How to Teach Empathy to Your High School Graduate
If May and June of 2020 have taught society anything, empathy is needed skill. That’s right; empathy is a skill.
Your child doesn’t naturally see things from another’s perspective. By nature, humans are pretty self-centered. Each person tends to place their own agenda before others. Each person tends to see life from only their point of view.
Talking loudly rather than listening is often the default. Empathy, however, cannot occur if one shuts out all other viewpoints that conflict with their own. Without true listening, empathy cannot occur.
As your child leaves the coup, you may find yourself frustrated with his selfish outlook. Though popular culture even preaches the merits embracing differences, somehow this concept gets lost in translation.
How can you help your freshman develop empathy? Implement these 3 practices into your home life.
Set the example.
Your high school graduate won’t likely see the need for empathy if he sees little empathy from you. When you interact with family members, coworkers, or others, consider how your words model empathy.
In the world where the court of public opinion is largely on social media, your words, posts, and comments are public. Your child likely sees these posts. How you interact with your online community sets a sort of precedence whether intentionally or unintentionally.
When you interact with frustrating relatives or coworkers over the phone or in person, your words or comments are noted. Your child hears how you describe the agitating people you don’t understand. Subconsciously, your high school grad imitates this behavior.
So what specific actions can you take to model empathy? Below are some suggestions:
Refuse to make assumptions about people. In the privacy of your home, you can tend to make harsh statements or pronounce judgment calls on people. Instead of jumping to conclusions based on appearance or hearsay, allow facts rather than assumptions to base your conclusions.
Choose to speak kindly. Extend grace like you would like grace to be extended to you. If a coworker makes work difficult for you, choose to assume the best until proven wrong.
Treat others the same to their face as you do behind their backs. Your high school grad can easily detect inconsistencies. If you speak kindly to someone’s face, speak kindly about them in private too.
Listen to understand. Even when conversing with your high school grad, you can easily divide your attention or be quick to insert advice. This reveals that you were probably not fully engaged in the conversation.
Your high school grad is still learning what an adult looks like, and you are his key role model. Do your best to set a good example of empathy!
Encourage a broadening of friend circles.
Empathy is a skill that can easily atrophy if it is not exercised. If your child only interacts with the same people over and over, his empathy skills may dwindle. After all, how can your child develop empathy if he only interacts with people who look, talk, and think like him?
In the time I taught high school students, I once had a discussion with a few upperclassmen about their friendships. As we talked, I soon became aware that these students interacted with almost no individuals who didn’t have all of the same life experiences as them. All of their friends looked, talked, and grew up like them.
While this situation is probably fairly normal, it saddened me. Why? These students were missing out.
If your child rarely interacts with anyone who challenges him or introduces him to different ideas, he can easily think that his frame of reference is the only one. In a sense, your child can easily become narrow-minded and unteachable.
One of the most valuable parts of college is the diversity of friendships. Interacting with people who see life differently is healthy for your high school graduate. These interactions push him to think on a deeper level about life—his beliefs, morals, etc.
Push your child to interact with and befriend people who look, talk, and think differently than him. While your first instinct may be to protect your child from bad influences, your child will likely have his eyes opened to a different way of thinking (rather than becoming disillusioned during college).
Intentionally plan to push your family out of the comfort zone.
Life is busy, especially when you have kids. You may feel like you never have a spare moment to yourself. You’re always transporting someone here or running an errand there. As a result, it can be easy to live life in the same pattern over and over.
What I’m encouraging you to do is not normal (as far as I’m aware) but is definitely needed: get your family out of the comfort zone. What do I mean? Go places you wouldn’t normally go. Choose to interact with people with which you would not normally talk. Eat at restaurants that introduce you to different cultures.
Pushing your family out of the comfort zone helps you to meet and connect with people who broaden your perspective, giving you a greater ability to empathize.
Sharing opinions is much easier than listening to understand. As your child heads to a diverse campus, you can help him ease into this reality and have less of a culture shock by implementing these three practices this summer!
