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Thursday, September 28, 2023 4:04:10 PM
Kids Are Not Born Selfish. Here's How To Keep Them That Way.
Yep, that pretty well sums him up. As we all know, we are al products of our early environment. Then we mature differently. That also depends to different extents on the different environments we each inhabit. Trump at least accepts he has not matured much since first grade.
Experts share their advice for parents who want to raise altruistic, empathetic children.
By Caroline Bologna
Jul 28, 2020, 06:01 PM EDT
Thanasis Zovoilis via Getty Images
Our kids have had an exceptionally bad hand dealt to them the past few months. They’ve been unwittingly separated from their entire social structure, their classrooms and all sense of normalcy. And parents have certainly struggled (to put it mildly) to keep up. So how can parents use this time at home ? whatever that looks like ? to teach their children other important life skills and foster their emotional intelligence? Enter EQ Not IQ, a package from HuffPost Parenting.
Many believe that humans are inherently selfish ..
https://iep.utm.edu/psychego/#:~:text=Psychological%20egoism%20is%20the%20thesis,can%20have%20ultimately%20altruistic%20motives. , but recent psychological research suggests this is not necessarily the case ..
https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2020/07/23/children-show-altruism-at-a-young-age/ .
University of Michigan researcher Felix Warneken has spent 17 years studying toddlers, and he’s learned that kids display altruistic behaviors from a very young age.
“What we’ve found is kids have a spontaneous biologically based tendency to care about others,” he told HuffPost. “They help early on, and they do that spontaneously without being asked, offered a reward or observed by their parents. This makes us believe that human nature is not purely selfish, but we’re equipped with some altruistic inclinations that can be elicited.”
Still, adults play a role in guiding kids as they grow older and learn to balance their sense of altruism and personal interests. So how can parents and caregivers support these natural tendencies and raise altruistic children? Read on for 12 expert-backed tips.
Talk about feelings.
“‘Altruism,’ defined as care and devotion to the service of others, starts with a basis of ‘empathy,’ or the ability to understand the feelings of another,” Aila Malik, a “kindness activist” and author, told HuffPost.
To help kids develop empathy, parents should emphasize emotional intelligence .. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ways-raise-emotionally-intelligent-kids_l_5f1064e7c5b619afc3fe45c1 . Teach children to identify their feelings and process them. Create space for everyone in your family to feel comfortable expressing and discussing feelings in everyday life. Make EQ as much of a priority .. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/teach-kids-emotional-intelligence-eq_l_5f04b938c5b63a72c339bcd2 .. as IQ from an early age.
“Debrief ‘big feelings’ so that they can remember what it feels like to be stretched and stressed,” advised Malik. “Talking about the feelings can sometimes help them to identify those moments in other people.”
Share different perspectives.
As kids develop emotional intelligence, they become better at putting themselves in others’ shoes and understanding other experiences and perspectives. Parents can promote this skill through meaningful conversations.
“At any age, having a conversation about a real-life social conflict is one of the best ways to teach empathy and selflessness,” explained clinical psychologist and author Jenny Yip. “Helping your child process that conflict will allow them to be able to see more than one side of the story. If your child saw a classmate being teased, help your child understand how that classmate felt by talking about it.”
“You have to be able to model the ability to think outside of yourself
and think about the welfare of others.”
- Clinical psychologist and author Jenny Yip
She added, “Ask your child questions: ‘How would you feel if that was you?’ When I’m working with my own kids, I always ask: ‘What can you do to help your brother feel better?’”
Keep it age-appropriate.
Keep these conversations developmentally appropriate and don’t fret too much if your children don’t automatically want to let others play with their toys.
“For preschool-aged and kindergarten-aged children, the concept of being separate from others is just developing and the emphasis could simply be sharing and being fair,” said neuropsychologist and author Amy Serin. “Conversations around simple daily life ? like taking a lot from a bowl of food at the dinner table when there are three more people who might want it ? can go a long way into developing awareness of other people’s needs and wants without giving everything up that the child wants.”
Model what you want to see.
[...]
Acknowledge a balance.
Serin emphasized that there’s a middle ground between pure selfishness and pure selflessness.
“Parents should not demand that their children give up everything for others because that could lead to co-dependent behaviors in adulthood such as denying that you have needs and giving up too much for someone else,” she said.
“In other words, taking turns and allowing everyone to have a fair amount of time on a swing would be an example of that healthy balance,” she added. “There is a balance of meeting your own needs and being kind and generous towards others as children mature into adulthood.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-raise-unselfish-altruistic-kids_l_5f1f3ae6c5b69fd4731053b5
In reading that the first bit about talking about emotions i couldn't help but think, huh, none of that was encouraged in our family. My father was one who didn't express his feelings, as probably more fathers were in those days. Also, his "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" early became worse than hearing a hungry mosquito close at hand.
