You often hear people saying, "oh children can be so cruel". I have seen evidence of this... watching kids tease each other, saying hurtful things, picking on eachothers weaknesses and then of course there is the whole world of bullying. Is this a given, is it something that we must just come to accept, that kids do and say cruel things? Or can we plant in their hearts a seed of compassion, can this seed be nurtured and watered so that one day our kids choose to stand up for those who are weak and for those who are different?
We started our session reflecting on an incident witnessed by a mother of a child with special needs. I have a little boy with a genetic syndrome and so enjoy reading blogs of others on the same journey.
Click on this link to read a beautifully written account of how her little girl encounters two very different attitudes at a public swimming pool. Through the descriptive story-telling, it becomes clear that we as adults have a crucial role in shaping the attitudes of our children (and grandchildren) - especially when it comes to modelling compassion and acceptance of those who live, look, talk, walk, smell, sound or function differently to us.
This kick-started a discussion on how we can be intentional about planting those seeds of compassion..here are some thoughts that were shared, not in any order of importance - rather like seeds being scattered and falling randomly, each as important as the next, and each with the potential to grow into something significant. As usually we asked more questions than we found answers - we pray that God will help each of us to find our own unique way of living out the answers within our own families.
Children have the capacity to show compassion, they have the capacity to understand how others feel. This is rooted first in learning about feelings, their own feelings. We can help our children to do this by firstly developing a vocab to describe the various feelings, the positive ones and the negative ones. This can be done in fun ways, in games, in reading books about feelings. It can also be done in the moment of the feeling itself.
Knowing that children can feel deeply for other people, how do we not overwhelm them with the issues of social injustice, whilst at the same time exposing them to people who are different from themselves, who live different lives in different places and who face different challenges. We don't want to caccoon our kids from all the realities of the injust world. But how do we do so in a way that doesn't crush their spirits. One mom shared how eager her 5 year old was to give away all her clothes to a beggar who came to their door. Mom was not sure this man would be honourable, would he sell the clothes for alcohol. Should she be teaching her daughter to be suspicious of people's motives, or should she just let her daughter enjoy the fun of giving? How do we teach our children to be discerning so that they don't grow up to be gulliable and potentially a victim of crime, whilst at the same time nurturing this joyous response to helping someone else.
Developing compassion for another person is usually birthed in taking time to be with that person, to build friendship with that person. Often we first reach out to those who are weak or who need help out of a sense of knowing it is the right thing to do; or out of a sense of calling; and usually the tender feelings of compassion comes after as he have connected with this individual. How do we create that time in our lives with our children, knowing that time is finite - if we make time for this; we are saying no to something else in our lives. We so need God's guidance in how to manage our time, and to know what to prioritise in the various seasons of our lives.
Compassion is linked to understanding that being different is OK, and that we ourselves as different from some people and that is OK. How do our children learn about diversity and difference if we only expose them to people who are exactly the same as us in terms of race, economic background, and religion. Even choosing where we live and which schools we send our kids to is a decision that will affect their ability to nurture the seed of compassion.
Compassion starts small. In the home, for our siblings. In our neighbourhood, for the child next door. In our classrooms, for the child sitting next to me. Compassion is not only about recognising the massive social injustices in our country and responding with love and care and justice; it is also needed in our everyday places where people are hurting and feeling lonely or sad.
We turn our eyes to Jesus, who demonstrated compassion for his broken world, by coming alongside us in our places of pain and struggle, and who died on the cross to bring us new life. He will teach us and inspire us how to make our parenting compassion-full; and thus our children will also be compassion-full.
