How Parents Can Cultivate Empathy in Children
Richard Weissbourd and Stephanie Jones
Making Caring Common Project,
 Harvard Graduate School of Education

Empathy is at the heart of what it means to be human. It’s a foundation for acting ethically, for good relationships of many kinds, for loving well, and for professional success. And it’s key to preventing bullying and many other forms of cruelty.
Empathy begins with the capacity to take another perspective, to walk in another’s shoes. But it is not just that capacity. Salespeople, politicians, actors and marketers are often very skilled at taking other perspectives but they may not care about others. Con men and torturers take other perspectives so they can exploit people’s weaknesses. Empathy includes valuing other perspectives and people. It’s about perspective-taking and compassion.

How can parents’ cultivate empathy? The following are guideposts based on research and the wisdom of practitioners.
        1. Empathize with your child and model empathy for others

Children learn empathy both from watching us and from experiencing our empathy for them. When we empathize with our children they develop trusting, secure attachments with us. Those attachments are key to their wanting to adopt our values and to model our behavior, and therefore to building their empathy for others.

Empathizing with our children takes many forms, including tuning in to their physical and emotional needs, understanding and respecting their individual personalities, taking a genuine interest in their lives, and guiding them toward activities that create an understanding of the kind of people they are and the things they enjoy.

Children also learn empathy by watching those we notice and appreciate. They’ll notice if we treat a server in a restaurant or a mail carrier as if they’re invisible. On the positive side, they’ll notice if we welcome a new family in our child’s school or express concern about another child in our child’s class who is experiencing one challenge or another.

Finally, it’s important for us to recognize what might be getting in the way of our empathizing. Are we, for example, exhausted or stressed? Does our child push our buttons in a speci c way that makes caring for her or him hard at times?

Try this: 
      1. Knowing your child. Ask your child questions. For example, what did you learn today that was interesting? What was             the hardest part of your day? How would you most like to spend a day if you could do anything? Do you have a friend                that you especially respect? Why do your respect that person?

      2. Demonstrating empathy for others, including those different from you. Consider regularly engaging in community                   service or model other ways of contributing to a community. Even better, consider doing this with your child. Express               interest in those from various backgrounds facing many different types of challenges.
      3. Engaging in self-care and self-re ection. Try to nd time to regularly engage in an activity — whether it’s going for a                    walk, reading a book, meditating or praying — that can help you avoid being overwhelmed by stress. Re ect and consult          with people you trust when you’re having a hard time empathizing with your child.
        4.  Make caring for others a priority and set high ethical expectations

If children are to value others’ perspectives and show compassion for them, it’s very important that they hear from their parents that caring about others is a top priority, and that it is just as important as their own happiness. Even though most parents say that raising caring children is a top priority, often children aren’t hearing that message.

Try this:

1. Keeping to a clear message. Consider the daily messages you send to children about the importance of caring. For example, instead of saying “The most important thing is that you’re happy,” you might say “The most important thing is that you’re kind and that you’re happy.”
2. Prioritizing caring when you talk with other important adults in your children’s lives. For example, ask teachers and coaches whether your children are caring community members in addition to asking about their academic skills, grades, or performance.
3. Helping your children understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them. It’s vital at times for parents to put children’s concern for others above their happiness, for example, insisting at times that children turn off the TV and help around the house, be polite even when they are in a bad mood, or not dominate the airwaves when they are talking to other children or adults.

        4. Provide opportunities for children to practice empathy

Children are born with the capacity for empathy, but it needs to be nurtured throughout their lives. Learning empathy is in certain respects like learning a language or a sport. It requires practice and guidance. Regularly considering other people’s perspectives and circumstances helps make empathy a natural re ex and, through trial and error, helps children get better at tuning into others’ feelings and perspectives.

