An Emergency Response: Empathy for all others in these times

An Emergency Response:  Empathy for all others in these times

Research suggests that most humans have an innate capacity to step into another person’s shoes and respond to their emotions.  The real question, says child psychologist Richard Weissbourd, is not whether kids are kind but to whom.  “Almost all kids are kind to somebody and have empathy for somebody,” says Weissbourd. “The real work is getting them to be kind and empathetic to people outside their immediate circle of concern,” including people of various races, nationalities, ages and abilities.  “Kids develop a clear and sturdy sense of justice as they take the perspective of people who are different from them.”

Whenever possible, ask your child to pause and consider a child alone on the playground, a new student, an elderly person in the neighborhood, a homeless person on the sidewalk.  Ask them “How do you think she feels right now?” or “What do you think he needs?”  

Excerpts from a new poem by children’s author, Sherman Alexie, inspires adults to help expand our children’s circle of concern:

                  HYMN

Why do we measure people’s capacity

to love by how well they love their progeny?

That kind of love is easy.  Encoded.

Any lion cub can be devoted

to its cubs.  Any insect, be it prey

or predator, worships its own DNA.

Like the wolf, bear, and bees,

we humans are programmed to love what we conceive….

But I’m not going to send you a card

for being a decent parent.  It ain’t that hard

to love somebody who resembles you.

If you want an ode then join the endless queue

of people who are good to their next of kin--

who somehow love people with the same chin

and skin and religion and accent and eyes.

So you love your sibling?  Big … surprise.

But how much do you love the strange and stranger?

Hey, Caveman, do you see only danger

when you peer into the night? Are you afraid

of the country that exists outside of your cave?

Hey, Caveman, when are you going to evolve?

Are you still baffled by the way the earth revolves

around the sun and not the other way around?

Are you terrified by the ever-shifting ground?  

...So let me ask demanding questions:  Will you be

eyes for the blind?  Will you become the feet

for the wounded?  Will you protect the poor?

Will you welcome the lost to your shore?

Will you battle the blood-thieves

and rescue the powerless from their teeth?

Who will you be?  Who will I become

as we gather in this terrible kingdom?

My friends, I’m not quite sure what I should do.

I’m as angry and afraid and disillusioned as you.

But I do know this:  I will resist hate.  I will resist.

I will stand and sing my love.  I will use my fist

to drum and drum my love.  I will write and read poems

that offer the warmth and shelter of any good home.

I will sing for people who might not sing for me.  

I will sing for people who are not my family.

I will sing honor songs for the unfamiliar and new.  

I will visit a different church and pray in a different pew.

I will silently sit and carefully listen to new stories

about other people’s tragedies and glories.

I will not assume my pain and joy are better.

I will not claim my people invented gravity or weather.

And, oh, I know I will still feel my rage and rage and rage

but I won’t act like I’m the only person onstage.

I am one more citizen marching against hatred.

Alone, we are defenseless. Collected we are sacred.

We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.

We will praise and weep and laugh.  We will believe.

We will be courageous with our love.  We will risk danger

as we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers.