Dec. 13, 2006
When my oldest son was eight years sold he witnessed a man in a truck purposely swerve to hit a rabbit.
It was the most devastating experience Blake had had so far in his short life. He cried, unable to understand how a person could purposely hurt someone else. I suspect there was one major difference between my son and that man with the sick pleasure; my son was able to imagine, at least to some extent, what the rabbit might have felt. The man was probably either unable or unwilling.
I have long felt that empathy is foundational to a person’s moral nature and his/her tendency to make ethical choices. While fear of a god’s judgment may have a small effect on some, and self-interest in terms of social pressure may have an enormous effect on all, the degree of empathy a person feels towards others is also a reliable motivating factor in a person’s consistency in making moral choices.Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary gives the following as one of its definitions of empathy:
The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.
Definitions of empathy range from a person’s ability to feel empathetic to a person’s ability to effectively communicate empathic thoughts and feelings all the way to a person's resulting helpful behavior.
According to a research article by Kathleen Cotton entitled Developing Empathy In Children And Youth, researchers Haynes and Avery described empathy as "...the ability to recognize and understand another person's perceptions and feelings, and to accurately convey that understanding through an accepting response."
There is a direct link between a people's empathy and the way they treat those they feel empathy toward. Cotton includes empathetic actions as an intrinsic part of empathy when she explains that empathy "may involve verbal confirmation of understanding and/or supportive looks and body language, and prosocial behavior such as sharing goods or providing help."
Establishing rules for our children may give them a guideline for proper conduct, but there will be times when their perceived self-interest outweighs their fear of punishment or consequences. A high level of empathy will act as a personal motivator in making a moral choice because they are more likely to consider and care about how their actions will affect others.
As parents, our number-one concern in raising morally-minded children should be to help them develop empathy. While it may be counter-intuitive, one way to do this is to decrease, or even eliminate, the moral judgments we tend to project on our children and others and to instead help children learn to recognize the natural consequences of the actions in question.
For example, when my son, Aiden, hit my arm when he was two, my first impulse was to say, "Aiden, don’t hit. That’s not nice." This is a common phrase in our society -- a moral judgment. The problem with it is that it is too vague to give a preschooler any useful information except to make him feel bad.
What I chose to say instead was "Aiden, don’t hit. It hurts me." Even though it didn’t really hurt, I armed him with the specific reason it is unacceptable, a reason he did not yet have the experience to know on his own. As I continue to help him understand how his actions hurt others, as I help him relate to what it means for others to feel hurt, both physically and emotionally, he will learn to consider his effect on others independently.
In her article, Cotton cites numerous studies of research that come to similar conclusions. She lists the following practices in child-rearing as showing increases in empathy and prosocial behavior:
- Being responsive and non-authoritarian toward pre-school children (the research- specified mothers);
- Reasoning with children, including very young ones, about how their behavior affects others;
- Reasoning with children about the importance of sharing;
- Parental modeling of caring and empathic behavior, both to children and toward others in front of children;
- Giving children explanations of why their behavior is hurtful and how to make up for bad behavior;
- Encouraging children to share their own emotions and problems.
Conversely, there are parental patterns which lead to low levels of empathy in children:
- Threats and physical punishment;
- Inconsistent care, such as inconsistent reactions to a child’s emotional needs;
- Rejection or withdrawal when a child has an emotional need;
- Physical abuse of the mother by the father;
- Rewards or bribes for "good" behavior.
Interestingly, research also shows that greater empathy not only leads toward a greater sense of moral responsibility, it also leads to enhanced learning abilities because it develops critical thinking skills and creative thinking. Researchers found direct correlations between empathy-training programs and higher academic success in terms of grade point averages, test scores and reading comprehension. Empathy not only establishes moral reasoning but reasoning skills in general.
The evidence suggests that non-religious families can feel okay about their decision to eliminate church attendance, with all its moral lessons, in the upbringing of their children. Morality doesn’t have to come from those formalities. It seems to best come from a healthy development of empathy.
This happens through day-to-day discussions regarding personal experiences with emotions, pain and others. It comes from helping children to identify their own feelings, to see the consequences of their actions on other, and helping them make a connection between how they feel and how others feel. It comes from the modeling of empathy by parents themselves.
Noell Hyman writes for her blog, AgnosticMom.com. She has been blogging since August of 2005. Relatively new to the humanist landscape, Noell declared herself a humanist some time in the year of 2002 after leaving religion, specifically the Mormon Church. A stay-at-home mother of three young children, Noell's aim is to reach other non-religious parents who find themselves isolated in the struggle to raise a healthy family without religion. Noell wants to make "Agnostic Mom" a humanist and secular household name. Visit: www.AgnosticMom.com
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