When children behave badly, we often see defiance, carelessness, or selfishness. Compassion invites us to look deeper. Their difficult behavior may be the outward sign of confusion, fear, discouragement, fatigue, or pain. Compassion does not ignore a child’s misbehavior; it helps us understand and heal the child before we try to correct the behavior.
Brigham Young taught us to apply compassion to our perception of weakness.
Let all Latter-day Saints learn that the weaknesses of their brethren are not sins. When men or women [or children] undesignedly commit a wrong, do not attribute that to them as a sin. Let us learn to be compassionate one with another; let mercy and kindness soften every angry and fretful temper, that we may become long-suffering and beneficial in all our communications one with another.
Compassion does not mean that consequences are never needed. It means that we care for the child before we correct the behavior. We treat the wound before we teach the lesson.
When our daughter Emily was in kindergarten, she and a neighbor friend named Donna often went across the street to the school playground to kick a ball and swing. One day as the two girls left our house and headed to the playground, Emily stopped at curbside and Donna dashed into the street. A slow-moving car was unable to stop and hit Donna, sending her skidding and finally sprawling on the pavement. She lay in the street, frightened and in pain.
Would it make sense to remind her, while she lay injured in the street, that we had repeatedly warned her to look both ways? Would we put her in time out for failing to heed our instructions?
Of course not. Such responses would add shame and loneliness to her physical pain.
We would go to Donna and offer words of love and assurance even as we helped her get comfortable. We would call for appropriate medical care. We would do anything we could to help her feel safe and to start the healing process.
Far more often than we realize, our children are injured by painful encounters with life. They come home bruised, skinned, and bleeding. 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.
The New Testament repeatedly reports that He was moved with compassion toward the blind, the sick, the bereaved, the sinful, the rejected, and the spiritually lost. Through His Atonement, He came to know perfectly the pains of illness, rejection, loneliness, grief, fear, betrayal, and every other burden of mortality.
In the great story of the good Samaritan, Jesus contrasted the official response of priest and Levite (who ignored the injured one) with that of a true neighbor: “When he saw him, he had compassion.”
He had compassion. It is the difference between responding in the world’s way and responding in the Lord’s way. It is the mark of the Christlike soul.
When our children are injured by unkind words from classmates, rejection by friends, stinging criticism from teachers—whatever the source of the injury—we can respond with compassion.
Jesus is the perfect example. After He had ransomed our souls by paying for our sins, He went the extra mile. He bore our pains, discomforts, and disappointments so that He would fully understand us (see Alma 7:11–12).
Amazing! We can never rightly say to Him, “You just don’t understand how I feel.” He does understand. And He paid a terrible price so that he could understand everything from the agony of psoriasis to the pains of childbirth. He knows what it is like to be shunned and hated. He has personally experienced in Gethsemane the pains of divorce and the agony of cancer. There is no pain we will ever experience that He has not borne—so that He can respond with compassion to every pain we ever bear.
He invites us to look on each other with compassion. Enoch was astonished to see God weep over children who had rejected Him and brought terrible suffering upon themselves and others.
(see Moses 7:33). He questioned God about it. God responded: “These thy brethren . . . are the workmanship of my hands. . .. Should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” (Moses 7:32, 37).
Even when our choices contribute to our suffering, our Heavenly Father does not stand apart in cold judgment. He grieves, reaches toward us, and invites us home.
Compassion may begin with three simple steps: pause, become curious, and connect. Pause before reacting. Ask yourself, “What might my child be experiencing?” Then communicate safety: “You seem upset. I’m here.” Correction, problem-solving, and consequences can come later, when both parent and child are calm.
When we see one of our children burdened or injured—even if it is due to his or her own foolishness—we do not ask, “What’s wrong with you, Sourpuss?” Instead, we approach with compassion in our words and in our spirit and say, “Looks like you’ve had a hard day.” With our love, we support our child in his or her struggle. We do not demand that the child tell us more than he or she is ready to share. We try to remember and be humbled by one of the challenges of being a child—feeling unskilled and often powerless. We come to the child with emotional first aid.
Suppose a child comes home discouraged, snaps at a sibling, and throws a backpack across the room. Compassion does not require us to approve of the behavior. We might say, “It looks like something hard happened today. Throwing your backpack is not okay, but I would like to understand what is hurting.”
Having compassion on our children can prevent us from attacking unhelpfully. It can also help us deal with our differences and irritations. And it can make us more willing repenters when we have added insult to our children’s injuries. Sometimes the most compassionate thing a parent can say is, “You were already hurting, and I made it worse. I am sorry.”
The next time a child’s behavior pushes us toward irritation, we might ask not merely, “How do I stop this behavior?” but “Where is my child hurting, and how can I bring the healing spirit of Christ to them?”
Compassion does not ignore a child’s misbehavior; it helps us understand and heal the child before we try to correct the behavior.
Reflection
Think of a time when you have looked on your children with compassion.
How did it feel?
What helped you get there?
How can you get there again?
How can you make that experience more common for you?
