Empathy Case

In reading this last article by O'Malley he goes covers on teaching empathy. In his words he states," Empathy helps to deeply the very humanizing virtue of forgiveness. If you've got pesky intrusive your sibling's it's easy to fly off the handle at them. But ask kids to try to get inside their skins, try to remember what it was like when they were their age-confused, feeling left out, not quite understanding, self-centered-lacking precisely the virtue we're exploring here: empathy. "(O'Malley, pg. 4, para. 2., 1999).

O'Malley point on empathy and children holds true, this is a test that is practiced on a daily basis in my home. I have a 16, 13 and 9 yr old. The younger one is constantly at the older one's. He wants to play with them and when they don't want to play with him or if they make fun of him he starts to annoy them. Bothering them with nit picking and calling them names, it escalates to me yelling at all of them. I too have to sit down with the older ones and explain to them that they were his age once before. And yes they liked to play the games he likes to play right now, the very games they think are stupid. When I ask them to remember and reflect back to his age they can to some degree do that for me. At times I may even pull a photo out of when they were little. I would show them sitting on the floor in some goofy get up with a star wars helmet on their head while playing video games, and I would tell them that this is who you were and what you liked to do when you were his age. Their response is priceless.

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