Learning Right from Wrong: Empathy
INTRODUCTION
Several weeks ago Sue and I received a request from Lima Allen Council on Community Affairs to conduct a session for parents on helping children learn right from wrong. These are parents who, for one reason or another, have demonstrated a need to improve their parenting skills so that their children do not get caught up in the problems our society faces. We spent an hour with several parents talking about this issue.
The fact is that today’s society faces a crisis regarding our children. Almost every day we hear of shocking tragedies about kids, and many people are worried. If you were asked to list your concerns about kids, many of you would include violence. Did you know that American kids are 10 times more likely to commit murder than the same- age kids across the border in Canada? Cruelty among kids is increasing. Estimates show that over 150,000 children each day miss school for fear of being picked on by their peers. Other behaviors we are concerned about include: cheating, disrespect, vulgarity, and substance abuse.
Somehow, many parents have lost their moral bearings. And when parents no longer know right from wrong, it’s unlikely that children will learn which way to go. Not long ago, a woman was lamenting her teenage son’s behavior (drugs, alcohol, breaking the law). “We thought we did everything possible to get him on the right track. But obviously we failed somewhere.” All parents want their children to make good decisions about their values and their behavior and to develop a sense of right and wrong. What we wanted to tell this mother was that she needs to lead by example, by going to the right places and by doing the right things. And the place she needs to start is in Sunday school and church herself.
We live in what one author calls “a toxic world,” a world unfriendly to moral living. TV programs make fun of rules and moral behavior. Kids ridicule each other for doing the right thing. There is only one way to set our moral compass so we go in the right direction. That is to seek God’s way. As we told those parents, the Bible says, Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Prov. 22:6.Parents have an awesome responsibility to nurture their children’s moral character.
Since we usually focus on family issues in May, we want to spend three Sundays on how to help kids grow solid characters and learn right from wrong. We will deal with three virtues that form the foundation for understanding right and wrong: empathy, conscience, and self-control. We need to understand that a healthy sense of right and wrong grows from the inside. You can’t punish the wrong out of a child; you need to build character from within.
SOURCE OF RIGHT & WRONG
When you were born, you didn’t come with a pre-programmed set of instructions about right and wrong. Someone helped you to learn. If you were fortunate, it was your parents. You might ask where your parents got their knowledge of right and wrong and where their parents got it. Eventually, we need to acknowledge that the standard for right and wrong comes from one source - the Bible. It serves as our code for right living. Happy are the parents who have internalized that moral code and are passing it on to their children. You know, and so do we, that not all parents are living according to God’s standards, nor are they teaching their children what is right and wrong.
In a nationwide survey of parents, George Barna found disappointing results. (1) Parents were equally divided on whether to tell their children that the Bible teaches moral absolutes that must always be obeyed or that there are no moral absolutes and children just need to make good choices. (2) One of the most startling observations, Barna said, was how few born-again parents indicated that one of the most important concepts parents needed to help their children grasp was salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. “Only 3 out of 10 born-again parents included salvation of their child in the list of critical parental emphases,” he said. (3) Barna says, “For years we have reported research findings showing that born-again adults think and behave very much like everyone else. It often seems that their faith makes very little difference. This new study helps explain why that is: believers do not train their children to think or act any differently. When our kids are exposed to the same influences and are generally not guided to interpret their circumstances and opportunities in light of biblical principles, it is no wonder that they grow up to be just as involved in gambling, adultery, divorce, cohabitation, excessive drinking and other unbiblical behaviors as everyone else. What we build into a child’s life prior to the age of 13 represents the moral and spiritual foundation that directs their choices for the remainder of their life.”
Children begin to build the foundation for right and wrong earlier than most people think. Researchers tell us that babies 6 months old are already beginning to develop the foundation for learning right and wrong. When babies cry and parents take care of them, they begin to learn they can depend on people. This builds a foundation of trust. Think about the importance of trusting others. If you had no trust in anyone, what would that do for your sense of right and wrong?
Trust at that early age is only the first stage, of course. The mistake that parents often make is waiting until their children are six or seven years old to pay attention to moral training. I don’t know how many parents have told us that they have a child 7, 8, or 9 years old and they want him/her to start Sunday school. Parents who wait that long only increase the potential for negative habits and make it harder for their children to change later on. Recently, a mother complaining about her two teenage children. We have known them for years. They were nice kids and the mother kept saying, “I know we all need to be in church.” Now her son is running with the wrong gang and getting into trouble. And the daughter is pregnant. A lot of kids are morally handicapped because they have not learned how to live God’s way. The sooner parents begin to cultivate their child’s understanding of right and wrong, the better are the chances the child will develop a firm foundation for a solid character and moral behavior.
EMPATHY
I said there are three foundational virtues that kids need to develop in order to learn right and wrong. The one we’ll focus on today is empathy - the ability to understand and feel for another person’s concerns.