Try this:

1. Having family meetings. Hold family meetings when there are family challenges or con icts, and in those meetings give children a voice and encourage them to take the perspective of other family members. Listen carefully to your children’s views and ask your children to listen carefully to the views of others.
2. Encouraging empathy for peers. Ask children about their classmates and other peers. Ask children when they’re in con icts with peers to consider their peers’ perspectives.
3. Re ecting on empathy and caring. Notice with your child when you’re together and someone exhibits strong empathy—or shows a lack of empathy—either in your daily life or in a book or on television. Discuss why acts of empathy are important and why lacking empathy can be harmful.
4. Discussing ethical dilemmas. Discuss with your child ethical dilemmas that help them appreciate various perspectives, e.g., “Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn’t like her?” “Should I tell my friend if I know her boyfriend, who is also my friend, cheated on her?”
5. Supporting doing with. Encourage children not just to do service, to “do for” others, but to “do with” others, working with diverse groups of students to respond to community problems.

        6.  Expand your child’s circle of concern

We often talk about empathy as a quantity. For example, we speak of children as having a lot of or a little empathy or as lacking empathy entirely. Yet the issue often isn’t whether children can empathize or how much empathy they have. It is who they have empathy for. For most of us, it’s not hard to have empathy for our family members and close friends. It’s also human nature to have empathy for people who are like us in some way. But the real issue is whether children (and adults) have empathy outside that circle.  As parents and caretakers, it’s not only important that we model appreciation for many types of people. It’s important that we guide children in understanding and caring for many kinds of people who are different from them and who may be facing challenges very different from their own challenges.

Try this:

1. Zooming in and out. Help children learn to zoom in, tuning in carefully to others, but also to zoom out, taking in multiple perspectives and people. Use newspaper or TV stories
   to start conversations with children about other people’s hardships and challenges, or simply the different experiences of children in another country or community.
2. Understanding those who are different or struggling: Emphasize with your child the importance of really listening to others, especially those people who may seem unfamiliar whom they don’t immediately understand. Encourage children to consider the feelings of those who may be vulnerable, such as a child experiencing some family trouble or an unpopular child. Give children some simple ideas for taking action, like comforting a classmate who was teased.

       3. Help children develop self-control and manage feelings effectively

Often when children don’t express empathy it’s not because they don’t have it. It’s because some feeling or image is blocking their empathy. Often the ability to care for others is overwhelmed, for example, by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings.

Helping children manage these negative feelings as well as stereotypes and prejudices about others is often what “releases” their empathy.

Try this:

1. Identifying feelings. Name for children their dif cult feelings such as frustration, sadness and anger and encourage them to talk to you about why they’re feeling that way.

2. 3 steps to self-control. A simple way to help children to manage their feelings is to practice three easy steps together: stop, take a deep breath through the nose and exhale through the mouth, and count to ve. Try it when your children are calm. Then, when you see them getting upset, remind them about the steps and do them together.

3. Resolving con icts. Practice with your child how to resolve con icts. Consider a con ict you or your child witnessed or experienced that turned out badly, and role play different ways of responding. Try to achieve mutual understanding—listening to and paraphrasing each other’s feelings until both persons feel understood. If your child observes you experiencing a dif cult feeling and is concerned, talk to your child about how you are handling it.

Support from and input from Ashoka: Innovators for the Public was helpful in producing this work. Special thanks to SUNY Cortland’s Tom Lickona for his contributions to this document.

For more information about strategies for promoting empathy and for research indicating that empathy is important for school, professional and life success, please visit the Making Caring Common website at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

For more information, please visit makingcaringcommon.org
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Making Caring Common
Harvard Graduate School of Education 14 Appian Way
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-385-95444 

Should Emotions Be Taught in Schools?  

By Grace Rubenstein on February 24, 2017 in Interviews

Who taught you how to identify and manage your emotions, how to recognize them when they arose, and how to navigate your way through them? For many adults, the answer is: No one. You hacked your way through those confusing thickets on your own. Although navigating our inner landscape was not something that was taught to us in school, it should be, contend a number of researchers. They believe emotional skills should rank as high in importance in children’s educations as math, reading, history and science.

