Roots of Empathy. Mary Gordon
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I began the program with kindergarten children, by the end of my first year I was getting requests from teachers to expand into higher grades. There was a strong sense that through the Roots of Empathy program children were developing levels of emotional literacy that not only encouraged a healthy sense of self but contributed to a kinder, more respectful tone in the group. The program was also sought after for Grade 8 classes; in communities where schools were experiencing drop-outs due to adolescent pregnancies, the teachers and principals felt that understanding the emotional and physical needs of babies and the long reach that the first year has in a child’s life would be very important for these young students. I reworked the curriculum to address the social and emotional learning that is relevant for this age group. By offering these teens experience with a baby, we help them to understand that every baby is entitled to have parents who can provide her with the best possible life. More than that, we give them a way to reflect on the realities of the upheaval that would result in their own lives if they became parents before they were ready. The concept of giving adolescents realistic insight into parenting, with many opportunities for dialogue with parents “in the trenches” and reflection on the demands of caring for a baby, encourages young people to understand the hardship and long-lasting implications of teen pregnancy. In one Grade 8 class our parent was a pediatrician. A student asked if it was fun being a parent. The mom replied, “In a twenty-four-hour day, there are fifteen minutes of pure joy and twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes of hard work.”
By involving children in the unfolding story of the parent–child relationship, Roots of Empathy is engaging them in a world of social and emotional learning that examines the development of a human being on a green blanket on the classroom floor. This program addresses children’s affective side, their ability to care. Empathy is a key ingredient of competent parenting, and exploration of what it takes to be a responsive and responsible parent opens the door to emotional literacy for children, creating change from the inside out. The skills they learn in the program will not only help them with relationships today but will affect the quality of parenting we can expect in the next generation. These skills will help children develop the empathy, insights and capacity for human connection that are critical for them to take their place in the world.
The Birth of Roots of Empathy
Where did the idea of offering such a program to elementary school childrencome from? Why was the curriculum built around the concept of bringing a baby into the classroom? What impact for families and society did I envision? The answers to these questions takes me back to my first years as an elementary teacher.
When I took my first teaching job, it was with hope and determination to make a difference in children’s lives. I was so excited about teaching—which was perhaps surprising, since my sister and I used to pray in our early teens to be spared the dreaded fate of a “calling” to be a nun or a teacher. Although as two girls in convent school we hoped to avoid the vocation, as adults we both chose to teach, my sister moving on to teach children music while I chose kindergarten.
I thought I could make the world perfect for my students. Instead, I found myself face to face with the reality of little children’s lives. Seeing those three-, four-and five-year-olds come into the class room on the first day changed my whole perception. You could tell, right from that initial entrance, which ones were going to be winners, and which ones would struggle. The kind of start they had had in life determined their overall sense of competence and their ability to cope with the stress of transition to school. Some children came into the room with “SUCCESS” stamped on their fore heads. Even the ones who were a little shy, or upset at being separated from their parents, had an air of confidence, of knowing they were valued. They were ready to learn and participate in the group life of the school. As the weeks went by, they demonstrated that readiness in the classroom.
Other children came in warily, or bristling with aggression. Already the experiences of their first few years of life had taught them that their needs didn’t matter, that adults couldn’t really be trusted, that they’d better keep an eye out for threats all the time. The damage of neglect was as profound as the damage of abuse. Right from their first day of school, these children were swimming upstream. They wore their wounds in their behaviour. Learning was hard for them. Getting along with their classmates was a challenge. The school was not ready for them, but had confirmed the negative messages they’d been given from birth and their lack of school-readiness.
I began to see that if I was to truly make a difference for children, I would need to take a step back. Kindergarten was too late.
One thing all the children had in common was that they all loved their parents and were fiercely loyal to them. This was true whether their home was filled with privilege and harmony or beset with hardship and conflict. So I called the parents, and said to them, “If you’ll share with me what you know about your children, I’ll share with you what I know about preparing them for success in school.” In all the work I have done with parents and children in the ensuing thirty years, what I had glimpsed darkly as a young teacher has become crystal clear: the relationship between the child and the parent is the most powerful teaching relationship there is. The home has a profound impact on the child’s attitude to learning and their sense of competence before they even start school. Parents are children’s most important teachers. It is the experiences of the early years, mediated by parenting, that set the child on a trajectory for either success or failure. A child’s confidence, her concept of self, her readiness to launch herself into fearless learning and healthy relationships is dependent on and intricately bound up in the quality of nurturing she receives from a loving adult.
Building on these insights, I spent the next twenty-five years working with parents and their preschool children creating and refining programs that sustain and enrich the potential of the parent-child relationship. (The story of the Parenting and Family Literacy Centres which I developed to house these programs is told in Appendix A) The programs were based on a premise of respect and empathy for parents and a belief that they want to do their best for their children. Parents were supported in discovering the ways that little children learn: through love and encouragement, emotional connection, authentic conversations and meaningful play. The power of parenting to positively affect children’s success is well documented. The “Early Years Study” prepared for the Ontario government by Dr. Fraser Mustard and the Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain makes a powerful statement about this connection: “It is clear that the early years from conception to age six have the most important influence of any time in the life cycle on brain development and subsequent learning, behaviour and health. The effects of early experience, particularly during the first three years, on the wiring and sculpting of the brain’s billions of neurons, last a lifetime.”2
While I remain involved in training professionals in the parenting field, I no longer run these programs. I do, however, take every opportunity to visit them and introduce them to others interested in starting up parenting initiatives. The programs remain vibrant, encouraging parents to be their children’s teachers and cheerleaders, creating the architecture for lifelong learning.
I like to express the scientific reality behind parenting programs in three words: love grows brains. The three requirements for optimal brain development are good nutrition, good nurturance and good stimulation. A new born’s brain has billions of neurons, but the pathways connecting those neurons are largely undeveloped. It is the experiences that a baby has in the first months and years that will “wire” the brain and prep a re him for future learning. It is vital that the baby’s needs are met in the context of a healthy and loving parent–child relationship.
The First Roots of Empathy Program
My years of working with young parents, many of them scarcely beyond childhood themselves, led me to wonder if one is ever too young to learn what makes a good parent, to realize what a baby needs to get a good start in life. It was a teen mother who jolted me into the transformative moment that crystallized my thinking about the need to break the intergenerational transmission of violence and negative patterns of parenting. Amy hadn’t shown up to the Monday parenting program, so I went to visit her on my way home. She had been beaten yet again by her boyfriend,