This summer, our family flew to Jamaica for vacation. As we drove away from the resorts and the blue waters up into the mountains, I squeezed the seat ’til my hands burned, felt the crack in my chest, and tiny beads of sweat swam on my forehead. I was having an anxiety attack. The last time my husband and I were in Jamaica, driving this serpentine road, dodging gullies and potholes the size of kiddie pools, I had pledged not to return, but this trip up the mountain was not for me. It was for our children—for them to see where their father and I grew up and connect them with the Jamaican part of their culture.
A car overtook us on the right, swooped in front of us, barely escaping the oncoming car going at a fast and furious speed. “What do cops do in Jamaica if everyone is speeding?” my daughter asked from the front seat. My husband chuckled but by then, panic had already zapped my body, making me hot and my mouth dry. I gasped and gulped out loud. My 18-year-old reached back and rubbed my knee. My 15-year-old gave me her phone and told me to play a game, and my 13-year-old gave me his recorder. My kids were showing compassion—a trait the world needs now more than ever. But it doesn’t come naturally to every child. Here are 3 ways to teach your children to be compassionate.
1. Acknowledge little people’s big feelings.
To avoid the regular “I’m fine” or “I’m sad” responses, I introduced my children to feelings wheels when they were young. Common words used to express our emotions, such as sad, happy, and angry, are often the scapegoats for other, deeper emotions that our children might not know the name for. Take, for example, if they say they feel bad. It might be because they are bored, busy, tired, or stressed. Each of those words can be dissected even further to mean pressured, overwhelmed, or unfocused. How to teach compassion to a child begins when we give them tools to better understand and express their emotions. iMOM’s feelings wheel is free to print or you can bookmark the page to pull it up quickly on your phone.
2. Expose them to suffering.
I’ve heard it said that compassion means “to suffer with.” Four years ago, when Hurricane Michael ripped through bricks and blew entire buildings off their foundations, our church became a distribution center. Every day, our family drove over the bridge to hand out food, water, diapers, and tarps to those who had lost almost everything. We drove home in heavy silence, weighed down by the suffering of others. It seemed too heavy a burden to carry, and I wondered about the impact it was having on them, on our family.
Sometimes we shield our children from suffering because we don’t want to cause them pain. However, suffering is part of our human experience and our children are not immune to suffering. How we teach compassion to a child is by allowing them to see, from our point of view, the full range of our human emotions. Start with not just sharing about the great part of your day, but what also caused you pain or discomfort.
3. Express empathy.
How to teach compassion to a child starts by expressing empathy for them. My sister gifted my son a pair of Crocs several years ago. He wore the Crocs until they faded from black to gray and the grip on the sole disappeared. He cried when it was time to toss them out. “It’s just a pair of shoes,” I thought. But then I remembered something I heard at a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group when he was about seven months old. “Even babies experience stress. When you take a cookie from a toddler, you have caused them stress.” As adults, we know that stress can be so intense it sometimes causes physical pain.
At that moment, I realized that to my son, this wasn’t just a pair of Crocs. It was his favorite pair of shoes and losing them was causing him pain. Acknowledging his pain might have made it easier for him to let go since empathy is the gateway to compassion.
How have you seen your kids show compassion?
This article was written by Kadine Christie.
