Tag Archives: empathy

Parents, Are You Sick of Parenting Tips Yet?

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Parents  Are You Sick of Parenting Tips Yet?

At any given moment, I have a pile of parenting information on my desk, nightstand, and kitchen table.

I have my favorite tipsters and I also have my favorite tip.

parents

Make your primary goal as parents

to help your child develop empathy and

kindness in their hearts

 rather

than focusing on controlling his/her behavior.

Raising a child does not come down to following a list of tips. Parenting and grand-parenting really stems from the heart. It has to do with treating children with respect and empathy which is sometimes easier imagined than accomplished. Children imitate their parents and we often hear our own words come out of their mouths sometimes to our embarrassment.

If your goal is to have a well-behaved child with core qualities of kindness and empathy, you will need to encourage him to appropriately express his thoughts and emotions while listening and using these moments to treat him with empathy and kindness.

What do you think? How do you encourage your child to express himself?

 

Weekend Picks from Parenting in the Loop

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Weekend Picks from Parenting in the Loop

Weekend travel anyone

Weekend travel is so common and we are so blessed when we can enjoy a getaway from the day to day! So as we prepare for yet another travel adventure I cannot help but react to this event on an airplane.

This story just affected me to my core when I read it after it popped up on my personal Facebook page. Our family too, deals with anaphylactic food allergies and we travel and have traveled pretty much without any serious events especially any life threatening situations. That being said, I am so sad that there seems to be such a horrible lack of compassion for  adults and children, who have disabilities which to me can even be a food allergy as it does curtail one’s ability to enjoy certain activities due to environmental factors.

Empathy and compassion accompanied with knowledge and understanding from his fellow fliers would have perhaps not broken the spirit of 7 year-old little Giovanni, who was on a trip with his terminally ill father, a trip that was probably the last one they would ever take together. Can you even imagine how Giovanni felt when he heard a plane full of adults clapping as he left the flight that was supposed to take him home with his family and as he watched one of the attendants smirk at his mother as she told his mom, they should probably drive.

A seven year old little boy now has to remember that adults were happy to see him abandoned to the airport, stranded with his deathly ill dad and his mom at a time when he himself was covered in hives, scratching all over.

I cannot help but think how it could be that people are so inappropriately reactive and insensitive to another person’s problem. Maybe it was a ‘herd’ reaction but that really is not an excuse for being so out of touch with those in such proximity.

What if someone was having a heart attack. Would the ‘herd’ have responded in the same way?

What if it was you or a family member that needed medical attention just before take-off?

I hope that Giovanni’s physical recovery was uneventful and that emotionally he can put this ugly experience behind him as he enjoys his time with his Dad, who suffers from cancer. I also hope his Dad knows that his son probably will have other experiences during his life related to his allergies and that Giovanni will reflect back on this one as the event that helped him understand and have empathy for those that also have allergies and disabilities. Perhaps Giovanni was concerned even more about his sick Dad than himself as he departed his flight. Kids at seven can be very alarmed when adults around them are sick.

 

 

When 7-year-old Giovanni began to break out in hives shortly after boarding a plane in Bellingham, WA, with his parents, the family had no idea that their painful ordeal was just beginning. “He began to get very itchy and he was scratching all over,” the boy’s mom, Christina Fabian, told THV11 News. “So we informed the flight attendant, who informed us that there’s dogs on every flight and just smirked . . . which minimized his experience for me.” The allergic reaction delayed takeoff, and eventually, the family was told that they’d have to deboard. “We understood,” Fabian said. “They helped us off the plane, but as we gathered our stuff the people toward the back of the plane clapped.”

Source: Passengers Applaud as Boy With Allergies Is Forced Off Plane | POPSUGAR Moms

So this weekend, I am going to try to be extra sensitive to those around me, even if they are strangers, even if they are delaying me or annoying me for whatever reason. I am as impatient as everyone else these days and I have my moments where I just don’t want to deal with life’s inconveniences.

Although I cannot change anyone, it is possible for me to at least improve my own efforts to express empathy and understanding one day, or even one weekend at a time.

Nut Allergies are NOT Funny!

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Allergies

allergies

 

8. Those a**holes whose nut allergies have ruined peanuts on planes for everybody

via Lost Luggage, Delays, and Other Problems with Air Travel.

Came across this tongue in cheek article in my FB feed along with a response from Scratch or Sniff.

It is difficult for me to understand, why people are offended by anyone, with a severe, potentially fatal nut allergy, requesting fellow passengers on a plane to please refrain from eating nuts.

Having a grandchild with an allergy to peanuts and tree nuts has made me fully aware of how children and adults live with these types of allergies. Monitoring what our grandchild eats is a constant worry for her mom and us as grandparents. Allergic kids pose a serious concern for families.

Ingestion of nuts, skin exposure or inhaling the dust from nuts can cause anaphylaxis and end a child’s life in a matter of minutes.

allergies

Using this potentially fatal allergy dilemma as humor and adding this to a list of annoyances during air travel is, in my opinion, thoughtless. We all have snarky comments about air travel these days but if someone was in danger of dying, I would never even think to eat a handful of nuts or complain about my child not being able to eat his PB&J sandwich inflight.