The 'put yourself into others shoes', to me seems the best and easiest part of it all.
Yep, that pretty well sums him up. As we all know, we are al products of our early environment. Then we mature differently. That also depends to different extents on the different environments we each inhabit. Trump at least accepts he has not matured much since first grade.
Experts share their advice for parents who want to raise altruistic, empathetic children.
By Caroline Bologna
Jul 28, 2020, 06:01 PM EDT
Thanasis Zovoilis via Getty Images
Our kids have had an exceptionally bad hand dealt to them the past few months. They’ve been unwittingly separated from their entire social structure, their classrooms and all sense of normalcy. And parents have certainly struggled (to put it mildly) to keep up. So how can parents use this time at home ? whatever that looks like ? to teach their children other important life skills and foster their emotional intelligence? Enter EQ Not IQ, a package from HuffPost Parenting.
Many believe that humans are inherently selfish ..
https://iep.utm.edu/psychego/#:~:text=Psychological%20egoism%20is%20the%20thesis,can%20have%20ultimately%20altruistic%20motives. , but recent psychological research suggests this is not necessarily the case ..
https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2020/07/23/children-show-altruism-at-a-young-age/ .
University of Michigan researcher Felix Warneken has spent 17 years studying toddlers, and he’s learned that kids display altruistic behaviors from a very young age.
“What we’ve found is kids have a spontaneous biologically based tendency to care about others,” he told HuffPost. “They help early on, and they do that spontaneously without being asked, offered a reward or observed by their parents. This makes us believe that human nature is not purely selfish, but we’re equipped with some altruistic inclinations that can be elicited.”
Still, adults play a role in guiding kids as they grow older and learn to balance their sense of altruism and personal interests. So how can parents and caregivers support these natural tendencies and raise altruistic children? Read on for 12 expert-backed tips.
Talk about feelings.
“‘Altruism,’ defined as care and devotion to the service of others, starts with a basis of ‘empathy,’ or the ability to understand the feelings of another,” Aila Malik, a “kindness activist” and author, told HuffPost.
To help kids develop empathy, parents should emphasize emotional intelligence .. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ways-raise-emotionally-intelligent-kids_l_5f1064e7c5b619afc3fe45c1 . Teach children to identify their feelings and process them. Create space for everyone in your family to feel comfortable expressing and discussing feelings in everyday life. Make EQ as much of a priority .. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/teach-kids-emotional-intelligence-eq_l_5f04b938c5b63a72c339bcd2 .. as IQ from an early age.
“Debrief ‘big feelings’ so that they can remember what it feels like to be stretched and stressed,” advised Malik. “Talking about the feelings can sometimes help them to identify those moments in other people.”
Share different perspectives.
As kids develop emotional intelligence, they become better at putting themselves in others’ shoes and understanding other experiences and perspectives. Parents can promote this skill through meaningful conversations.
“At any age, having a conversation about a real-life social conflict is one of the best ways to teach empathy and selflessness,” explained clinical psychologist and author Jenny Yip. “Helping your child process that conflict will allow them to be able to see more than one side of the story. If your child saw a classmate being teased, help your child understand how that classmate felt by talking about it.”
“You have to be able to model the ability to think outside of yourself
and think about the welfare of others.”
- Clinical psychologist and author Jenny Yip
She added, “Ask your child questions: ‘How would you feel if that was you?’ When I’m working with my own kids, I always ask: ‘What can you do to help your brother feel better?’”
Keep it age-appropriate.
Keep these conversations developmentally appropriate and don’t fret too much if your children don’t automatically want to let others play with their toys.
“For preschool-aged and kindergarten-aged children, the concept of being separate from others is just developing and the emphasis could simply be sharing and being fair,” said neuropsychologist and author Amy Serin. “Conversations around simple daily life ? like taking a lot from a bowl of food at the dinner table when there are three more people who might want it ? can go a long way into developing awareness of other people’s needs and wants without giving everything up that the child wants.”
Model what you want to see.
[...]
Acknowledge a balance.
Serin emphasized that there’s a middle ground between pure selfishness and pure selflessness.
“Parents should not demand that their children give up everything for others because that could lead to co-dependent behaviors in adulthood such as denying that you have needs and giving up too much for someone else,” she said.
“In other words, taking turns and allowing everyone to have a fair amount of time on a swing would be an example of that healthy balance,” she added. “There is a balance of meeting your own needs and being kind and generous towards others as children mature into adulthood.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-raise-unselfish-altruistic-kids_l_5f1f3ae6c5b69fd4731053b5
In reading that the first bit about talking about emotions i couldn't help but think, huh, none of that was encouraged in our family. My father was one who didn't express his feelings, as probably more fathers were in those days. Also, his "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" early became worse than hearing a hungry mosquito close at hand.
The 'put yourself into others shoes', to me seems the best and easiest part of it all.
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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