Compassion – How to Identify it in Parenting
Compassion is a critical component in developing and parenting children. It’s defined as the emotional response when perceiving suffering and involves an authentic desire to help alleviate that suffering.
We take our empathy, and look at what is the best interest of the person, and that is reflected in our actions and words. Compassion is not about getting personal gain.
Identifying what is a compassionate response to various scenarios is a key step to improving your parenting skills and improving your relationship with your children. Below are two quick examples to get you started.
Look at the below scenarios and identify which of the responses has compassion and which ones don’t.
Scenario 1: Your child likes playing with matches and fire. You catch them with matches in the front room not too far from the fireplace.
A. You yell at them and take the matches and put them up high where they can’t reach them.
B. You ask for the matches, take them over by the fireplace, and begin to ask what they find so interesting about the matches while beginning to guide them on appropriate use of fire and safety guidelines, like letting them know they can only use fire when an adult is around.
C. You nicely take the matches and let them know that they aren’t allowed to touch matches or play with fire.
Scenario 2: You see your child run into the road to get their ball. Concerned about their safety you run outside.
A. You make sure they are safe and then inquire about why they did what they did. You empathize with their fear of possibly losing their ball. Once you have a better understanding of their perspective, you talk with them about the importance of not running into the road unless they follow specific rules that you give them. Then you check in to see what they understood.
B. When you see all is well, you take a deep breath and head back inside.
C. You get to them, take their ball, pull them inside by their arm, and ground them to their room for the rest of the night.
So which answers show compassion?
Scenario 1:
A. Not Compassion: This is a controlling and reactive response.
B. Compassion
C. Not Compassion: This response doesn’t have any empathy.
Scenario 2:
A. Compassion
B. Not Compassion: This one doesn’t put the child’s best interest first.
C. Not Compassion: This is a controlling and reactive response
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