EMPATHY
Empathy is a vitally important factor in helping children
resolve conflicts. Sometimes children come to their parents
with their problems simply because they want to be heard or
understood. Often, children are not looking for solutions or
action from their parents but simply want to know that their
parents care about them and their problems.
It is actually possible to empathize with two children who
are involved in a conflict without taking sides. When
children are upset with their siblings and express their
feelings and concerns to their parent, it is important for
the parent to attempt to acknowledge the feelings and not to
dismiss or trivilaize them. The more a person's feelings are
denied, the more frustrated and isolated he feels and the
more aggressive he will become. In their book, "Siblings
Without Rivalry," Faber and Mazlish discuss several ways to
help children get along better with their siblings. One of
the major things they have found, through much research and
clinical work, is that empathizing with children can help to
reduce sibling rivalry to a very large extent. This may seem
unbelievable but it does help considerably. Although siblings
will always fight to some extent and nothing will work all
the time, empathy does help to reduce conflict when used
properly.
EMOTIONAL VOCABULARY
Two important aspects to empathizing with children are
acknowledging and identifying their feelings and reflecting
their desires and wishes. When children are angry they often
don't know themselves what is bothering them. The ability to
put feelings into words is a skill which can help children to
communicate properly and find appropriate solutions to their
difficulties. When feelings are bottled up without
understanding or expression, the result is often some type of
explosion. A child who comes to a parent with a complaint
about a sibling will usually just tell the parent what the
sibling did. If the parent tells the child how he thinks the
action made him feel, he is teaching him to use emotional
vocabulary. The more the parent reflects the child's
feelings, the faster he will learn to express himself in
words instead of action. Additionally, he will feel heard and
understood by the parent.
Boruch comes to his mother and tells her, "Henny says I can't
read." She responds by saying: "You can read. Don't
pay any attention to her." Boruch feels that his feelings
have been ignored and he hasn't been protected. What he
really wanted was to be understood and heard and now he feels
ignored as well as unprotected. He, therefore, goes and
begins calling his sister names in return and kicking her.
Another way Boruch's mother could have handled the problem is
the following:
Boruch: "Henny says I can't read."
Mother: "That must have really hurt your feelings. Hearing
something like that could make a person feel very bad about
himself." (Put feelings into words.)
Boruch: "Yeah. I hate her."
Mother: "You are so hurt and angry that you don't even want
anything more to do with her."
Boruch: "She thinks she's so smart because she can read a
book in a minute. It's not fair."
Mother: "This must be so painful to hear. It must be so
disappointing to feel that you can't read as fast as you
would like. Maybe you feel that you don't read as fast as
other people and they make you feel bad about it. You wish
you could read faster and that people wouldn't tease you
(expressing the child's wish in words)."
Boruch: "Yeah!"
Once Boruch's mother acknowledged his feelings and his
wishes, an entire dialogue develped and Boruch was able to
feel better and go on with things, since he felt heard and
understood. He also learned an important lesson in
understanding his own desires and emotions.
In the last example, Boruch's mother acknowledged his
feelings and put them into words. She also reflected his
wishes and desires in words. This helped show Boruch that
even though his mother couldn't change the reality, she
understood what he wished would be different and showed him
that she empathized with his wishes. Empathizing with a
child's wish can show him that you care about what he wants
and needs even if you can't or won't give it to him. This
technique can be applied to serious wishes and desires as in
the above example or everyday things which children want but
cannot have. For example, if one sibling is going swimming
and it isn't practical for a smaller child to go, for
whatever reason, he may cry.
Child: "I want to go swimming, too. It's not fair." The
parent may respond by saying:
"I'm so sorry you can't go. You must be so diasppointed. Your
really wanted to go swimming. You wish you could go too. It's
not easy to stay behind when your sister is going swimming."
In this example, the child can't get what he wants but he
does get the understanding of his parent and by having his
feelings and wishes reflected, he learns to understand his
own emotions. In addition to acknowledging their children's
feelings and wishes, it is important for parents to teach
them appropriate ways to express their emotions and to stop
inappropriate behaviors. When children are upset with each
other, they lack the self control to put limits on their own
behavior. It is, therefore, incumbent on the parent to stop
them when their emotions get out of control and rechannel
their emotions into socially acceptable behavior.
VERBAL EXPRESSION
The first step to teaching children self control is verbal
expression. This is taught by giving words to feelings. Next,
children need to be taught what they can and cannot do when
they are angry at their siblings. They need to be given
alternatives to violence.
Kaila made a picture in her art class which took two months
of work. She was very proud of it when she brought it home
and hung it on the wall in her room. One day, she came home
and saw her baby sister jumping on it. The picture was
totally destroyed.
Kaila: "I'm going to kill Leah. She ruined my new
picture."
Mother: "I'm sorry. I see you're just furious. What a
terrible disappointment, after all your hard work. This is
such a hard thing to have to deal with."
Kaila: "I'm going to kill her. I'm going to ruin her room and
everything in it!"
Mother: "Kaila, I know how angry you are and how hard this is
for you, but you can't hurt people or destroy property
(stopping a negative action). Why don't you go into your room
and draw a picture of how you feel (rechanneling negative
feelings, finding alternatives)." Kaila drew for about 10
minutes and felt better after letting out her fury without
hurting anyone. She felt heard by her mother and a major
battle was avoided.
Empathy is a tool that can be used to help children involved
in conflicts with siblings. The more parents are able to
reflect their children's feelings and wishes, and express
them in words, the more the children will learn to understand
and communicate their feelings appropriately. Often when
children feel understood by their parents, they become more
able to go on with their lives and find appropriate solutions
to their problems. The result is often a better sibling
relationship.
Masha Wolf M.A. provides Play Therapy to children and
educational guidance to parents. Call evenings: 02-656-
2172.