Why do emotions matter? Research has found that people who are emotionally skilled perform better in school, have better relationships, and engage less frequently in unhealthy behaviors. Plus, as more and more jobs are becoming mechanized, so-called soft skills — which include persistence, stress management and communication — are seen as a way to make humans irreplaceable by machine. There has been a growing effort in American schools to teach social and emotional learning (SEL), but these tend to emphasize interpersonal skills like cooperation and communication.

Kids are often taught to ignore or cover over their emotions. Many Western societies view emotions as an indulgence or distraction, says University of California-Santa Barbara sociologist Thomas Scheff, a proponent of emotional education. Our emotions can give us valuable information about the world, but we’re often taught or socialized not to listen to them. Just as dangerous, Scheff says, is the practice of hiding one emotion behind another. He has found that men, in particular, tend to hide feelings of shame under anger, aggression and, far too often, violence.

How does one go about teaching emotions? One of the most prominent school programs for teaching about emotions is RULER, developed in 2005 by Marc Brackett, David Caruso and Robin Stern of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. The multiyear program is used in more than 1,000 schools, in the US and abroad, across grades K-8. The name, RULER, is an acronym for its five goals: recognizing emotions in oneself and others; understanding the causes and consequences of emotions; labeling emotional experiences with an accurate and diverse vocabulary; and expressing and regulating emotions in ways that promote growth.

As a strategy, children are taught to focus on the underlying theme of an emotion rather than getting lost in trying to define it. When an emotion grips you, explains Stern, understanding its thematic contours can help “name it to tame it.” Even though anger is experienced differently by different people, she explains, “the theme underlying anger is the same. It’s injustice or unfairness. The theme that underlies disappointment is an unmet expectation. The theme that underlies frustration is feeling blocked on your way to a goal. Pinning down the theme can “help a person be seen and understood and met where she is,” says Stern.

RULER’s lessons are woven into all classes and subjects. So, for example, if “elated’ is the emotional vocabulary word under discussion, a teacher would ask students in an American history class to link “elated” to the voyage of Lewis and Clark. Instruction reaches beyond the classroom, too; kids are prompted to talk with their parents or caregivers about when they last felt elated. Researchers at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has found RULER schools tend to see less-frequent bullying, lower anxiety and depression, more student leadership and higher grades. So why isn’t emotional education the norm rather than the exception?

Surprising fact: While scientists and educators agree on the need to teach emotions, they don’t agree on how many there are and what they are. RULER’s curriculum consists of hundreds of “feeling words,” including curious, ecstatic, hopeless, frustrated, jealous, relieved and embarrassed. Other scholars’ lists of emotions have ranged in number from two to eleven. Scheff suggests starting students out with six: grief, fear, anger, pride, shame and excessive fatigue.
While psychology began to be studied as a science more than a century ago, up to now it has focused more on identifying and treating disorders. Scheff, who has spent years studying one taboo emotion — shame — and its destructive impact on human actions, admits, “We don’t know much about emotions, even though we think we do, and that goes for the public and for researchers.” Or, as Virginia Woolf so beautifully put it, “The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted.”

Parents can start to encourage their kids’ emotional awareness with a simple prompt “Tell me about some of your best moments,” a phrase Scheff has used to initiate discussions with his university students. But he and Stern agree that schools can’t wait until academics have sorted out the name and number of emotions before they act. “We know we have emotions all day long, whether we’re aware of them or not,” Stern points out. Let’s teach kids how to ride those moment-by-moment waves, instead of getting tossed around.

Art credit: TED-Ed. Author bio: Grace Rubenstein is a journalist, editor and multimedia producer in California. Note: The article above has been adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas.ted.com article. 

Like other aspects of modern life, education can make the head hurt. So many outcomes, so much important work to do, so many solutions and strategies, so many variations on teaching, so many different kinds of students with so many different needs, so many unknowns in preparing for 21st Century life and the endless list of jobs that haven’t been invented.

