Instilling compassion in children

KD: How do we go about raising ethical and compassionate kids?
BC: Parenting is neither efficient or easy. For instance if your child lies, the easy way to deal with it is to punish him instead of gaining and giving him insight into his actions and what effect they had on someone else.

Kids can't study ethics and compassion. It's not as simple as character studies, such as some U.S. schools are offering, where you examine honesty one day and generosity the next. It just doesn't work that way. Teaching your kids to be compassionate and think critically comes from taking advantage of opportunities in everyday life; it's a way of living each day. You also need to walk the talk and guide them to be people who can make their own choices. We need to be behind our kids all the way, offering our love and support and affirming that they can do it. We also need to hold them accountable for what they do and give them ways to solve their problems that keep their dignity intact, which punishing doesn't accomplish.

When dealing with an ethical dilemma, I tell parents that how you deal with the situation depends on the content, circumstance and particularly the intent. You need to assess these three things because they all impact the act in question and what needs to be done. For example, if your daughter and her friend devise a game that only involves two players, was their intent to play together or to exclude another child, which is wrong and hurtful? The good thing is that it is never too late to start teaching kids to be compassionate.

KD: What are some of the pitfalls that parents unwittingly fall into that are preventing us from instilling the values of compassion and empathy in our kids?
BC: We rescue them, which means we don't give them choices and solutions for dealing with a dilemma and let them know that we trust they will handle it. We rush it and fix things for them or place the blame on someone else.

We also over reward our kids. For instance, we will offer rewards for the kid or class who can raise the most money for the tsunami so they are engaged in activities for the reward, and lose the experience of caring for others and feeling that they have the capacity to be compassionate.

Don't make situations in which they can learn about compassion a bargain. For example, when you want your child to share his toys with another child, explain that doing so will be fun for both children, as opposed to emphasizing what he will gain from it, such as that the other child will in turn share her toys.

KD: We have moved from a society in which parents were keen (perhaps too eager) to side with school officials and other authority figures when their kids were in an ethical dilemma, to a stance where we now defend them blindly and say, "it's the teacher's, school's or other kids' fault." Why is this happening, and how can we correct it?
BC: We have created, and live in, a culture of blame. We always look for someone to blame when things go wrong, which means we, as parents and our kids, are never accountable for our actions. This culture has grown out of two mindsets: we punish our kids, which doesn't deal with the issue of owning an action or the values that we have passed on to our kids; or we rescue them, by solving their problems for them or saying that it isn't their problem but someone else's. Neither of these approaches is helpful and what we need to do to change it is to hold ourselves, and our kids, responsible for the things that we do and say.

What is the biggest ethical dilemma that kids are facing today?
BC: Lying, cheating and stealing, which are all acts of deception. I emphasize in my book that when you deceive someone, you steal something from them, whether it is an item or their trust or dignity. Kids need to know this. Unfortunately, we live in a competitive culture that reinforces that it's OK to do things that help you overcome the obstacles to your success, be it in sports or on a test. In this regard, we need to take stock as a culture and look at what we are doing and the messages we are sending our children.

---

Coloroso is currently working on two writing projects, one is a short book tentatively title Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide and Why It Matters, and the other is a children's book that she is writing with her youngest child, Joseph, a graphic artist who will also do the illustrations. Coloroso's latest book, Just Because It's Not Wrong Doesn't Make It Right is currently available in Canadian Bookstores.