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Enabling Children to Care
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16823 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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9 / 1989 |
2,710 Words |
| Author
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Julius Segal
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Thirteen-month-old Mark is eagerly devouring his supper when his weary father returns from work and slumps on a chair beside him. Mark quickly shifts his attention from his supper to his tired daddy and begins trying to feed him his remaining food.
Two-year-old David accidentally hits a playmate on the head. He looks stricken and immediately kisses and consoles her. "I hurt your hair," he says. "Please don't cry."
Anne, just twenty-one months old, notices that her mother is distraught and tearful after a squabble with her husband. She climbs onto her mother's lap and begins to offer comfort--nuzzling her, patting her shoulder, kissing her forehead, and saying "hi" repeatedly until she gets a "hi" and a smile in return.
Those three episodes are among many similar ones reported by psychologists Marian Radke-Yarrow and Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, who have devoted over a decade to the study of children's altruistic behavior--that is, behavior intended to help someone in need. From their research at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, they have shown that Mark, David, and Anne are neither angels descended to earth nor aberrations of human nature. Even young babies display surprisingly generous instincts, routinely performing acts of genuine compassion. Contrary to both popular and professional wisdom, our young begin life not as totally selfish little creatures, but with an amazingly well-developed sense of caring and a readiness to extend themselves to help others in need.
Not that children are without a darker side, of course. As all parents know, kids can be narcissistic and hostile. Just as in adults, egotism can coexist with altruism, self-indulgence with self-sacrifice. For parents, though, the question is this: What can we do to encourage the positive side of a child's nature? How can we nurture the apparently instinctive feelings of concern that youngsters have for people around them? Findings from various studies suggest seven steps likely to help our young grow to become caring, compassionate, and generous individuals, sensitive to the needs of other human beings.
Their Behavior Toward Others
Theoretical discussions about human kindness, however convincing, are less likely to encourage altruism than unmistakable messages of its importance to you as a parent. In my childhood home, I learned early that I was being judged as much by the way I dealt with my friends as by my report card. My mother never learned the rules of backyard baseball, but she was certain of the rules of life. From her perch at the kitchen window, she would watch our game unfold, and if one of us mistreated another child, her reaction was swift and unambiguous. It was clear to us kids that if we acted mean, we were in deep trouble.
Today's researchers are finding that my mother's instincts were exactly right. The effective approach, they conclude, "is not calmly dispensed reasoning, carefully designed to enlighten the child; it is emotionally imposed, sometimes harshly and often forcefully." There is nothing tentative about such a mother's message to little ones who seem to be developing a "me first" approach to life. She pulls out all the stops and lets them know in no uncertain terms where she stands on the
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