What Happened to Empathy?

Empathy literally translates as in feeling, is the capability to share another’s emotions and feelings. When a baby starts crying in a nursery, what do the other children do?  They do what is known as empathy crying, they start crying.  

Children can lose the ability to empathize with others for several reasons: 

1. If a child cries and if their needs are met, they realize that someone is there for them. This experience over time, gives them the capacity to express empathy to others. If a child’s needs aren’t met, they can become anxious and begin to think only of themselves and may develop undesirable traits. When their emotional needs are unmet, how can they meet someone else’s emotional needs? 

2. Children model what they see. If children observe their parents lack of showing empathy to others, how can they develop the ability to show empathy? By modeling empathic behavior and pointing out situations that call for empathy you can generate empathetic responses in your children. For example, if you are driving down a lonely highway and just passed a car with its hood up and shortly thereafter notice someone walking down the road with a gas can in their hand, what you do tells your child a lot about your attitude regarding empathy. Do you stop and help them or just continue onto your destination without giving any thought to helping?  What will your child remember from your actions?

3. When you do something for someone, tell your children about it and explain to them why you did it and how it made you feel. These are excellent opportunities to ask your child if what you did made a difference.  Ask them “Do you think what I did will be returned to me as an empathetic gesture in the future by someone else?”

4. Children understand what it’s like to be upset, but what about anger, frustration, disappointment, excitement and other emotions? When they experience these emotions, they don’t always have the words to describe their feelings. If parents help children to understand their feelings, the children will be able to understand their emotions as well as others’ emotions. Emotions will be discussed in upcoming Blogs.

The empathy inherent in our children when they are born can either disappear if not nurtured, or if nurtured, can be encouraged to grow. Which do you choose to do for your children?

Psalms 103:13 says, “As the father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” (NIV) The Lord has compassion/empathy/pity on us. If we remember the empathy God has shown us, it will be easier to show empathy to others.

James 1:27 states, “The religion which is holy andfree from evil in the eyes of our God and Father is this: to take care of children who have no fathers and of widows who are in trouble, and to keep oneself untouched by the world.” (Bible in Basic English) 

20% of the population in the United States are divorced and 1/3 of those over the age of 15 are single. Some of those single people have children but have never been married. As a result, we have an obligation to have empathy on them.

Churches have failed the fatherless and widows of today’s world. Children orphaned by divorce are suffering. In the movie “UP” (Disney/Pixar) it shows the need of a child needing male attention. 

Unfortunately our churches are geared towards married couples, thus, a lot of the singles and single parents feel like they don’t belong. If a single person spends time in a married couple’s home they might cause one of the spouses to fall into sin thus being touched by the world.

This mind-set is left over from the mid 19^th century when they use to believe such things as; if you listened to musical instruments you would go to hell, or if you consumed alcoholic beverages that you were a sinner thus you were touched by this world.  Even in today’s modern society, some churches think that contemporary music is “worldly”.

Does your child have a friend from a divorced family? What can you do together to show empathy to that child? If your child doesn’t have a friend from a divorced family, you won’t have to look too far to find one. I also challenge you to help the child’s mother with any emotional support she may need. When she doesn’t know what to do with her child, she typically has no one to talk to, so be there for her. 

Not only will GOD bless you for taking care of His widows and fatherless., but you can become your child’s hero too.