What if we discovered one unifying factor that brought all of this confusion under one roof and gave us a coherent sense of how to stimulate the intellect, teach children to engage in collaborative problem solving and creative challenge, and foster social-emotional balance and stability—one factor that, if we got right, would change the equation for learning in the same way that confirming the existence of a fundamental particle informs a grand theory of the universe?

​That factor exists: It’s called empathy.

To make that argument requires a deep dive into the profound nature of empathy. Right now, empathy roughly equates to “I like you and am willing to tolerate you regardless of differences because I am a good person.” But the textbook definition hints at something more profound: It’s ‘the feeling of being able to understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions.’ That all-encompassing definition means empathy results from a complex mix of other meaningful emotions and attitudes that fuel human personality, such as openness, curiosity, self-restraint, vulnerability, sensitivity, awareness, respect, appreciation, and even love. Add this list to the fact that empathy can’t manifest unless we have had our own experiences and emotions to contrast, compare, and connect with others—and we can see that empathy is more than a simple connector; it’s the subterranean, fundamental glue that holds humanity together.

Thus, it shouldn’t surprise us that such a potent emotion resonates across mind and body, influencing behavior and brain function. That is exactly the case. Empathy has the potential to open up students to deeper learning, drive clarity of thinking, and inspire engagement with the world—in other words, provide the emotional sustenance for outstanding human performance.

I see this regularly in my work with project-based-learning teachers who create classrooms that hum with good vibes and focused work. But to understand the full potential of empathy, let’s connect some dots. Those dots may appear unrelated at the moment, but they constitute a scatterplot with a trend line, predicting that empathy will eventually not be an add-on or ‘soft’ skill or one component of a middle school advisory program, and in the process confirm that a school system focused on cognition and testing alone cannot bring forth the greater purpose, focus, collaboration, and creativity necessary for 21st century students.

I see seven ‘dots’, if you will, that begin to paint this emerging picture of schooling in the future:

Empathy underlies collaboration
As social-emotional learning becomes more necessary to help students navigate life and work, empathy is getting more popular by the day, for good reason: Empathy lies at the heart of 21st century skillfulness in teamwork, collaboration and communication in a diverse world. Speaking or listening to someone without radiating empathy narrows the channel of communication or blocks connection altogether. Particularly in the new reality of a global world, without empathy you’re not ready to engage the 21st century, either in the workplace or across cultures. It has to be taught, practiced and coached.

Empathy is healthy
In the last twenty years, discussions about emotions have taken a radical turn. For years, negative emotions dominated theory and research. Today we know that positive emotions enhance well-being, health, relationships and personal strengths. At the top of this pyramid are the emotions associated with empathy: curiosity, openness, appreciation and gratitude. Empathy simply powers up the mind, body and spirit.

Empathy promotes whole-child learning
A critical dot, overlooked in our brain-centric world, is that empathy may activate the heart. As I’ve written many times, the heart has a role in learning equal to the brain. In fact, science does not support the mistaken notion that the brain does all the work. Research on heart rate variability and emotions shows that the heart engages the brain in constant conversation, using the language of emotions to direct the ‘state’ of the brain. To perform its role, the heart contains upwards of 40,000 neurons identical to nerve cells in the brain; eighty percent of nerve traffic then travels upward from heart to brain, making it clear that the heart influences brain function. While we don’t fully understand the implications of this partnership, two findings have been confirmed: Anxiety and negative feelings alter the coding of the messages sent by the heart to the brain, resulting in stress or fight or flight responses; at the same time, positive emotions such as gratitude and appreciation—close cousins of empathy—show pronounced, positive effects on brain processes.

Empathy ‘opens’ us up
The frontal lobes of the brain, at least as much as we know now, are the seat of planning, execution, problem solving and creativity—and when the frontal lobes are working well, so are we. In that well-documented ‘flow state,’ humans function at their peak, moving into a whole-body feeling of openness, relaxed focus, and creative possibility. If we know empathy activates the frontal lobes, why can’t we imagine intentional lessons about empathy and openness designed to put students in an optimal state for learning?

