Flora, age six, complained that “lately” she had been receiving fewer presents than her brother. Her mother did not deny the complaint. Neither did she explain to Flora that her brother was older and so deserved more. Nor did she promise to right the wrong. She knew that children are more concerned about the depth of their relationships with parents than about the size and number of gifts. Her mother said, “You wonder if I love you as much as him?” Without adding another sentence, she embraced her Flora, who responded with a smile of surprise and pleasure. This was the end of a conversation that could have become an endless argument. [pp. 19-20, Between Parent and Child, 2003, by Haim Ginott, revised by Alice Ginott and H. Wallace Goddard]
In previous articles, we have discussed the foundational role of compassion in parenting as well as three kinds of understanding that facilitate helpful compassion:
1. Understanding development: recognizing that many of the irritating things children do are an important and normal part of their development
2. Understanding their unique temperaments or personalities: recognizing that each child has a unique way of navigating life—and, with compassion, we learn to accept and value his or her way
3. Understanding their circumstances: being tuned into the stresses and demands in their lives so that we can be compassionate and supportive
You may already see an important theme developing: Children do what they do for reasons that make sense to them. Children do not cry at night because they love to make us suffer. They do not fight with their siblings because they are hateful people. In every case they do what they do in order to survive and flourish. Their actions may not be the best approach, but they are motivated by some perceived need in their lives.
There is an important corollary to this observation: When we think that their behavior is crazy or irrational, we do not understand them. Our indignation at their irrationality is a sign that we need to stretch our compassion.
Notice how beautifully this truth fits with God’s objective of engaging us with each other redemptively. Our feeling of irritation is always a call for us to be more humble and compassionate. It invites us to be open to one of God’s still-developing children. This is a test of our readiness to do what God does: offer compassion to strugglers and learners.
So, for me, the fourth kind of understanding that draws holy compassion is understanding humanness or fallenness. We all share that desperate fallenness. We all need compassion for each other.
Have you ever felt lost, hurt, and desperate? Have you cried out in the dark for compassion? Have you yearned for someone to pick up your battered and injured soul along the road of life, bind up your wounds, and carry you to healing?
I have. And I have been amazed at the compassion that Jesus offers me. My stupidity has cost Him dearly—yet He comes to my broken soul offering His tears and blood to heal my mind and heart.
That is what He asks us to do as we deal with our children who are human and fallen—and childish. This is the foundational task of parenting. It is also foundational for discipleship. When we are baptized, we covenant “to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9). Is there any place we can do this that is more important than in our relationships with our children? Is there any better way “to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,” than to show compassion to God’s children whom He has entrusted to our care?
Providing Emotional First Aid
When our daughter Emily was in kindergarten, she and a neighbor friend named Hannah often skipped their way across the street to the school playground to kick a ball and ride the swings. One day as the two girls left our house and headed to the playground, Emily stopped at the curb and Hannah dashed into the street. A slow-moving car was unable to stop and hit Hannah, sending her skidding and sprawling painfully on the pavement. She lay in the street, frightened and injured.
What is the right parental response to Hannah’s situation? Would it make sense to approach her and remind her of our oft-repeated and wise counsel to look both ways before crossing the street? Would it make sense to tell her that maybe she needed a timeout to reflect on her carelessness? Would we ground her or demand that she apologize to the frightened driver?
Of course not. We naturally consider such behavior abusive. We would run to Hannah and offer words of love and assurance even as we helped her get comfortable. We would call for appropriate medical care and provide first aid. We would stay by her side doing anything we could to help her feel safe and to start the healing process. (Fortunately, Hannah fully recovered.)
Far more often than we realize, our children are injured by painful encounters with life. They come home bruised, skinned, and bleeding from hurtful run-ins with mortality. We adults almost surely do not realize how often they feel frightened and wounded. If we try to understand their pains and challenges, we are likely to look upon them with compassion rather than judgment and impatience. God calls us to offer emotional first aid. That is compassion’s mandate.
Haim Ginott, the great teacher of parental compassion, tells a story of a child’s disappointment—and a mother who didn’t know how to show compassion:
Grace, age twelve, was tense and tearful. Her favorite cousin was going home after staying with her during the summer.
GRACE (With tears in her eyes): Emma is going away. I’ll be all alone again.
MOTHER: You’ll find another friend.
GRACE: I’ll be so lonely.
MOTHER: You’ll be fine.
GRACE: Oh, mom! (Sobs.)
MOTHER: You can be such a drama queen!
Grace gave mother a deadly look and escaped to her room, slamming the door behind her.
This episode should have had a happier ending. A child’s feeling must be taken seriously, even though the situation itself is not very serious. In mother’s eyes this separation may be too minor a crisis for tears, but her response need not have lacked sympathy. Mother might have said to herself, “Grace feels miserable. I can help her best by showing that I understand what pains her.” To her daughter she might have said any or all of the following:
“It will be lonely without Emma.”
“You miss her already.”
“It is hard to be apart when you are so used to being together.”
“The house must seem kind of empty to you without Emma around.” [end of Ginott quote]
Do you sense the power of a parent offering genuine compassion to a child? Compassion offers children the healing balm of feeling understood. It also reassures children that their feelings are normal and that the important adults in their lives care about their feelings.
