A "Black Swan Event" is when the unexpected occurs, causing a huge mindshift and change in how the world works. People never imagined that Black Swans existed, until the discovery of the first Black Swan... (as per book "The Black Swan", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007, that sold over 3 million copies)

Is a perception change the next Black Swan Event? Consider that by changing perception we might change the world. Look at everyday things from different angles. Find beauty in the unexpected...
Change our thinking, change our actions, change our world!

See that all people are part of God's puzzle and have something to give. Black swans do exist. The ugly duckling was actually a swan who needed to discover himself and where he fitted and be who he was meant to be. To the last, the lost and the least, you are beautiful as you are.
May all who visit this page feel God's touch and experience His blessing...

Saturday 16 March 2013

Developing Social Skills of Empathy and Compassion

Empathy is to be able to put ourselves in another person's shoes, and to see the world from the viewpoint of that person. We may not agree with the way other people sees the world, but through empathy we have a glimmer of why they feel the way they do, and why they may react the way they do. Compassion is a feeling of wanting to make the world right for another, and to have sympathy for another's plight, though we may not do anything materially for the person. It is akin to neighbourly love.

Now consider the following fictional example: A two year old little girl falls down in play, thankfully unscathed yet perplexed at the tumble. A stranger rushes over when she sees her fall, and asks her if she is okay, and the toddler first stares blankly back, but in a moment smiles happily back at her then toddles off to her mum. Yet the stranger notices the mother does not react to her toddler's plight in the slightest, not once asking her child if she is okay. If the stranger were not there, would the baby toddler have had to cope with the fall on her own, perhaps as she has done time after time? What impact will continual experiences like these have on the psyche of a young fragile mind?

As another example, I saw a mentally challenged nine year old child shout "love ya!" to his support teacher, with a huge soppy smile on his face. 
Her reply? "That is not appropriate in school", she gruffly said and then hurried off, shoulders hunched, as if embarrassed.


What will this example do to the self esteem and emotional reactions of the young boy? He displayed loving affection and was abruptly cut off without explanation. I hope he keeps love for others alive within himself, perhaps learning to temper his words to be more socially appropriate.

Could his support teacher have answered instead, "That's nice of you to say. Please remember that in school we can't say we love each other, but you can tell me you like my teaching.", and perhaps she could then smile and walk away?

I wonder, how do we learn compassion for others? How do we learn to have empathy for others? Do we learn these important social skills when we ourselves are parented with love and sympathetic reaction as young children? What happens if we grow up in a continually unfriendly world, where our emotional needs are ignored due to vacant or uncaring parenting? And what additional scars occur if these experiences are then reinforced by parents who may display uncaring attitudes towards people in general, for example, making disparaging remarks in private about others in front of their children? Or when tentative childhood friendships, which might have healed some of these scars, are broken due to continually moving neighbourhoods or schools? Might such children grow cold inside, perhaps learning social skills as a form of mimicry, yet not feeling empathy and compassion within themselves? This is the conclusion I have come to by a few isolated observations, yet I am not sure if this is borne out by research.

I do know that nature as well as nurture have been proposed as a reason for behaviour patterns forming. Yet, I wonder, is nurture more important than nature in creating caring individuals? And, if so, could we turn society around by providing more caring, sympathetic environments for our children, for example, in schools?

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