Empathy powers up inquiry and project based learning
Instruction is clearly headed in the direction of student-centered approaches such as inquiry and PBL. These approaches succeed in an atmosphere of care and positive relationships, both between student and teacher, and student and student. Classrooms that lack this foundation cannot succeed at project based work or open-ended questioning that relies on students’ ability to care about their learning. Setting up a culture of care is very much an exercise in making empathy central to daily work.

Empathy triggers creativity
Beyond rounding out the skills of collaboration and communication, empathy, design and collaboration are interconnected pieces of the creative puzzle. Empathy is now identified as the first step in the design process, whether crafting new software for a user or creating form-factors that inherently please the consumer. Right now, empathy is described as ‘step.’ But that easy designation belies a very deep process in which a designer must, for lack of a better term, ‘sink into the mind of another and take on their persona’. That is a deep descriptor of an ultimate form of empathy—and it may be a necessary component of an educational system increasingly tilted toward design and inquiry.

Empathy unites
The list could have started here, but on a planet that is now close to completing the globalizing process, empathy assumes a special role as the key emotion critical for seven-plus billion people to live in harmony and cooperative relationship. For our Stone-Age brethren, fear and separation were appropriate mechanisms for survival. But that has been flipped by sheer numbers, technology, resource scarcity, and environmental impact. Empathy is required curriculum, and without it, eventually our current focus on high test scores and fulfilling college requirements will be rendered meaningless by untoward events.

The takeaway? Ready or not, education is entering an age in which social learning is the new norm. Pure academics are giving way to increased opportunities for students to work together; teachers increasingly take on the role of co-learner and facilitator; listening, learning, and teaming are the new core skills. At the heart of this new skillfulness for everyone is the ability to forge deep connections lead to creative problem solving and positive pursuits. Taken all together, this makes empathy critical to schools. In fact, very soon we will need to invent a new taxonomy of learning that makes empathy the base of the learning pyramid.

Thom Markham, founder and CEO of PBL Global, is an author, psychologist and international school consultant who has assisted over 300 schools and 6000 teachers across five continents in implementing project-based learning, 21st century competencies, social-emotional growth and successful inquiry-based systems of teaching and learning.  

Article Link: https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/11/16/why-empathy-holds-the-key-to-transforming-21st-century-learning/?utm_campaign=crowdfire&utm_content=crowdfire&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Seven Ways to Foster Empathy in Kids
By Jill Suttie | June 10, 2016 

In our age of narcissism, a new book offers research-based tips for encouraging children to be empathic.  We live in the age of the selfie—the ubiquitous symbol of narcissism. But this focus on the self to the exclusion of others is harmful to our children, according to Michele Borba, author of the new book UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World. More than the photos themselves, the idea behind them—that we are the center of our world—is the problem, reflecting a decreased focus on others and a lack of empathy.

According to Borba, low levels of empathy are rampant in our culture, and in kids that’s associated with bullying, cheating, weak moral reasoning, and mental health issues, like anxiety and depression. Her book is a call to parents, teachers, and other caring adults to help encourage children to develop empathy and generosity toward others, and it’s full of research-based tips on how to do so.

Some tips are focused on increasing emotional literacy in general, by helping kids to better understand their own emotions and the emotions of others. Others involve helping kids to foster a sense of themselves as caring people, by engaging them in activities where they can be generous and by modeling generosity toward others ourselves. Still others involve helping kids to become moral heroes, in school and out of it. Below are some of Borba’s suggestions.

1. Help kids develop a moral identity
In one study, researchers found that three- to six-year-old kids who were praised for helping others were less likely to act more generously in the future than kids who were praised for being a helpful person. Borba argues that we need to help kids develop a moral identity, not just praise them for good deeds.
“To respond empathically, kids must see themselves as people who care and value others’ thoughts and feelings,” she writes. “Missing that crucial piece leaves a huge void in a child’s empathy quotient.”

