog, Goldie…it had been a tough couple of months and as we saw the decline of her health and her suffering, we decided to put her to sleep…it was definitely a rough week, but as I look back now, it was the right decision; Goldie had given us so many moments of joy and loyalty, she was like that kind of dog that made difficult times bearable and the good times perfect, so it only seemed natural that we treated her suffering with love, compassion and most of all…Empathy…

There are certainly many other examples in our lives that we have the opportunity to be “empathic” with the people that are dear to us, but what made this so difficult was the fact that Goldie could not say that she was suffering, we had to act based on what we saw and felt right out of compassion and Empathy.

When I searched for the definition of the word Empathy, I found the following:

“Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another’s position”.

Does that mean that we cannot have feelings of Empathy for animals? It certainly doesn’t, in fact, if you had the kind of relationship with your pet like the one we had, at some point you surely had difficult situations in your life when they were the ones comforting you, just by being there, am I right? This time around for us, it was our dog that woke up in us the need to understand her suffering, no, we could not ‘hear her’ say it, but it definitely was there!

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Here are some facts: (for humans!)

• ‍Empathy, involves feelings like compassion, love, understanding, caring, sensitivity, rapport, etc. however, in the case of us humans there are Executive Function skills such as attention, decision-making and critical thinking…so… developing Empathy is something that “happens in our hearts, through our minds”
• ‍Empathy is something we develop over time.
• Developing Empathy involves both mental and emotional processes that result in the need for the human being to care or reach out, whether that is another human being or an animal.

According to Hodges and Meyers, there is Emotional Empathy, and there is Cognitive Empathy:

Emotional Empathy has three components: “The first is feeling the same emotion as another person/animal … The second component, personal distress, refers to one’s own feelings of distress in response to perceiving another’s plight … The third emotional component, feeling compassion for another person/animal, is the one most frequently associated with the study of empathy in psychology,” they explain. This type of empathy is especially relevant when it comes to discussions of compassionate human behavior. There is a positive correlation between feeling empathic concern and being willing to help others. “Many of the most noble examples of human behavior, including aiding strangers and stigmatized people, are thought to have empathic roots,”.

Cognitive Empathy refers to how well an individual can perceive and understand the emotions of another; it is also known as empathic accuracy, and it involves “having more complete and accurate knowledge about the contents of another person’s mind, including how the person feels,” Hodges and Myers say. Cognitive empathy is more like a skill: Humans learn to recognize and understand others’ emotional state as a way to process emotions and behavior.

(https://lesley.edu/article/the-psychology-of-emotional-and-cognitive-empathy)

From a developmental perspective, humans begin exhibiting signs of empathy in social interactions during the second and third years of life. According to Jean Decety’s article “The Neurodevelopment of Empathy in Humans”:

“There is compelling evidence that prosocial behaviors such as altruistic helping emerge early in childhood. Infants as young as 12 months of age begin to comfort victims of distress, and 14- to 18-month-old children display spontaneous, unrewarded helping behaviors.”

On the other hand, The Center on The Development of the Child at Harvard University, explains: “The increasingly competent executive functioning of children and adolescents enables them to plan and act in a way that makes them good students, citizens and friends”, would it be safe to say then that the building of Executive functions will build more empathic relationships among children and adolescents?

Let’s look at the characteristics of Executive Functions, also pointed out by previous mentioned Center:

• Executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. These skills are crucial for learning and development. They also enable positive behavior and allow us to make healthy choices for ourselves and our families.
• Executive functions help children develop skills of teamwork, leadership, decision-making, working toward goals, critical thinking, adaptability, and being aware of our own emotions as well as those of others.

….and isn’t that what having “empathy” is all about?? I would answer “Yes, it is”.

In my post about Attachment in this blog a while ago I referred to “Secure Attachment” and how we as parents or teachers have to make ourselves ‘available’ and provide comfort when our kids or students need our attention so we can accurately interpret what the child is asking for; Angeline Stoll Lillard in “The Science Behind the Genius” (p.289) writes that:

“Another feature necessary to accurate interpretation (according to M. Ainsworth), is empathy” … “Adults who lack empathy, she said, would have detached, intellectual relations with babies instead of warm, sensitive ones. A mother might be quite aware of and understand accurately the baby’s behavior and the circumstances leading to her baby’s distress or demands, but because she is unable to empathize with him/her—unable to see things from the baby’s point to view—she may tease him/her back into good humor, mock him, laugh at him, or just ignore him” (Ainsworth, 1969, p. 2).

Lack of empathy thus leads to inappropriate response … this affirmation made by Ainsworth proves that “the heart” is definitely involved when Empathy comes around!

For me this also means that even if our children/students have empathy with each other it is also very important that that same empathy exists between adults and their children/students, which then leads me to say that if we as adults show Empathy, children will follow by example.

Some ways to foster “Empathy” would be:

• Help children name their feelings and talk about them. Make this an open invitation to hear them out and in the process name your own feelings; this will make you a ‘role model’.
• Don’t tell them they ‘shouldn’t’ feel that way.
• Help children recall instances when they felt scared, sad, lonely, or hurt and encourage them to think about what others did to help them.
• Help them to ‘see’ the behavior of others towards them when they had a difficult time and show them how they could do the same if a friend is in need for their help.
• Do an exercise of examples from their daily lives that illustrate how we can respond to others’ needs.

Ultimately, teaching empathy and compassion is surely an ongoing, day by day job; When children see their parents and Teachers caring for others, even beyond family – neighbors, friends, the wider society, and their pets/animals in general – they learn about the value of caring of all people and other living beings.

As Maria Montessori states:

“In order to totally understand human qualities, we must turn to the child; we must bow down to this teacher of nascent life, with the aim not only to develop love among men, but also the highest spiritual values. ”

Maria Montessori in “Citizen of the World”

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