Seriously, just how selfish and unfeeling have we become when traveling?

It seems that there is no longer empathy for the human condition, no matter what it is. Just a few days ago, I read where an UBER driver told a cancer patient she deserved her cancer when she cancelled her booking a few seconds after placing a reservation because she left her head scarf at her chemo treatment. WTH? Have we become that callous?

It seems a bit like “compassion fatigue ” to me. We are bombarded on a daily basis with outrageous news about horrible events occurring around the world. Even the television father that many grew up with on the Cosby Show has recently fallen from grace after accusations of being a sexual predator of women. There is so much sad news that we have become somewhat numb to serious and sad events

Empathy is something we as parents and grandparents are trying to foster in our children and grandchildren. Finding small opportunities to grow empathy in our kids is not easy, especially when we make fun of  “nut allergies” which many kids and soon to be adults experience. Even if a child is not allergic, they will have friends that will be allergic. Will they avoid these kids or will they be inclusive of them and avoid nuts in their own lunches so they can sit with their friends, who are many times ostracized to a nut-free table at school.

I would hope in general, people become more aware of the seriousness of allergies and the risk of anaphylaxis thereby becoming more tolerant and empathic when they are asked to avoid nuts when traveling on a crowded airplane.

It is just a start!

NICU: Then & Now, Children & Intense Emotions

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“Tree of Life”

NICU: Then & Now.

The March of Dimes Facebook page catches up with NICU babies in “Then and Now”. This past week, we celebrated National Prematurity Day…not too many years ago these fragile premature babies would not have survived. Here’s to all those that have made these miracle possible!

Helping children when they bite, hit and push – Genevieve Simperingham.

Biting and hitting can really pose a parenting challenge. There are so many reasons that a child resorts to this unpleasant behavior. For me, the most important way to manage behavior problems is through empathy. Empathy for your child and empathy for the victim of your child’s biting and hitting will guide your responses and help make them appropriate. Take a deep cleansing breath to retrieve your empathy and then respond quickly by removing your child from the situation and making sure the other child is okay. Show your child understanding with a sense of calmness, while he is acting this way… and then help him to express his anger and frustration in a more acceptable manner. Gradually, he will find other ways to express his frustrations and anger that do not involve lashing out and biting.

I Have a Daughter With Intense Emotions | Peaceful Parents, Confident Kids.

Keeping with the theme of children and their emotions…here is another post about how to “deal’ with children, who have intense feelings. It is a personal story, to which many of us can relate. Again, “empathy” plays a key role, I hope you visit this story…it is a sweet and endearing one.

Once again…have a wonderful weekend.

 

What Real Power Looks Like

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mother holding child

A beautiful letter…written by a mom, who realizes what “real” power means. I could not say it better than she has.

Please use the link to read her entire post it is lovely.

 

Dear Daughter,

I hold you close. Lithe little toddler body squirming against me as you try and settle. Small human child. One day you will be big and tall and strong. A grown woman, not the little girl I hold now in my arms as you try to relax and sleep. Not the little kid whose body is frantic to move and bursting with energy that even a whole day of play can’t consume.

I see many things in you.

via Being a Powerful Parent and Raising You With Empathy | Nurshable.

How to teach Kids Empathy…

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Small World

“It’s a Small World After All”

The world seems to be getting smaller every day…so how do we teach our children about diversity and empathy.

As a social worker and therapist it is inherent that I have the ability to be sensitive to the feelings and life events of others. A good therapist also has to be culturally competent and understand the dimensions that culture adds to a person’s life

At a very early age, I remember my grandmother making me sensitive to the feelings of others.

She grew up in NYC and was very sensitive to the many cultures that lived around her.   She herself was Irish, and lived in a diverse area of Brooklyn where in the early 1900’s. At that time her neighbors were mostly, Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants.

Uniqueness of every person and family and cultural differences were all things to celebrate. One of the ways my grandmother did this, was to enjoy the diverse foods in her neighborhood.

As a child, I did not realize that I was learning to understand others and appreciate differences rather than be afraid of them…if someone did not speak English it was not really a problem…there was always some way to communicate. Different was simply different!

So how is it these days, that we as parents and grandparents teach our kids and grandkids to be tolerant of the vast diverse population that we find ourselves living amongst?

The article below suggests some ways that we can teach young children empathy which will help them to become good listeners and problem solvers in the future.

Please, also take a look at www.startempathy.org

Start Empathy, an initiative of Ashoka, is a community of individuals and institutions dedicated to building a future in which every child masters empathy.

 

Some easy things you can do to promote an understanding of diversity and empathy:

  • Be a role model to your children
  • Cook with your children and make recipes from other cultures
  • Listen to music from other countries
  • Go to museums, movies and restaurants that celebrate other cultures

 

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I can’t force my daughter to not whine or have tantrums over what we, in our mature adult POV, believe is just plain silly, but we can teach her empathy, which is simply the ability to be aware and sensitive to the feelings of others.

 

Start Empathy, a collaboration of social entrepreneurs, educators and parents – has realized that by teaching our children empathy  we are giving them a “crucial skill for leading a successful and happy life.” Empathy provides a strong foundation for listening, communications, collaboration and problem-solving – critical skills in a rapidly changing and diverse world