2. Give kids “do-overs”
Of course, it’s not always easy to get kids to take another’s perspective. When they speak or act insensitively, it can be helpful to allow kids to have “do-overs,” rather than simply punishing them. Borba suggests four steps to help kids respond more empathically with “CARE”: 1) Call attention to uncaring behavior; 2) Assess how uncaring affects others, helping kids to understand another’s perspective; 3) Repair the hurt and make amends; and 4) Express disappointment for uncaring behavior, while stressing expectations for caring behavior in the future.

“The trick is to look for those discipline moments when we can help our children grasp how their actions affect others so it stretches their empathy, and one day they can act right without our guidance,” she writes.

3. Encourage empathy through stories
Borba encourages adults to help kids build their empathy muscles through play-acting, reading books that let them get inside characters’ minds, and watching inspiring movies. Activities that allow careful reflection on how others are feeling in a given situation help build the skills needed for moral action.

“The right book can stir a child’s empathy better than any lesson or lecture ever could,” writes Borba. “And the right book matched with the right child can be the gateway to opening his heart to humanity.”

4. Support empathy education in school
Borba makes several suggestions about ways schools can teach kindness and empathy. For example, at one school, the teachers have implemented a kindness board for listing kind acts; another brought in Playworks, a program for teaching cooperation and empathy on the playground. At yet another school, they’ve used the cooperative learning program Jizzsaw to help students decrease prejudice and increase caring in the classroom.

5. Examine your values
Still, too often these are isolated efforts by individual teachers or schools. Part of the problem, according to Borba, stems from our overly competitive culture, and the fact that many kids are pushed to succeed academically rather than pushed to be kinder, better people. Even if parents say they value kindness and compassion, if they only praise achievement, they give the wrong impression to their kids.

“If we are serious about raising a kindhearted, caring generation, then our expectations must be a lot clearer to our kids,” writes Borba. “And understanding how kindness benefits children and gives them an advantage for success and happiness might be just the motivator to change our own ways.”

6. Be mindful of social media use
Borba also bemoans social media culture, which can take time away from face-to-face encounters where empathy is born. She advises parents to pay careful attention to how much time their kids spend online and to make sure that time is balanced with more in-person conversations and a focus on caring.

7. Help kids find their inner hero
The book also discusses heroic action in kids, including what prompts kids to stand up to bullies. A lot of kids don’t intervene in bullying because they feel powerless, don’t know what to do, assume someone else will intervene, or worry they won’t get support from adults.
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To help our kids act courageously, it’s important that we help kids find their inner hero by setting a good example of standing up for others ourselves, by teaching them how to effectively say no to a bully and diffuse bullying situations, and by making them aware of how peers can support each other. Research has shown that the best way to stop bullying is to get kids to stop being bystanders and to step in to turn the situation around.

“Mobilizing children’s courage to be Upstanders may be our best hope to stop peer cruelty,” writes Borba.
Her stories of individual heroic kids were inspiring. From 11-year old Trevor Ferrell, who distributes blankets to the homeless; to nine-year-old Rachel Wheeler, who raised money to build homes in Haiti; to 12-year-old Craig Kielburger, who formed an organization to fight child slavery, we see how nurturing a child’s caring spirit can lead them to become champions for others.

While Borba is thorough in providing ideas for parents and teachers, the abundance of advice and the number of acronyms she uses sometimes make it difficult for a reader to know where to start. But it seems clear that if want the world to be a better place, we do need to nurture empathy and compassion in our kids.
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“Empathy has never been more crucial, but the ability to understand how others feel can be nurtured,” writes Borba. “It’s up to adults not to let the kids down.”

Children who are displaying problematic behaviors such as having difficulty managing their emotions, having aggressive behaviors, or who often act whiny or needy may benefit from attachment-based activities. This is particularly true if the child has experienced challenges during the first few years of life. Attachment-based activities can also be helpful for children who may have experienced some trauma or even less severe stressful situations. These activities are even useful for well-behaving, happy children.

Attachment-based activities are essential and beneficial for all children 

If you are a parent and your relationship with your child has been strained for any reason, if you and your child don’t seem to be getting along very well, or if you simply want to strengthen the relationship between you and your child, attachment-based activities can help to do that.

