Empathy: Your Child's Most Important Gift

I spent the latter part of my thirties searching for my purpose and the answer to the question, “why was I put on this earth?” At the time, I was recently divorced and trying to raise my two little kids as a single, working, divorced mother. I wasn’t feeling joy. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled. I was barely getting by. Something felt missing and something had to give. I started reading all the self-improvement books I could get my hands on, because feeling like I was wasn’t serving me.

I stumbled upon the Law of Attraction and it intrigued me. If we could create or manifest joy and abundance in on our lives, I wanted to know how! So I kept reading, and learning about gratitude and how to change my thoughts from lack to abundance, from fear to allowing, from negative to positive. While I was consumed with trying to figure this out for myself, I started thinking how important it would be if I could raise my kids with this in mind. Raise them so as not to impose limiting beliefs or boundaries about what their lives should be like or what they should do with their life. Raise them in a way so they would grow up knowing what their purpose was; knowing what they were put on this earth to do, feeling fulfilled and aligned with their true selves. Imagine growing up knowing this (or discovering this as a kid), instead of searching for the answer in your 30’s or 40’s?? As I seriously began to contemplate this, I realized the starting point for this could be summed up in one word: empathy. The impetus for making this shift in my parenting that would awaken their authentic and true selves was…empathy.

The definition of empathy from Webster’s dictionary is: “the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings.” Empathy is the most important ingredient when it comes to raising kids to be true to themselves and their purpose. In order to grow up with an awareness of their true desires, kids need to have an innate sense of how others feel. They need to be able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Being able to do this will allow them to live out their truth and come from a place of gratitude.

In terms of instilling this in my kids, I have a slight advantage in this department considering my day job. I am a school social worker. My kids almost didn’t have a choice in learning this character trait. I thought it extremely important for them to realize (at an early age) that the world didn’t revolve around them. Some people have a really tough go at it and life isn’t always easy or kind. And if someone is going through it, we should help if we can. We had lots of conversations about empathy, and what it must feel like for some families who don’t have enough food, or heat or a home. While conversation was a great start, we had to do something.

Community Organizations
My daughter wanted to have a hot chocolate stand and donate the money to our local animal shelter. So we took the money they made and brought it to the shelter. The shelter was very appreciative and put the kids in their newsletter and added a little blurb about their donation. At Christmas we donated food to our local food pantry. We all went shopping together and brought the groceries directly to the church.

Cleaning out clothes and toys
Another easy way to help out is to go through your kids’ clothes. Anything that is still in good shape that they have outgrown or no longer wear can be donated. You can do this with toys too. Again, the key is to have your kids be a part of this. If they are little, then do it together. The conversation can be about all the kids that will now have a winter coat or a toy to play with. This opens the door to talk about those who don’t have the basic necessities and how giving them these things can make a big difference.

These experiences of doing helped to foster an understanding that helping others results in feeling good because they felt good doing it. It wasn’t just a conversation about why they should help others and how it would make them feel. They experienced it. The result of experiencing rather than just talking about it was seeing empathy develop and grow in them. The hope, for me, was that it became automatic and innate. That it was instinctive and not deliberate. The more you weave these themes into your conversations and make them a part of your family, the more it shapes and becomes a part of who you are. You have to do what works for your family. You can find community organizations that are meaningful to you and your family and start there. They key is to make your children participants in the conversation and the experience.

Make empathy a practice in your life and your kids’ lives and watch them awaken and unfold into the compassionate and authentic souls they were meant to be.