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How a child develops the ability to empathize and how to help him learn to empathize with others, says child psychologist Galiya Nigmetzhanova. Her lecture on empathy was held at the Charity Cinema Picnic in support of the Children’s Palliative Foundation on July 26, 2015.
The fashionable word “empathy” today appeared in ancient Greece. It was then that the idea of three basic structures of personality was formed: ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos as a basis is responsible for the value and moral in a person, for his ideas about good, bad, acceptable and not. Paphos includes the sphere of emotions and feelings, and logos – verbal, reasonable. To show empathy means to be on a friendly (pathetic) wave with other people, to be able to empathize with others. This is an innate ability, but it is realized differently at each stage of a child’s growing up.
Read more:
- What is empathy?
From birth to two years
Research confirms the presence in newborns of mirror neurons that are responsible for reflecting the emotions of the mother or another person who constantly cares for the child (“close adult”). Babies who do not yet know what sadness or joy are already feel them through their parents. Remember: even if you, being in a bad mood, imitate joy in front of a child, he immediately begins to act up. That is already in the first months of life, children are in an empathic connection with their parents. This is reflected even at the linguistic level – mothers often use the pronoun “we”: “we ate”, “we slept”, “we took a walk”. And in fact, for some time they exist as a single entity.
2 – 3 of the year
By about two years old, the baby appropriates all the manifestations of empathy that close adults have shown him before. It is at this age that the first “separation” of the child from the mother takes place: he turns his back on his parents and faces the world, where he first encounters other people and objects. The baby’s ability to perceive the world depends on how a close adult perceives him.
It is good if the parents tell the child his feelings: “You are crying because you are hungry (fearful / lonely).” As a rule, at this age, parents are able to quickly and very accurately capture the needs of their children. For a small child, this is not only the only school of empathy, but also the first happiness formula, which looks like this: “Be happy = Be understood.”
But already by the age of three, colossal changes are taking place in the “child-adult” pair. The activity of the three-year-old, his desire to quickly master the outside world changes his behavior. Children become capricious, demanding, sometimes aggressive. And then the parents begin to raise the child, instead of sorting out his feelings. Tears and whims at this age are the most accessible form for a child to communicate their emotional state. But often adults ignore his condition, because they have formed ideas about “good” and “correct”, which they broadcast to the child. While the child does not yet have a developed speech, the task of parents is to keep his emotional wave, despite the “unlawful” behavior.
Read more:
- Empathy and how to kill it
4 – 7 years
Playing, writing and telling stories, the child tries to prove himself from the best sides, declaring his omnipotence, strength, ability to be wizards. At this age, children often “save” the world and friends. During games, they begin to name their feelings and the feelings of other people. And if the child devalues some sensations (“Why are you sad all the time? I won’t be friends with you”), perhaps he has experience of interacting with adults who also do not accept some of his feelings, emotional states. In particular, parents often mistake the child’s wild imagination and omnipotence for boasting and lying.
The hardest part of empathy is learning to truly rejoice. This is important in the modern world, in which there are many comparisons, aspirations to be the first, the best. Of course, when we learn to rejoice together, this does not go against the ability to understand the sadness of another, to provide support in difficult times. But when a child is upset that his friend was bought a toy that he had long dreamed of, we, adults, condemn the envy of our child, forgetting to give an example of how you can rejoice with another person at the fulfillment of his desire. Join the moment of his happiness. Therefore, if you want to raise a child on an empathic wave, then any manifestations of co-joy between his close adults (in a couple, among relatives and friends), and there is the best example that you can give.
7 – 9 years
At the age of seven, a child forms his first worldview concept, which already contains fundamental ethical ideas. Including how to be on the same wavelength with the people around you. And if before that the parents did not listen to his emotions, then the child will act in the same way in relation to the people around him.
This is especially noticeable when children come to school. A school is a social institution that was born and continues to exist in order to bring different individuals to a common denominator. And each individual representative of this institution – a teacher – will show the child in every possible way: the school is not the place where you can show your emotions. This is the place where the logos reigns.
Therefore, the ability for empathy, sympathy and understanding, children work out in relationships not with teachers, but with each other. This usually happens at the age of nine. The world of nine-year-olds is painted in white and black colors. They believe that there is only good and evil in the world. The child begins to feel the nuances only by 9,5 – 10 years. And then constructions appear in his speech: “She is very shy, but kind”, “he is boring, but good.”
Read more:
- Empathy: How to Empathize Without Destroying Yourself
9 years – puberty
A teenager is faced with the task of making his emotional state open only at the right moments and only in front of the right people. And here, paradoxically, the same scheme works as in infancy. The pronoun “we” appears again, only now we are talking about a company of peers: “We think, feel and understand differently than a company from a neighboring yard.” And only then does the “I” stand out from this “we”.
The more subtle a person differentiates his own feelings, the better he understands the other. The larger the space of his own experiences, the more he admits that the other person also has it. Self-awareness is formed only if parents understand that their difficult, intolerable teenagers have the right to feelings, thoughts and emotions. The more adults tighten the screws, the more the child perceives the world as “white and black.”