Attachment-based activities are activities that enhance the attachment between the child and parent. Attachment is the bond that children develop with their primary caregivers in the first few years of life. This attachment is extremely influential on how the child relates to others, the nature of their relationships, and how they view themselves and, other people, and the world for the rest of their life. This is not to say that what happens in the first few years of life is totally deterministic of the child’s outcome. There is the possibility that later experiences and the child’s internal processes and personality can alter the effects that early attachment may have (in a positive or negative way).

5 Attachment-Based Activities:
1. Playful Copycat (or Mirroring the Child)
This activity does not necessarily require any physical items or toys. All it takes is having the parent and child both present and ready to interact with each other. The basic idea for this activity is to have the parent playfully copy what the child is doing, such as by having the child begin by clapping his hands together and having the parent clap their hands in the same volume and speed as the child. When the child changes his style of clapping (such as louder or softer), the parent should imitate the child. Eye contact, smiles, and laughs are also helpful to promote a healthy relationship and repair or enhance attachment. Mirroring can also be done with other activities, such as jumping, playing with toys, or facial expressions.

2. Bean Bag Game
Have the child place a bean bag or another soft toy that is fairly easy to balance on top of his head. Have the parent sit in front of the child and place her hands in front of her. The child is then directed to tip his head forward to try to get the bean bag in the parent’s hands. The child should tip his head when the parent blinks her eyes. (This will promote eye contact.) Have the parent use as much eye contact as possible. Again, it is important for the parent and child to have fun with this activity. Laughter has been found to be healing and can help to repair and enhance a relationship. (activity adapted from Walton)
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3. Piggy-Back Rides
Piggy-back rides can help to strengthen parent-child relationships and repair or enhance attachment because they involve fun and physical closeness. When children are babies, they need plenty of physical contact with their parents. Babies thrive not only from being fed and kept physically safe, but also from feeling the comfort and security of having their parent close to them.

4. Lotion Massage
Using lotion to massage a child’s hands or feet can enhance attachment and strengthen a parent-child relationship. The massage can relax a person’s physical body by reducing tension and bringing the brain into a less defensive state.

5. Brushing Hair
Sometimes girls can be fussy about getting their hair brushed, especially if they have experienced pain from well-meaning parents brushing their hair too hard. However, allowing a daughter to gently brush her mother’s hair and having a mother gently brush her daughter’s hair can be an activity that can promote connection. This can be a calming activity that includes a sense of nurturing which connects to a person’s internal experience of attachment and bonding.

                                                                                                                        - By Heather Gilmore, MSW, LLMSW, BCBA 

 
 
                                                                                   ​WHAT IS THE REGGIO EMILIA APPROACH?

The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education which values the child as strong, capable and resilient; rich with wonder and knowledge. Every child brings with them deep curiosity and potential and this innate curiosity drives their interest to understand their world and their place within it.

Background:
The Reggio Emilia Approach originated in the town (and surrounding areas) of Reggio Emilia in Italy out of a movement towards progressive and cooperative early childhood education. It is unique to Reggio Emilia. It is not a method. There are no international training colleges to train to be a Reggio Emilia teacher. Outside of the town of Reggio Emilia, all schools and preschools (and home schools) are Reggio-inspired, using an adaptation of the approach specific to the needs of their community.

This is important, as each student, teacher, parent, community, and town are different. No two Reggio-inspired communities should look the same, as the needs and interests of the children within each community will be different.
Typically the Reggio Approach is applied to preschools and early childhood settings but I think, with an understanding of the general principles, this inspiring child-led approach can be adapted to the home as well.

Fundamental Principles:
I have included links to posts which highlight these principles in more detail. If you are interested in implementing a Reggio-inspired approach in your own homes, check out our 30 Days to Transform Your Play series.
Children are capable of constructing their own learningThey are driven by their interests to understand and know more.
Children form an understanding of themselves and their place in the world through their interactions with others.
There is a strong focus on social collaboration, working in groups, where each child is an equal participant, having their thoughts and questions valued. The adult is not the giver of knowledge. Children search out the knowledge through their own investigations.