The Fruits of Compassion
It is common for us to assume that showing compassion may increase or extend the child’s pain. Will they get stuck in self-pity when we focus on their pain? Experience, research, and God say otherwise. When we show heartfelt compassion for someone else’s pain, we not only show that others can understand their pain but also that we are touched by the feeling of their infirmity (See Hebrews 4:15). Jesus went beyond paying our sins and bore our infirmities so that His compassion would be fully informed (Alma 7:11-12).
God Himself sets the perfect example. In the stunning revelation in which Enoch and God jointly observed the suffering of God’s wicked children on earth, Enoch was shocked to discover God weeping. He asked how someone as great as He could possibly be touched so deeply—especially by the wicked children. God replied: “the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?”
Amazing. God does not sit in a distant heaven untouched by our struggles. He weeps with us and for us. He asks us to show similar compassion for our children when they suffer.
Teaching With Compassion in Times of Trouble
Compassion sets the stage for effective teaching and parenting. Effective compassion requires us to get out of our own story and step into the stories of our children. Let’s consider a couple of common examples.
Imagine that your teenager is working on his algebra homework and groans, “This is so hard! I just don’t get it.” The instinctive adult response is to say, “It’s not hard. You can do it.” Now consider the inevitable metamessage we sent to the child: “You think this is hard. It really isn’t. Everyone else in the world can do algebra. If you can’t do it, you must be stupid.”
This harsh message is certainly not our intent. But because we spoke from our point of view (“Yikes! I don’t want my child to give up. I must push him forward.”) rather than the child’s point of view (“I’m lost. I don’t know what to do.”), we discouraged rather than encouraged our child.
Consider a different response, one tuned to the child’s feelings and experience. “I can see why algebra feels so hard. You are learning a new language filled with symbols and a lot of rules for solving problems. I appreciate how hard you are working to learn that new language.” The emphasis on this response is appreciation for the difficulty of the task and appreciation for the child’s efforts.
Consider another situation. A child spills a glass of milk. Of course, the child feels embarrassed, flustered, and worried. What’s our reaction? Here are some different responses, some helpful and some not.
| Common parental response—doesn’t show much compassion: | More understanding and compassionate parental response: | |
| Attacking versus solving: | “You are so clumsy.” | “The milk spilled. Here is a cloth to wipe it up.” |
| Advising versus understanding: | “What you need to do is pay more attention.” | “We all spill sometimes.” |
| History versus here and now: | “You always spill something.” | “It is good that we have paper towels.” |
| Labeling versus understanding: | “You are such a klutz!” | “Big glasses can be hard to handle.” |
| Futurizing versus understanding: | “You’ll never be able to do anything right.” | “It’s embarrassing to spill milk, isn’t it?” |
When something bad happens, we tend to be irritated because of the inconvenience it entails on us. We hate messes and wasted time. So, we lecture already-embarrassed children rather than binding up their wounds with compassion and teaching them better ways.
We love our children. If another adult were to say insensitive, demeaning or hurtful things to them, we would do whatever we could to stop that person from continuing to have a negative influence in their lives. Yet, sometimes, without realizing it, we allow ourselves to be that kind of voice in our children’s lives. The natural parent is an enemy to children—unless our hearts have been softened by the goodness of God.
Listening to a Child’s Heart
Compassion is useful not only when children feel hurt by life but also when they are disappointed, thwarted, or frustrated. Imagine a parent who takes his child to the store. The child sees a toy he wants. He asks for it, then begs for it and finally begins whining to have it. This behavior could tempt any parent to be irritated. “You have all kinds of toys at home! And most of them are scattered all over the house because you never pick them up! I’m not buying you anything else. I don’t want to hear any more whining!”
This response is not helpful. Instead, the parent can listen to the child’s heart. “That does look like a great toy. I can see why you like it! We aren’t taking anything home today. Maybe you will want to choose this one the next time we are getting a new toy.” The limit can be delivered with loving empathy. And it can be repeated as many times as are needed to convince the child that we are serious. The parent can show that she takes the child’s preference seriously by saying, “Let’s write down the name of that toy. You can keep the note so that you will remember which toy you wanted.”
As we assist our children in making the journey towards becoming adults, limits must be set. Responsible behavior must be taught. But we can do it with kindness and compassion.
The ability to show compassion effectively takes the character to set aside our own frustrations and irritations. It is the desire to understand and have empathy for our child. This is not learned in a mini-class. This is one of the hardest things that humans ever do. It is the work of a lifetime.
It is worth noting that it is easier to show compassion for our children if we are also showing compassion to ourselves. We can be patient and encouraging with ourselves as we learn the mindset of compassion.
Here are two recommendations as you begin the journey of compassion.
1. Think of a recent experience when you found it hard to show compassion for your child. Rewrite that scenario in your mind. How might you have offered emotional first aid? How might you have reacted differently during a time of trouble? How might you have listened to your child’s heart? Prepare your mind and heart to show more compassion towards your child/children this week.
2. I recommend that every parent read and re-read one of the great books that teaches compassion. My personal favorites are Between Parent and Child by Haim Ginott, Soft-Spoken Parenting by H. Wallace Goddard, and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman. Or you might listen to my audio book The Compassionate Heart.
Compassion does not come easily or naturally to humans. Yet it undergirds and supports all parenting. Its vital role will become even clearer in the chapters ahead.
Reflection and application:
Have you set your mind and heart to support your children through normal mistakes and misdeeds? Have you prepared yourself to respond compassionately to their pains?
