Respecting and Accepting Emotional Expressions

This is Choua, the author of our final entry on chapter 2.
She is holding her little brother here, and said, "My
mom took the picture and said that he was crying, so I
held him to make him stop. He smiled for the camera, though."

In Chapter 2 of The Roots of Empathy, Gordon speaks out about the importance of empathy and how teaching a child to understand empathy may help prevent bullying.  The Roots of Empathy classroom utilized the mother and her baby through introducing them to the younger children.  The teacher found that the children responded to baby Jenna when she was struggling with trying to turn over, and the students understood that Jenna was feeling frustrated.  Gordon believes that, “…it is more critical than ever that we give our children the tools to express their emotions in a safe and healthy way and that we, as adults, give our children the strongest sense of their right to be heard and understood” (p. 38). 

While reading the book, I agreed with Gordon’s opinion that accepting and understanding a child’s feelings can help them learn to respect their classmates’ feelings also.  In my opinion, if an adult can acknowledge one child’s feelings and tell them that they have a right to feel the way that they do, it may develop that one child’s mind to learn to accept that everyone has the right to express their emotions.  I really do respect Gordon’s words, which is why the other teachers at my workplace and I use the words, “I know you’re feeling mad, and it’s all right to be mad sometimes” when one of the preschoolers is upset.  Just by using those words, we were able to show a 4-year-old boy that he does have a voice and his feelings are important to us.  Those words can be so powerful, yet they are rarely ever used by parents.  It may seem easier for the parents to just tell their child, “Stop being a brat,” rather than just acknowledging their feelings by saying to them, “I know you’re mad, and it’s okay to be mad sometimes.” Just those eleven words alone could open the gates of empathy in a child’s mind.
           

Most of the things that Gordon expressed in her book, such as when a baby is crying and a person warns the parents, “He’s just being spoiled, leave him to cry” (p, 40), made me very sad that someone could just dismiss a baby’s cry as insignificant, when that is the only way he can communicate that something is wrong.  Teaching children to empathize with others can only benefit them, not worsen them.  I believe that it’s very sad when a parent dismisses a boy’s fears and feelings by telling him, “Boys don’t cry.”  It can teach a boy that it’s not acceptable for him to feel scared or to cry, thereby stifling his feelings and creating more conflict in the future.  If we can help one child understand the concept of empathy, then we can definitely stop the bullying that is happening in our school yards.

The reading definitely made me think of Erikson’s stage, Shame vs. Doubt.  If the parents tell the child such things as, “You’re a big boy/girl now.  There’s no need to cry,” a child may feel ashamed when they want to cry, so they try to hold it in.  Adults may have a hard time believing that what they say to a child can affect the child's life, but it really can.  An example of this was given by one of my professors.  As a part of lecture about the effects of an adult’s words on a child, she told us that when she was seven she had put her hair up in a ponytail.  When her mother saw it, she had told my professor that the top of her head looked like an onion. To this day, my professor still has bangs to cover her forehead.  Those words, though spoken lightly, had really affected her.  Therefore I believe that adults should be very careful about what they say to a child, accept that sometimes a child just needs to be heard, and that it’s okay for them cry sometimes.