Children Are Communicators:
Communication is a process, a way of discovering things, asking questions, using language as play. Playing with sounds and rhythm and rhyme; delighting in the process of communicating. Children are encouraged to use language to investigate and explore, to reflect on their experiences. They are listened to with respect, believing that their questions and observations are an opportunity to learn and search together. It is a process; a continual process. A collaborative process. Rather than the child asking a question and the adult offering the answers, the search is undertaken together.

​The Environment is the Third Teacher:
The environment is recognised for its potential to inspire children. An environment filled with natural light, order and beauty. Open spaces free from clutter, where every material is considered for its purpose, every corner is ever-evolving to encourage children to delve deeper and deeper into their interests. The space encourages collaboration, communication and exploration. The space respects children as capable by providing them with authentic materials & tools. The space is cared for by the children and the adults.

The Adult is a Mentor and Guide:
Our role as adults is to observe (our) children, listen to their questions and their stories, find what interests them and then provide them with opportunities to explore these interests further. The Reggio Emilia Approach takes a child-led project approach. The projects aren’t planned in advanced, they emerge based on the child’s interests.

An Emphasis on Documenting Children's Thoughts: 
You’ll notice in Reggio and Reggio-inspired settings that there is an emphasis on carefully displaying and documenting children’s thoughts and progression of thinking; making their thoughts visible in many different ways: photographs, transcripts of children’s thoughts and explanations, visual representations (drawings, sculptures etc.), all designed to show the child’s learning process.


The Hundred Languages of Children is probably the most well-known aspect of the Reggio Emilia Approach. The belief that children use many many different ways to show their understanding and express their thoughts and creativity.
A hundred different ways of thinking, of discovering, of learning. Through drawing and sculpting, through dance and movement, through painting and pretend play, through modelling and music, and that each one of these Hundred Languages must be valued and nurtured. These languages, or ways of learning, are all a part of the child. Learning and play are not separated. The Reggio Emilia Approach emphasises hands-on discovery learning that allows the child to use all their senses and all their languages to learn.  

If interested in learning more, please take a look at the author's blog by copying this link: http://www.aneverydaystory.com/beginners-guide-to-reggio-emilia/main-principles/
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ES CounselingASW’s Elementary School Counseling Center is staffed by two full time counselors.

Our comprehensive counseling program includes:

Orientation
It is our goal to ensure that each new student has a smooth transition to ASW. Welcoming new students and their parents, providing them with an orientation of our Elementary School, and supporting each student’s adjustment to his/her new environment comprise the foundation that we build upon to make certain that each student succeeds socially and academically.

Classroom guidance lessons
Our comprehensive guidance program focuses on activities and lessons that are consistent with identified student needs. Our curriculum is based upon the ASCA (American School Counselor Association) model and includes lessons in the domains of academic, social, and career awareness. The counselors are in the classrooms on a regular basis and are available for supplemental lessons.

Small group counseling
A variety of small group counseling activities occur throughout the year which focus on issues that include academic and social development. These may be include New Student Group, Friendship Group, and Goodbye Group among others.

Individual counseling
Our counselors provide an environment that is conducive to students communicating freely and openly with them. Within this environment we strive to know each student as an individual providing them with the tools to overcome academic challenges, maintain a positive self-image, and utilize problem solving strategies.

Teacher and parent consultation
Collaborating with teachers and parents in a unified approach to find the most effective methods to help each child reach his/her academic potential is the cornerstone of our program. Always operating with the best interest of the student in mind, we work together to help each child achieve academic and social success.

Parent presentations and workshops
Parent presentations and workshops are given on a wide array of educational issues designed to help parents become familiar with special topics of interest, and our programs and services, all with the aim of better serving each child and strengthening the bond between home and school.

Books
ASW has a large number of books available to parents and students that address topics such as parenting, school and social difficulties, and growing up. Books are available in the ES Counseling office.