Can you teach it?

In my line of work I teach people to do stuff. It’s pretty easy. It’s hard to get them to want to learn sometimes, but the actual teaching part is easy (once you’ve done it for a few years anyway). But it isn’t so easy when you have to teach something you instinctively know. When you have to try and explain something you’ve never had to understand. Empathy and responsibility for ones own actions. Understanding how the choices you make, impact upon others. It’s so easy to say “that’s not how you talk to someone” or “who did that effect?” but to know what those things mean, you actually need to have an understanding of emotion. You need to know about cause and effect. You need to know that the way things are said aren’t necessarily how they are heard. Little Miss is a bully. She knows it. Her teachers know it. But she doesn’t really know what bully means. She’s been called a bully – but doesn’t actually know what it is she does that causes her to be a bully. She has a disagreement with a girl at school – so calls her a fat bitch and slaps her. What’s wrong with that? She asks. “it hurts her” I respond. “no it doesn’t…I didn’t hit her hard” she exclaims. How do you explain to a child who has never been taught right from wrong – the power of her actions? We don’t know either?! But we are getting closer to finding out. Through trial and error mainly. But what we have learnt is we can’t use the situation she is currently in to show how people are affected. What does work is using our own situations, and modelling out loud our thoughts. So when we have a bad day – we have to say out loud. “George told me I didn’t get my work in on time, this made me feel really stupid. I suppose he only told me because it meant he then couldn’t get on with his own work” Or “Today I told Gemma to shut up. I shouldn’t have said it, she was just trying to be energetic. What other ways do you think I could have asked her to be quiet without making her feel stink?” Over time we’ve moved into. You just told me “nah”. That makes me feel sad…what other way could you have told me you don’t want to do your homework. That’s not as easy as it sounds – ‘sad’ also has to be explained when the only emotions you can identify are anger and happiness. Now these approaches aren’t foolproof. And more often than not we don’t feel as though we are making progress. However there have been some glimpses of ‘wow it’s really working”. Recently when talking to my other half on the way home, I mentioned my disgust in a known person leaving their partner while she was in the hospital with their new born baby. The situation was slightly more complex than that. However, what’s important here is the way Miss 12 responded. “Wow, I wonder how that made his mum feel.” I felt at overwhelming sense of pride. That, was empathy! This was the first indication to me that she really was learning to think about how actions have an effect. That people are hurt or lifted by the actions we take. It was two days later when she said to me. “you know that mum…how is she doing. Do you think she needs anything.” I shed a wee tear. I never told her that. I probably should have. She should probably also know that when we show respect for the way other people feel it can make them feel really good too.

More recently, she had been contemplating a situation where a young baby was born with no sight or hearing. It’s obviously played on her mind a lot – as she asked over the weekend just gone. “If I was blind and deaf, would you still have taken me.” I got a bit hit by this question. Was she questioning my love for her…or was she questioning my tolerance of the unique needs the baby she knows of has been born with. I couldn’t answer…and although it were only a few seconds a million thoughts ran through my head. My answer was no, but I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t know why my answer was no.

Thankfully, my other half responded in the moment of silence. “at the moment, we are not equipped to look after a child with needs that would require special attention” A 12 year old child who couldn’t see or hear wouldn’t be able to find their way around your bedroom for a start! You’d have to learn about lots of different things she said. How to look after me, how to talk to me, it would have a pretty big effect on your life. She talked about the things the young family would be needing to learn and the changes they’ be making in their own lives. She had been thinking about it. She had been thinking about others feelings and the effects a situation can have on a life. So the answer is yes, yes you can teach it. Yes, you can teach empathy.