Maybe this story will help make clear what I’m talking about. It happened in Pennsylvania several years ago.
On a snowy day 9-year-old Cameron was playing Nintendo with Jessica (7). Cameron’s parents stopped the game because the kids had made a mess and the two had argued. Cameron went home angry. He took a rifle from his family gun cabinet, went back and shot Jessica, and hid the cartridge. As Jessica’s mother tried to save her daughter, Cameron went back to paying Nintendo. Later he told the other kids who were crying over Jessica’s death, “If you don’t think about it you won’t be sad.”
Cameron was a boy with no ability to feel what other people felt. And because he couldn’t feel for another person’s concerns, he could not tell the right way to treat people from the wrong way. He was not able to put himself in someone else’s shoes, as we sometimes say.
THE BIBLE
In most translations of the Bible you won’t find the word empathy, but in a sense it is what the whole Gospel is about. Why do you think God sent his Son to this earth? God could have just looked at our struggles from heaven, shaking his head, and feeling sorry for us. He could have told us exactly what to do, laying down the law, giving us no choice. Instead, the Son of God chose to become one of us. Phil 2:7 says he was “born in human likeness and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.”
God wants his followers to demonstrate that same concern and understanding for others. In Luke 6:31, Jesus said “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” That is hard to do if you can’t imagine what it must be like in another person’s shoes.
Paul wrote that we should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. That is empathy. It’s the powerful emotion that stops violent and cruel behavior and urges us to treat others kindly, because people who love and care for others do not want to hurt them. (Rom. 12:15)
Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured." That is empathy. Empathy says; “I have imagined what it must be like in that man’s shoes, and what I’d want someone to do for me if I were in that condition, I will do now for that person.”
CHILDREN
Parents need to help nurture empathy in a child. I’d like to suggest a few ways to do that.
1. Make yourselves emotionally available to your children. Studies show that parents who are actively involved in their kids’ lives are best at developing empathy. One study found that today’s mothers spend an average of 11 – 13 minutes a day in quality interaction time with their children on weekdays and 30 minutes on weekends. Fathers only had 8 and 14 minutes. When parents are unavailable, opportunities for learning empathy are lost.
2. Keep an eye on what your kids are watching, listening to, and playing with. Kids today are bombarded with TV, movies, and video games that emphasize violence, nastiness, and cruelty. Those things affect kids because kids tend to imitate what they see. Research shows that viewing violence makes children more aggressive, more restless, more fearful, and less creative. Viewing violence can desensitize kids to empathy because they will less likely take action on behalf of victims when violence occurs. And grandparents, avoid buying toys that represent violence. They may be fake and they may look cute, but if they represent ways to cut others down rather than build them up, they won’t lead to the development of empathy.
3. Provide opportunities for your children to experience different perspectives so they can better understand what life is like for others. For example, take your child to visit nursing homes, hospitals, soup kitchens. The more your child experiences different perspectives, the more likely she will be able to empathize with others whose needs and views differ from hers. I have always been grateful that my parents did that. I remember when our family visited an elderly woman who was nearly deaf and I can still picture my father speaking to her through a rubber tube. I remember visiting an old aunt who spoke German most of the time and my dad would talk to her in German. We went to nursing homes, sometimes as a family, and later on as a youth group to sing or visit people we knew. All of these experiences helped me to see how others lived and what their needs were. I’m glad that our youth here have offered to serve in soup kitchens and want to go to work camp.
4. Live by example so your child regularly sees you show concern for other people’s hurts and needs. It may seem easy to turn a blind eye to the needs of others. When we visited the Dominican Republic several weeks ago, sometimes beggars came up to the car wanting help. When we were riding with our denominational worker there and this happened, he would reach into the glove compartment for a little packet of crackers to hand to them. I’m sure their example goes a long ways in helping their two children understand empathy for the needs of others. Parents should keep in mind that the way they teach their children empathy could come back to them in later years. During the past several weeks my brothers and sister have been trying to figure out what is best for my parents. They are at a stage in life where they can’t take care of themselves anymore and they needed to be persuaded to move to an assisted living arrangement. Trying to be empathetic, we searched for a facility that would allow them to live comfortably with assistance.
5. It is not too late for any of us, adults or children, to learn the meaning of empathy. When I was teaching at Bluffton College, one exercise I sometimes used to teach empathy was to have some students stand on chairs, and others come to them to ask permission to do something, just to remind them again what it is like to stand in the shoes of children. Big people don’t always understand little people.
In Psalm 103:14, David writes, “For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.” It is comforting to know that God understands our circumstances. May his empathy serve as a pattern for our own as we try to nurture it in ourselves and others.
-Co-Pastor, Wes Richard
Resources: Michele Borba. Building Moral Intelligence: the seven essential virtues that teach kids to do the right thing. Jossey-Bass. 2001.
George Barna. Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions: Why Children Should Be Your Church’s #1 Priority. Regal Books, 2003.
