Award-winning Australian author, Archimede Fusillo delves deep into what it is to be a man in his latest coming-of-age novel for young adults, Dead Dog In The Still Of The Night. The story follows the journey of Primo as he attempts to navigate his way though his final year of school with an emotionally brittle […]
Add a CommentViewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: role model, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 4 of 4
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book News, fiction, young adult, Author Interviews, coming of age, male, role model, Archimede Fusillo, Dead Dog In The Middle Of The Night, Add a tag
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Psychology, role model, responsibility, caring, idealism, empathy, *Featured, Science & Medicine, ideal, Kenneth Barish, Pride and Joy, Solving Family Problems, Understanding Your Child’s Emotions, mussen, piliavin, barish, Add a tag
By Kenneth Barish
At this holiday season, I would like to offer a few thoughts on how we can help nurture in our children a spirit of generosity and concern for others. I cannot write this post, however, without first expressing my deepest condolences to the families of Newtown, Connecticut, for their unimaginable and unbearable loss.
Much of the year, parents are understandably concerned with their children’s achievement. We focus our daily attention on helping children develop the skills they will need to succeed in a competitive world.
Most parents, however, want more for their children than individual achievement. We also want them to be “good kids” — children who act with kindness and generosity toward their families, their friends, and their communities. These are universal values, shared by parents who are secular and religious, liberal and conservative.
How can we best accomplish these goals? How can we nurture a child’s feelings of empathy and concern for others, of appreciation and gratitude, and a desire for giving, not just getting.
Caring and Responsibility
Several years ago, psychologists Nancy Eisenberg and Paul Mussen presented a comprehensive review of research on the development of pro-social behavior (caring, sharing, and helping) in children. They concluded that pro-social behavior begins with a child’s empathy (her awareness of the feelings of others) and is then strengthened when children observe the caring behavior of admired adults and older children.
For young boys, a warm relationship with their father may be especially important. In one study, preschool boys who were generous toward other children portrayed their fathers as “nurturant and warm, as well as generous, sympathetic, and compassionate, whereas boys low in generosity seldom perceived their fathers in these ways.”
Eisenberg and Mussen also found that, across cultures, children who are given family responsibilities, including household chores and teaching younger children, show more helpful and supportive behavior toward their families and their peers.
In a more recent series of studies, psychologist Ross Thompson and his colleagues found that children’s moral understanding and pro-social behavior were also strengthened by a mother’s use of emotion language in conversation with her child. Mothers of children who were high in conscience used what Thompson labelled an “elaborative” conversational style and made frequent references to other people’s feelings.
Ideals and Idealism
In thinking about children’s moral development, we also need to remember the intangibles. Our children look up to us. They look up to us even when they are angry and defiant, or when they are defensive or withdrawn, and even when, as adolescents (or before), they challenge our ideas and rebel against our rules.
Because they look up to us, they want to be, and to become, like us. We can observe this, every day, in the admiring statements of young children, when first grade boys and girls tell their teacher, “I want to be fireman, like my daddy” or “I want to be a doctor and help people, like my mom.” Recall the looks on the faces of Scout and Jem when Atticus talks with them, or when he delivers his summation to the jury in To Kill a Mockingbird.
A child’s admiration of her parents is an important moral influence throughout childhood — a source of conscience, ideals, and long-term goals. When a child looks up to us — and in return, feels our genuine interest, warmth, and pride — we have strengthened an important pathway of healthy development, a pathway that leads toward commitment to ideals and a sense of purpose in life.
We also support our children’s idealism when we talk with them about people we admire, people who have inspired us and who we hope will inspire them. We need to let them know that there is so much good work to be done in the world, work that they will be able to do and can do, even now. And we should help them appreciate what others do for us. We should talk with them about heroes who may not be famous, heroes of everyday life: the people who build our cities, protect our safety, and save our lives.
Doing for Others
A growing body of scientific research now supports an important conclusion: Doing good for others is also good for us. Most of this research has been conducted with late adolescents and adults. My personal experience suggests that doing for others is also good for children.
In a recent review, psychologist Jane Piliavin concluded that community service (helping others as part of an institutional framework) leads to improved self-esteem, less frequent depression, better immune system functioning, even a longer life.
Piliavin found significant benefits when older elementary school students read to kindergartners or first graders. Good effects, including lower dropout rates, were also reported when middle school students were randomly assigned to tutor younger children, as little as 1 hour a week. An evaluation of student volunteering that involved 237 different locations and almost 4,000 students concluded that volunteering “led to increased intrinsic work values, the perceived importance of a career, and the importance of community involvement.”
I therefore now recommend that parents find some way, especially as a family, to make doing for others a regular, not just occasional, part of their children’s lives. Children learn from this work that they have something to offer and they experience the appreciation of others. They learn how good it feels, to themselves and to others, to do good work.
Kenneth Barish is the author of Pride and Joy: A Guide to Understanding Your Child’s Emotions and Solving Family Problems and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at Weill Medical College, Cornell University. He is also on the faculty of the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the William Alanson White Institute Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program. Read his previous blog posts on parenting.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Big sister sharing her books and showing little brother pictures. Photo by JLBarranco, iStockphoto.
The post Nurturing a spirit of caring and generosity in children appeared first on OUPblog.
Blog: Gratz Industries (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Alan, flogging, Samurai Shortstop, To Honor Ichiko and Defend Japan, Add a tag
Right before leaving Atlanta, I received my author copies of the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine that includes my short story, "To Honor Ichiko and Defend Japan"! It's the June issue (the one with the rooster cover, at left), but it's on newsstands now! Don't miss your chance to read the closest I'll ever come to writing a sequel to Samurai Shortstop. It's not a sequel, of course - it doesn't even use the same characters. But as I was writing Samurai Shortstop, I kept thinking that the school, Ichiko, would make a great setting for a murder mystery. That story kept nagging at me, and I finally wrote it and sent it off. And Hitchcock's bought it! It's a pleasure and an honor. Hope you enjoy the story!
I'm not listed on the cover, but I'm mentioned on the AHMM web site listed above. As my mom was quick to point out, I'm mentioned in the same paragraph as Robert Parker and Anton Chekov.
Blog: Critical Literacy in Practice - CLIP Podcast (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Children's Books, Podcast, Consumerism, school, education, Disney, Stereotyping, Social Construction, media, elementary, classroom, Language Use, Handy Manny, audio, Latinos, handyman, role model, stereotype, Add a tag
Handy Manny: Latino Role Model or Stereotype? In this show: Happy Birthday to Andrea and Lucy, Tools for thinking about Disney’s “Handy Manny” Special Thanks to : Kevan Miller for the station ID. Music: Happy Birthday by Craymo Podcasts Mentioned: Just One More Book Websites Mentioned: Latin_Know, Vivir Latino Participate in the show. Subscribe and listen in iTunes XML Feed Location : feed://www.bazmakaz.com/clip/?feed=rss2 Let [...]
Big WooHoo to you!!! I'm rushing out post-haste and acquiring a copy this minute. Can't wait to read it. Way to go, stud!